The Garden Lodge
Encyclopedia
The Garden Lodge is a short story
by Willa Cather
. It was first published in The Troll Garden
in 1905
as she remembers spending fond times there with tenor
Raymond d'Esquerre when he was visiting. Although a moderate and no-nonsense woman, the singer rekindled her passion for music during his stay. She had had to let go of it after her lazy brother killed himself and her father was crippled with debts. She then proceeds to go to the garden lodge and plays a piece of opera
that she played with the tenor the previous summer. However, after a night's sleep she comes around and tells her husband she agrees the lodge should go.
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
by Willa Cather
Willa Cather
Willa Seibert Cather was an American author who achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, in works such as O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours , a novel set during World War I...
. It was first published in The Troll Garden
The Troll Garden
A collection of short stories by Willa Cather, published in 1905.-Contents:This collection contains the following stories: * "On the Divide"* "Eric Hermannson's Soul"* "The Enchanted Bluff"* "The Bohemian Girl"* "Flavia and Her Artists"...
in 1905
Plot summary
One day, Howard asks his wife if she would agree to tear down their garden lodge and built a new summer house there instead. She grows nostalgicNostalgia
The term nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form.The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of , meaning "returning home", a Homeric word, and , meaning "pain, ache"...
as she remembers spending fond times there with tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
Raymond d'Esquerre when he was visiting. Although a moderate and no-nonsense woman, the singer rekindled her passion for music during his stay. She had had to let go of it after her lazy brother killed himself and her father was crippled with debts. She then proceeds to go to the garden lodge and plays a piece of opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
that she played with the tenor the previous summer. However, after a night's sleep she comes around and tells her husband she agrees the lodge should go.
Characters
- Raymond d'Esquerre, a tenor.
- Caroline Noble, the protagonist.
- Howard Noble, Caroline's husband, a businessman from Wall StreetWall StreetWall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
. - Heinrich, Caroline's brother, a painter. He shot himself at age twenty-six.
- Auguste, Caroline's father, a music teacher.
- Caroline's mother. She remains unnamed. She married her music teacher in GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and they later moved to AmericaUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
together. She dies after her son's suicideSuicideSuicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
.
Allusions to other works
- FreyaFreyaIn Norse mythology, Freyja is a goddess associated with love, beauty, fertility, gold, seiðr, war, and death. Freyja is the owner of the necklace Brísingamen, rides a chariot driven by two cats, owns the boar Hildisvíni, possesses a cloak of falcon feathers, and, by her husband Óðr, is the mother...
is mentioned. - Caroline's father liked to talk about Schopenhauer.
- Caroline plays Richard WagnerRichard WagnerWilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's Die WalküreDie WalküreDie Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
at the piano in the garden lodge. Moreover, Wagner's ParsifalParsifalParsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...
is mentioned with Kingslor's garden.