3.1 Marianne Dreams and Tom’s Midnight Garden

Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr and Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce were both first published in 1958. You may have read one or both books as a child, or you may have watched a film, theatre or television adaptation. Figures 4 and 5 show some of the book covers and film and television stills produced since the novels were published. Reflect for a moment on what themes you think each book deals with, based on these images.

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Figure 4 Book covers and film stills from Marianne Dreams

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Figure 5 Book covers and film stills from Tom’s Midnight Garden

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This is a collage of four book covers and a film still. The first book cover has the title at the top. It uses a handwriting font for the following text in capitals and in white: Tom’s Midnight Garden. At the bottom in white is a quote: ‘a perfect book’ Philip Pullman. Underneath this in a larger font but still in white, the author’s name Philippa Pearce. The full page illustration uses dark colours as if the scene is in shadow. In the foreground, there are tree branches and part of a wall. Beyond, a figure stands in a spotlight. The second book cover has the text, ‘Sixtieth Anniversary Edition’ followed by the author’s name, Philippa Pearce, in purple block capitals. Below this, in irregularly shaped capitals is the title, Tom’s Midnight Garden. This text sits in three lines in between the bare branches of an illustrated tree, the trunk of which is on the left side of the cover. In the lower third of the cover, a boy and girl stand facing each other in a walled garden. The third book cover has the title, Tom’s Midnight Garden, at the top in a handwriting font. The dark text is on a brighter glow in the dark sky of the illustration. Below the title, there is a large, three-storey house and a garden. In the foreground, there are two children, a boy on the left wearing pyjamas, and a girl on the right wearing a white Edwardian-style pinafore dress over dark sleeves. Both have serious expressions. At the bottom of the page is the author’s name, Philippa Pearce. The fourth book cover has large white text placed approximately in the centre: ‘Tom’s Midnight Garden’. Below the text in italics is: ‘A masterpiece’ – Observer. At the bottom of the page in white block capitals is the author’s name, Philippa Pearce. The illustration shows the night sky with a large moon and clouds. Against this sky, a child walks along a wall with arms outstretched. Finally, on the right, is a film still showing a boy in blue and white striped pyjamas walking through a garden; he is smiling. In the background is a large brick house. The garden is quite formal with topiary and colourful flowerbeds.

Figure 5 Book covers and film stills from Tom’s Midnight Garden

The different images from Marianne Dreams and Tom’s Midnight Garden illustrate the wide range of media through which the main characters of Marianne (from Marianne Dreams) and Tom and Hatty (from Tom’s Midnight Garden) have been presented.

Some of the images from Marianne Dreams have a house prominently displayed, and two of the covers include Marianne holding a pencil or drawing, all of which are important features of the story. These images may have struck you as having a fantastical quality, possibly even sinister, especially the image of the lighthouse at an angle and the television still which shows harsh-looking metal fencing and a dark, muddy landscape.

The images from Tom’s Midnight Garden may also have struck you as having a fantastical quality, such as the image of Tom being shown outlined against the moon. As with Marianne Dreams, we learn that a house will feature in the story, but as you might expect from the title, the garden is more prominent. You may have felt that these images seem less unsettling and sinister than the ones in Figure 4, and you are probably curious as to why a young boy is shown in his pyjamas in the garden.

In the next few activities, you’ll be directed to read extracts from the start of both novels, and think about how the reader is persuaded to believe in the fantastical elements, as well as some of the literary techniques used. The activities are based around short excerpts (which will be provided), but if you have a copy of the books you may prefer to read Chapters 1 to 6 of Tom’s Midnight Garden and Chapters 1-2 of Marianne Dreams in full and then return to this course to complete the activities.

While the protagonist is the main character in the story, any information we learn about the protagonist will come from the narrator, the voice telling us the story. An important step in analysing fiction is therefore considering not just who the protagonist is, but also who is telling us about them, and how they are doing this.

The narrator’s knowledge of and positioning towards the events in a narrative is important to consider in any analysis of fiction, because how they tell us the story can have a significant impact on our interpretation. Narrators might appear to be objectively reporting on events, or they might give us very subjective opinions, affecting our understanding of the narrative as a whole. One very significant way that narrators might take more or less control of the narrative is how they report any dialogue between the characters.

You will have noticed that while some of the dialogue is accompanied by explanatory narrative (telling us who is speaking and how), these are rare, which gives a sense that the conversation is fast-moving.

There is a long chunk of text where Tom’s uncle speaks without interruption either from Tom or the narrator. He is allowed to dominate both Tom and the narrative. This increases the sense of Tom’s lack of power and the authority of his uncle.