Lord Craven Theme

Speaking of ‘father’, Colin’s father and Mary’s uncle, Lord Craven also must learn to love, and fits into the theme of isolation. He leaves his son Colin shortly after his birth, finding himself unable to live with him. His wife had passed away from falling off a swing in the garden. Therefore, he grieves, but how he handles his grief is the wrong way. There are five stages of grief. They are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and the final one, acceptance. Likely, Lord Craven was denying the death, and so he decided to run from the place and person that reminded him of his wife. Lord Craven also closes the garden, forbidding anyone to go inside. For Mary, spring is happy, but for Lord Craven, it is a reminder of his wife. His wife seems …show more content…
However, he will not visit Colin, because he did not want to lose him too. Mary asks for her bit of earth, to which he retorts, “Take your bit of earth, but I don’t expect anything of it.” Lord Craven’s manor has no sign of plant life in sight. It is bleak and dreary. It reflects his mood after his wife passed. At the beginning of the story, there is no sun when he is around, only After Mary excitedly tells Dickon that they can replenish the garden, it begins to rain. To the children, the rain is a good thing. But after seeing Mary, who resembles his wife so much, he likely went through the stages of grief again, but more rapidly. He was overwhelmed, and he leaves again. As he leaves, Mary narrates, “That’s the night the rains stopped. The night spring came to Mistlethwaite. My poor uncle fled from it – as if he were escaping this spring.” When he stopped reminscating in his grief (hence, the rain), he runs away, again. Colin is more upset now, especially since he talked to Mary, but would not talk to his son. “I’ll die because he doesn’t want to see me,” Colin yells at …show more content…
At the end of the movie, the house is brighter, and the movie ends with the setting being outside of the house, where they are happier. Also, Lord Craven has a dream where his wife was calling out to him. She calls him Archy, as his real name is Archibald Craven. Her voice is prolonged, and almost echo-ey. She appears in the garden, but the garden is filled with fog, which has a bad connotation in the story. Fog is in the garden at the beginning of the story, and clears up when Mary repairs the garden. However, in Lord Craven’s ‘garden’, his heart is still rich with fog. In his dream, he yells out to her, and asks where she is, to which she replies, “in the garden, with Colin!” Lord Craven instantly goes home, where he reprimands the Medlock and keeps saying, “Where is my son?” Lord Craven has realized that he has to be there for his family (thanks to the dream) and he is developing into the final stage of grieving; acceptance. He finds his son in the garden, and while he was expecting to see a sickly boy, he instead finds an active young boy, laughing and playing games with his friends. The two reunited, in the garden, and in their hearts. Lord Craven is no longer running from his troubles, and he knows where he belongs; with his