In the Garden of the North American Martyrs (Style)

Style

Point of View and Narration

“In the Garden of the North American Martyrs” is presented to readers in third-person omniscient narration. The narrator describes Mary’s past in order to clarify her present situation. In the first part of the story, the narrator appears to regard Mary indifferently or even negatively. As the narrative progresses, however, Mary is presented more sympathetically and — importantly — Louise and some other characters are shown in a very bad light. Wolff subtly shifts the point of view. He explained in an interview with Jay Woodruff in 1991 that he always intended to let Mary take over the narration, that his “aim was to hand the story over to her.” He goes on to say that this shift in point of view was necessary because her voice needs to dominate the narrative by the time she gets to her dramatic concluding speech.

Tone

“In the Garden of the North American Martyrs” contains some significant tone variations that help contribute to the meaning of the story and parallel the shifts in point of view. Tone is the dominant attitude that the reader hears in the story. It can be ironic, genial, or objective, for example. The beginning of the story is characterized by the neutral and objective tone of the narrator, but by the end the tone is prophetic, resembling the language of the Old Testament. The success of the story hinges on this dramatic shift in tone, so that Mary’s voice shatters the aura of smug and false objectivity that dominates both the auditorium and the story. Wolff describes Mary’s speech in the interview with Jay Woodruff as language that “bursts the bounds of traditional realistic fiction.”

Imagery

Careful readers will notice that “In the Garden of the North American Martyrs” begins and ends with images of birds. Mary likens her diminishing capacity for original thought to the sight of “birds flying away.” In the final scene, when she delivers her prophecy to her stunned audience, one of the last things Mary hears before she turns off her hearing aid is “someone whistling in the hallway outside, trilling the notes like a bird, like many birds.” According to Wolff’s explanation in his interview with Jay Woodruff, “Language, especially the language which she speaks at the end, her own language, is freedom, is flight.” In an earlier interview with Bonnie Lyons and Bill Oliver, Wolff explains that the sound of the bird in the hallway is “a sign of her own voice coming back to her. An image of the words she has lost, like birds flying away.”

Topics for Further Study

• Why would a college have a rule that requires interviewing at least one female candidate for each job opening? What laws or court decisions have helped shape such policies?
• Critics often mention Flannery O’Connor when talking about Wolff. How does Wolff’s exploration of morality and prophecy differ from O’Connor’s as illustrated in her story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”?
• Research the history of the French Jesuits in the Great Lakes region during colonial times. How did their religious views influence their behavior, and what effects did their presence have on the culture?
• What are Louise’s motivations for using Mary as she does? What theories of psychology might explain her behavior?