An essay on ''The Door in the Wall'' by H.G Wells

  We had to write an essay on ''The Door in the Wall'' / ''The Fly in the Ointment'' for the subject language through literature writing, in the second year of secondary, at Newlands school.

In ''The Door in the Wall'' by H.G Wells, a man called Wallace tells his friend Redmond a story of his life since he was a kid. He lives quite a sad and hopeless life; His mother died and his father did not pay attention to him, apart from that he has no friends, no siblings.  

  Suddenly, this changes; A door in a wall appears in this little´s boy life; A green door in a white wall. Through it, he discovers a new world, a huge garden: full of panthers who play with kids, more kids playing games, plenty of natural elements and a gallery. This gallery has something Wallace´s attention; A woman with a book. This lady calls the boy and starts showing him the story of his life in photos, and in a chronological order. He can see his complete life in there, from when he was born until the present. But there is a problem; The garden does not appear in this book.

  In this story, reality versus imagination is frecuently shown, as Wallace never knows whether the garden is real or not, as it appears and disappears and, on top of that, as he grows up he becomes a very serious politician and he is always facing real situations in his job, for example, as well as imaginary ones, like the garden

  It is noticeable that Wallace is always between the real world and the wonder world, taking into account that when he sees the door for the first he is at school, and six years old, and when he sees it again, he is an adult and a politician, so he can not be at school.

  Also loneliness is portrayed in this story, for example when the reader gets to know that he has not got any friend, sibling or person to talk with. In fact, Wallace is always alone; Through the story he never stops seeing the door which leads to the garden, that represents the life he always wanted but could never have. This means that he never really achieves succes in any part of the story, and his feeling of loneliness never dies. 

  Extreme loneliness is related with insanity, that is another important theme to take into consideration. We can see this theme, for example in the opinion of the people around Lionel, they said he was crazy and did not believe in his story.

  At the end of the book, Lionel Wallace dies without even knowing whether the garden is real or not, but believing it is. His death is ironic, he dies because he enters the door and falls into a construction zone.

  In ''The Door in the Wall'', I think the author makes the reader realise that sometimes our minds can make up a paradise, in order to escape from our problems. It also suggests that reality can be boring sometimes and we need to escape for a while.

491 words