The Door in the Wall
Confiding to his friend Redmond who narrates “The Door in the Wall,” Lionel Wallace relates that a preoccupation is gradually coming to dominate his life, one that is even affecting his career as a successful politician. Long ago as a lonely child of five he had wandered out of his home into the streets of West Kensington in London, where he noticed a green door set in a white wall. It was very attractive to him, and he wanted to open it, but at the same time he felt that his father would be very angry if he did. Wallace’s father is described as “a stern preoccupied lawyer, who gave him little attention and expected great things of him.” Wallace’s mother was dead, and he was being raised by a governess. Nevertheless, the young Wallace gives in to the temptation and finds himself in an enchanted garden. Wallace describes the garden as a children’s paradise with an inspiring atmosphere. The garden’s colors are clean and bright, and the child is filled with happiness. There are various animals, including two tame panthers, beautiful flowers, and shady trees. Wallace meets a tall, fair girl who “came to meet me, smiling, and said ‘Well?’ to me, and lifted me and kissed me, and put me down and led me by the hand.” He meets other children and they play games together, although he cannot remember the games, a fact which later causes him much distress.
A woman begins to read a book to the boy, and soon it becomes apparent that the story she is telling is that of his own life. When the book reaches the point in his life at which Wallace finds himself outside the green door, the enchanted world vanishes, and the boy finds himself once more on the dismal West Kensington street in London.
Wallace tells his father about the garden — and is punished for telling what his father assumes is a lie. In time, and as a result of this punishment, Wallace succeeds in suppressing the memory. But he can never quite forget it completely and often dreams of revisiting the garden. Throughout his life he unexpectedly comes upon the door in the wall in different parts of London, but each time he is rushing to an important commitment of one sort or another and does not stop to open it.
Wallace tells his friend Redmond that three times in the past year he has seen the door, and on each occasion he has passed it by: once because he was on his way to a vital division in the House of Commons; once, significantly, because he was hurrying to his father’s deathbed and once because he wished, for reasons of personal ambition, to continue a discussion with a colleague. Now his soul “is full of unappeasable regrets,” and he is barely capable of working. One morning a few months later, Wallace is found dead, having apparently mistaken a door at a dangerous construction sight for the elusive door in the wall.
One of the book’s themes are Alienation and Loneliness. Whether Wallace’s fantastic tale about the garden is true is of less significance than the fact that it is a metaphor for his alienation and loneliness. Wallace’s mother died when he was born, and his father was stern and expected great things of him. The treatment Wallace received as a child forced him to retreat into a private world of imagination. The only place where he could find love and attention was through the door in the wall. Wallace was forced as a child to repress his imagination: “I tried to tell them, and my father gave me my first thrashing for telling lies. When afterwards I tried to tell my aunt, she punished me again for my wicked persistence. Then . . . everyone was forbidden to listen to me, to hear a word about it.” Because he had to retreat into a private world just so he could use his imagination, alienation and loneliness became familiar feelings for Wallace. These feelings persist throughout his life and make it difficult for him to connect with other people. Wallace’s inability to bridge the gap between his imagination and his rational, scientific side leads to his death.