Studies in Short Fiction, March 22nd, 1998
One of Kipling's finest and most enigmatic short stories, "The Gardener" (1926), has long teased readers with its ambiguities, especially the cryptic conclusion of the tale. Just who is the shadowy gardener glimpsed on the final page? Is he, as many commentators have assumed, literally Jesus Christ? Or is Martin Seymour-Smith correct in asserting that the gardener, an ordinary mortal, momentarily becomes "a Christ (not necessarily the Christ)" by responding to Helen's "need of truthful maternal grief" (355)? Or, to raise a possibility less frequently addressed, can we interpret the conclusion ...
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