Introduction & Overview of The Underground Gardens

This Study Guide consists of approximately 42 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Underground Gardens.
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Introduction & Overview of The Underground Gardens

This Study Guide consists of approximately 42 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Underground Gardens.
This section contains 207 words
(approx. 1 page at 400 words per page)
Buy The Underground Gardens Study Guide

The Underground Gardens Summary & Study Guide Description

The Underground Gardens Summary & Study Guide includes comprehensive information and analysis to help you understand the book. This study guide contains the following sections:

This detailed literature summary also contains Bibliography on The Underground Gardens by T. Coraghessan Boyle.

T. Coraghessan Boyle's story, "The Underground Gardens," was first published in the New Yorker in the May 25, 1998, issue, and was collected in 2001 in the author's short-story collection After the Plague. The story is loosely based on the life of an Italian American immigrant who began digging a huge underground complex on his land in Fresno, California, in the aridSan Joaquin Valley, in the early 1900s. Using this historical person and elements of his life as a start, Boyle crafts an optimistic story about an Italian American immigrant whose hopes— including marrying the woman of his dreams—are repeatedly dashed, but who nevertheless perseveres and continues to dream. This story is unlike many of Boyle's works, which poke fun at the human condition or contain large doses of cynicism, sarcasm or other forms of negativity. Instead, Boyle examines positive ideas such as the power of faith and the importance of self-sufficiency. The story is, however, similar to many of Boyle's other works, in that it uses an actual historical event—in this case, Baldasare's digging of his gardens—as a starting point for the narrative. A copy of the story can be found in the Penguin paperback edition of After the Plague, which was published in 2003.

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This section contains 207 words
(approx. 1 page at 400 words per page)
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The Underground Gardens from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.