Over the Garden Wall (2014): An Analysis
Fig. 1 - Over the Garden Wall (Patrick McHale & Katie Krentz, 2014).
Over the Garden Wall (2014) is a dark fantasy miniseries created by Patrick McHale and Katie Krentz and produced for the Cartoon Network in 2014 (Fig. 1). The series follows the adventures of two brothers, Wirt and Greg, who are trying to find their way home as they travel through a magical forest. But as the series progresses, what appears to be a more traditional form of storytelling gives way to a delightful set of surprises that meaningful and interesting change the characters’ journey. Over the Garden Wall uses a method of storytelling similar to the Italian poem Inferno, written by Dante Alighieri in 1370, while also diverging meaningfully from the original work in order to create a more evocative experience. In this blog post, I argue that the field of animation allows for certain historical stories to be reimagined for an audience who are perhaps not as familiar with them, in addition to adding another layer of storytelling for those who have. The series co-creator McHale demonstrates the value of animation in Over the Garden Wall through the many parallels he draws to Dante’s historical work as part of this animated adaptation.
Fig. 2 - Wirt, Greg, and Beatrice.
The first episode of Over the Garden Wall begins with Wirt and Greg, who find themselves lost in The Unknown, a mysterious forest. After wandering for a time, they come across the Woodsman, who warns the duo of the dangerous nature of The Unknown and a dangerous Beast who resides there. In addition, the Woodsman states it is his burden to keep his lantern lit with oil harvested from the surrounding Edelwood trees. Greg then finds and saves a bluebird named Beatrice, who promises to bring the brothers to Adelaide, a good witch who she claims could help Wirt and Greg get back home (Fig. 2). On their way, the trio stops at various locations across The Unknown, meeting the various denizens of this fantasy land. Upon reaching Adelaide, it is revealed that Beatrice was leading them to the witch in order to fulfill a deal to turn Beatrice and her family back into humans. In exchange, Beatrice was to lure children to Adelaide’s home to become servants. But Wirt and Greg escape from Adelaide’s home, leaving Beatrice behind. While travelling, the Woodsman again approaches the brothers, and warns them that as long as they do not lose hope and stay high in spirits, the Beast cannot not harm them. Wirt, feeling the betrayal of Beatrice and their dire situation, gives up on getting home, and while asleep Greg is given a wish. Seeing his brother was already claimed by the beast for losing hope, Greg used his wish to swap places with Wirt, going deeper into the woods with the Beast. Wirt then begins searching for his brother, while Greg is given a series of impossible tasks to do in the snow by the Beast in order to force him to lose hope. Together, they find Wirt who has already begun to turn into an Edelwood tree in a symbol of his loss of hope. The Woodsman arrives and attempts to attack the beast in order to save Greg, but only after he fails is it revealed that the Beast’s soul is kept inside the lantern, and the reason that the Woodsman kept feeding the lantern was because the Beast lied, claiming that his daughter’s soul was trapped in there. Wirt uses the Woodsman’s axe to free Greg and escape, and the Woodsman extinguishes the lantern, destroying the Beast. Afterwards, Wirt and Greg wake up whilst drowning in a cold river, revealing that The Unknown was some form of purgatory.
In their analysis of the fairytale-inspired narrative of Over the Garden Wall and its “myriad of literary references,” Manuel Botero Camacho and Guillermo Alonso Menchero argue that “there are mentions of the wardrobe of C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, references to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth and the story of Hansel and Gretel from the Brother’s Grimms’ Fairy Tales” (2022, 44-45). However, one of the most obvious among the series’ literary connections identified by Camacho and Mecnhero comes from Over the Garden Wall’s similarities with Dante’s Inferno. For example, both main characters, Wirt and Dante, share a similar appearance and signature red hat, in addition to beginning their journeys lost in the woods. In addition, “both [Dante and Wirt] are artists who glorify love and sing praises to their beloved, represented by Beatrice in the Comedy and Sarah in OTGW” (Camacho & Menchero 2022, 46). Each episode of Over the Garden Wall also correlates heavily with the circles of Hell from Dante’s Inferno. For instance, the sixth episode of the series, “Lullaby in Frogland,” can be understood as representing the Wrath circle. Throughout the episode, the characters are presented as sailing on a river, a metaphor for the river Styx. By the end of the episode, the frogs aboard the vessel plunge themselves into the mud, a reference to the Wrath circle’s punishment, which involves the occupants eternally fighting in the mud. Another episode that embodies this parallel is Over the Garden Wall’s third episode “Schooltown Follies”, which corresponds with the Lust ring. In this episode, a forlorn schoolteacher mourns the loss of her lover, and the narratives centres around their lost lover, who returns by the end of the episode in ways that further drive home the parallel themes.
Fig. 3 - Over the Garden Wall’s Edelwood trees.
The creators of Over the Garden Wall also create meaningful breaks with Dante’s epic poem to increase the impact of certain actions or shed a different light on the plot of the programme. A great example is the Suicide Forest from Dante’s work, where sinners who harmed themselves while alive would grow into trees. Meanwhile, in Over the Garden Wall, the Edelwood trees that the Beast and Woodsman use to fuel the lantern are made up of souls who lose hope during their journey in The Unknown (Fig. 3). Though it is not discussed explicitly in the series, understanding the context where these images and narrative elements come from sheds a very different light on the series’ ending. Instead of Wirt outsmarting the Beast’s lies, calling his bluff, and escaping, Wirt succumbing to the Beast’s influence and his saving by Greg, who then subsequently defeats the Beast, becomes a metaphor for overcoming suicidal ideation. In this way, McHale took the Suicide Forest from Dante’s Inferno and, using his modern retelling, transformed the meaning of the story into an empowering tale about not losing hope and overcoming suicidal thoughts. Karissa Doughty argues that “Like Dante’s journey, Wirt’s journey is a metaphor intended for a universal audience to learn and benefit from” (2019). Another example of the authors breaking away from the comparison is through the presentation of two characters, both named Beatrice, from both stories. In Dante’s Inferno, Beatrice saves Dante by sending Virgil, Dante’s guide, to help and lead him through hell. In Over the Garden Wall, Beatrice attempts to betray the brothers by leading them to the witch Adelaide of the Pasture.
Fig. 4 - The anthropomorphic Beatrice.
Beatrice, Dante’s love in Inferno, has an oppositional role to that of Over the Garden Wall’s Beatrice, who, instead of leading the group safely through hell, takes them on more dangerous paths (Fig. 4). In this way, the creators of Over the Garden Wall create meaningful ruptures with the parallelism of their stories in order to highlight different elements of character. Readers of Dante’s Inferno may be surprised at these changes, given the contrasting roles each Beatrice plays, and ultimately breaking their expectations.
Over the Garden Wall incorporates a number of storytelling elements that are borrowed and reworked from Dante’s Inferno. From creating parallels of each episode based on the different layers of Hell, to having the characters and the roles they fill either match (or meaningfully break away from) how they are presented in the other medium, Over the Garden Wall could be understood as a complex animated retelling of Dante’s story. McHale and Krentz have created a story that can both be appreciated as a fantastic standalone story for viewers who are unaware of Dante’s Inferno, but also as an interesting and meaningful breakaway for those who are. In this way, the creators have demonstrated that the field of animation is capable of reimagining these historical stories while still maintaining independent creative control in order to create a broad appeal and invite engagement from multiple audiences.
**Article published: July 14, 2023**
References
Alighieri, Dante. 2021. “Inferno.” The Divine Comedy, Alma Classics: London.
Camacho, Manuel Botero, and Guillermo Alonso Menchero. 2022. “A Shift in Storytelling: Over the Garden Wall as a Literary Reconstruction of Dante’s Divine Comedy.” Comunicación 1, no. 19: 41-54.
Doughty, Karissa. 2019. Evolving Mediums: Over the Garden Wall and the Divine Comedy, available at: https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5042&context=etd.
McHale, Patrick. “Wirt, Greg, and Beatrice Walking through The Unknown.” The New York Times (November 2, 2014), available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/03/arts/television/over-the-garden-wall-a-new-cartoon-network-series.html.
Biography
Walker Cline is a student at the University of Texas at Dallas, Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication. His focus is on 3D Modeling and Texturing, although he has a generalist skill set and passion for animation in many forms. Earlier versions of this text were developed with the help of Dr. Christine Veras and peers from the Animation Studies course at University of Texas at Dallas.