ekny PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 8:39 pm

flowers
I feel a little odd starting off a topic I know close to nothing about, but am hoping others might take it & run w/it. I started off wondering what was in Helen's garden. We only get a few shots of it in S1, mainly around Sean; in ep 7 at the very start & again at 4.40.

I am not assuming any direct association between Nikki-flowers & Helen-flowers. That's too easy; they're mainly background decoration; not something props might've had much control over, etc.

Still, it could prove interesting, I'd like to see where it goes. I just wish I knew more, I really don't. Am hoping people here know their stuff & can say for sure--yes, that's a blooming delphium of the whoadudus variety.


Also, since I know nothing abt shrubbery (please, let's keep Monty Python Moments to a minimum?) much less UK horticulture... while I'm asking, seems worth at least mentioning: lotsa trees in Helen's garden too.

There are flowers on the mantle (behind the disputed 'Rodin' pic when N calls in ep 9, ~19.50.) That ep is kinda flower-heavy; 14.15 shows N fussing with a bed of flowers--though there's no reason to assume they're 'hers', is there...? & that might be the ep where she brings flowers to Monica, although I think that's ep8.

Anyway, those are the things I began with, if anyone's interested I'm sure y'all will come up with loads more.

Geraniums. I'm guessing that's a lot of what we're seeing. Hardy in tough climates, etc. That's it, the compleat extent of my knowledge. Please, take this one out of my ignorant hands. ;)

Just Another Mad Bad Fan PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 11:36 pm

Flowers
I just see Nikki carrying around a hang of a lot of Pansies and Primroses. She doesn't do much planting of them, just takes them for walks and rides in her wheelbarrow! (That's funny though - pansies and primroses - she is neither a pansy or a prim rose!) If I remember rightly I think she took Monica some Anemones, but I'm working from memory here! I'll have to go back and have a look at Helen's flowers. I think you might be right about there being a Geranium, I seem to remember a red one!

Aussie PostPosted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 12:01 am

Re: Flowers
Just Another Mad Bad Fan wrote:
I just see Nikki carrying around a hang of a lot of Pansies and Primroses. She doesn't do much planting of them, just takes them for walks and rides in her wheelbarrow! (That's funny though - pansies and primroses - she is neither a pansy or a prim rose!) If I remember rightly I think she took Monica some Anemones, but I'm working from memory here! I'll have to go back and have a look at Helen's flowers. I think you might be right about there being a Geranium, I seem to remember a red one!



Forgive me JAMBF but when I read the following line ,

She doesn't do much planting of them, just takes them for walks and rides in her wheelbarrow!

I couldn't help Laughing Laughing Laughing Laughing .

Walks and rides in her wheelbarrow that's funny

abzug PostPosted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 12:28 am

I don't know a thing about flowers or gardening in reality, but I have a lot of thoughts about how they are used as a metaphor in the show. We've talked in another thread about Nikki being a Reader (of books, of people etc), but I think its just as important to her character that she is a Gardener. Garderners nurture and tend plants, they allow them to flourish and grow. In this sense, gardening is analogous to feeling and expressing love for another person, which in the end is what Nikki is all about.

With this in mind, its suddenly clear why she would be appalled to discover she just took a gardening class from a man who turned out to be Helen's partner. She's taking lessons in how to love from Helen's boyfriend?! Its an affront to her lesbian sensibilities! No one knows how to love Helen better than she does!

I also started thinking about occasions when flowers are given on the show. I came up with five:

1. Nikki brings flowers from the garden to give to Monica after Spencer dies
2. Nikki invites Pam Jolly to help her with the gardening
(Note, in the above two examples, Helen has given permission--ie enabled--the expressions of caring and nurturing which the flowers represent)
3. Charlie sends Yvonne flowers shortly after she arrives at Larkhall
(Note, in this case Sylvia kills the flowers, rather than enabling them as Helen does)
4. Some "clients" of Virginia O'Kane's send her flowers
(This is an example of how "love" can be transactional, rather than emotional--ie bought and paid for)
5. Mark sends flowers to Gina to try to make up to her after the whole Di incident.
(She trashes them, rejecting the expression of love inherent in them.)

As I look at all of these examples together, I notice that other than the "transactional" example, prison always creates an obstacle to someone giving/receiving flowers--it creates an obstacle to nurturing, caring, loving gestures and feelings. Sometimes this obstacle can be overcome (particularly when Helen is involved!) but often it can't, or it only can with misunderstanding, so its inherently compromised (I'm thinking of Helen telling Nikki she can bring the flowers to Monica, but being annoyed that Nikki asked if it was ok).

ekny PostPosted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 1:24 am

Wonderful post, just the kinda stuff I was looking for & thinking about. Great, thank you!

Jeanna PostPosted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 1:17 am

I just don't know how you continue to do it. That actually brought tears to my eyes for some obscure reason. Embarassed No jokes about hay fever either.

Just Another Mad Bad Fan PostPosted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 1:13 pm

Flowers
"You thought I'd forget didn't ya?" No ekny, I haven't forgotten your flowers (and your bushes Rolling Eyes ) and I have been giving them some thought. The problem with most of the flowers, is that they are just background most of the time, so they aren't really in focus so that you can identify exactly what they are, except of course for the Pansies and the Polyanthus, which we do get to see rather frequently and they are also often part of the focus. While this may be because they were the plants which the props people grabbed at the nursery, there may also be the suggestion that (as you mentioned about the idea of Geraniums) they are hardy. The bedding plants that you can usually get hold of in the nursery, at almost any time of the year in this country, are Pansies and Polyanthus. The implication may be that they are growing within the prison environment, so like the prisoners they need to be tough/hardy in order to survive. (On the other hand, their all-year round availability could also just explain why the props people bought them - because they were there!)

One lot of Nikki's potting shed plants, actually has the little name & information tag still on it. It is called Arabis - Spring Charm, but they appear at a time when Nikki is neither springy or charming, as they are in the scene immediately prior to the first argument over Dominic - the "you went out for a curry with him didn't you?" one. She huffs out of the shed with just the Pansies & Polyanthus, but then they appear again going for their little wheelbarrow ride, coincidentally again in a scene involving Dominic, when he stops Nikki & asks her if she has seen someone from works. She is not very charming here either!

The problem, I think with a lot of the garden plants, either in the prison garden or Helen's garden, is that by & large the plants that are there are mostly just the ones that happened to be in the particular location which they hired for the scene. Because if you look at Helen's garden, it is not very inspiring for somebody who has a live-in landscape gardener (unless of course he is a crap one, & I wouldn't be at all surprised if Sean was all mouth & no trousers!). The prison garden, when you consider that it has all these prisoners working in it on a daily basis is not very impressive either.The grass is unkempt & full of weeds and the flowerbeds are rather empty, considering the number of plants we see Nikki messing around with! So I think they used to just breeze into the neglected former Oxford prison garden, mow the grass quickly, weed the flowerbeds & start filming! So I don't know that we can read any significance into any of the plants of flowers which are just incidentally in either of these 2 gardens.

I shall now move on to your bushes! Well...potplants really. Now these I think might have more significance, as they have control over what they dress the set with. And the ones which I found rather interesting, were the ones which we see in Helen's flat. The one which we see rather a lot of and which features quite prominently in a number of scenes, is the large one in the corner of the sitting room, which is some kind of Ficus, probably a Ficus benjamina, or Weeping Fig. I am thinking here of the fig as a metaphor for the vagina - D.H Lawrence, for example, uses this image very powerfully in his poem "Figs". The fruit also has erotic symbolism & was sacred to Bacchus, god of wine & vegetation. The idol of Bacchus was always made of the wood of the ficus and the most sacred object in the Bacchanalian procession was a basket of figs.

We first see this plant in S1 Ep6 & this whole episode is full of Helen's growing awareness of Nikki - it starts with her flirting with her after her holiday, the promise of bringing in the copy of Sophie's World, it moves on to the education classes "Will you do it for me?" scene in the office, the interaction in the dining-room over the incident with Denny's mum, then we see the ficus when Helen invites Dom back to her flat for a drink after their night at the pub. It is then flanked on the other side with Helen taking the OU course material & the copy of Sophie's World to Nikki in her cell, and then finally the "Juliet & Juliet" scene in the library.

In the scene where Helen & Dom are having a drink back at the flat, prior to Dom telling her about Zan's escape, he is sitting with the ficus behind him, framed by it. A bit later, in walks Sean, but we hear him before we see him, because what enters the room before him, another huge fig! This time a Ficus elastica or Rubber Tree. We have this scene of Helen sitting in the middle with Dom on the one side framed by this fig/vagina and Sean standing on the other, holding another large fig/vagina, saying "Look what I've won"! Perhaps abzug, like your notion of Fenner with a mock vagina, this represents Dom & Sean both offering Helen their mock vaginas, but they are both doomed to failure as she is already on the path to wanting a real one!

Of course there is also a lot of religious significance attached to the fig tree. (abzug you might be able to make some connection with it's significance in terms of Judaism.) But the one which I would like to mention, is its representation in The Garden of Eden. B.Z Goldberg in his study of sex in religion, "The Sacred Fire", points out that in some traditions, the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, "was not an apple tree but a fig tree...The fig, universally considered a symbol of the virgin yoni (the female genitals), was the appropriate friut for the lingam-tree to bear. How much more significant is now the seduction of Adam by Eve in getting him to partake of the fig-yoni she offered him?"

This Tree of Knowledge was at the centre of the first human moral dilemma, when Adam & Eve ate the forbidden fruit. This perhaps echoes Helen's own approaching moral dilemma & her temptation to partake of the forbidden fruit. It also ties quite nicely to Nikki's drawing her attention to "Oranges Are not The Only Fruit" in the "Juliet & Juliet" scene. The Tree of Knowledge also provided Adam & Eve with leaves to cover their nakedness, and therefore offered them the first step towards spiritual redemption. Perhaps it represents then Helen's moving towards her own personal redemption, in discovering who she really is.

Incidentally, we see the ficus again when Nikki makes the tearful apologetic phonecall to Helen's answering machine after the Dominic incident, again when Dom answers the phone at her flat and then again when Helen makes the call to the police at the end of Series 2 - all instances where it is significant perhaps as a Weeping Fig.

abzug PostPosted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 3:07 pm

I am in awe, JAMBF. In awe.

Aussie PostPosted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 3:16 pm

abzug wrote:
I am in awe, JAMBF. In awe.


JAMBF has been taking gardening classes with Sean Parr .

I for one personally don't know how she sat through them to learn all that stuff .

Just Another Mad Bad Fan PostPosted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 3:51 pm

Flowers
Definitely not with Sean Parr thanks Aussie! Anyway, I said he must have been a crap gardener!

Come on abzug! I was expecting you to run with the Jewish thing here! Isn't there, among other things, something about the fig tree as a sign of protection & safety, and an association with the rule of Solomon & therefore linked to wisdom? Very Happy

I also meant to say ekny, that the fig plant may be being used in the same way as that mystery "Rodin" painting on the wall in Helen's flat - as a sort of visual hint or clue to her subconcious or increasingly conscious mind.

badgirlnuts PostPosted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 4:01 pm

JAMBF, Brilliant observation and inferences!!

ekny PostPosted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 4:25 pm

Re: Flowers
Just Another Mad Bad Fan wrote:
No ekny, I haven't forgotten your flowers (and your bushes :roll: ) and I have been giving them some thought.


Good heavens, yes so I gather! Wow. That's a lot of information in a really nicely put-together piece, thanks for the hard work and the presentation. Must have a bit of the gardener in you yourself!

I agree with most of your early conclusions (the later ideas are all interpretive, so it'd just depend how one wanted to use them in a given context)--that the set-dressing is mostly just about what's available, perhaps time of year, etc.--so there's no way to firmly anchor any heavier interpretation (which isn't to say one couldn't still suggest them!).

Ficus, at least here, are common; because they're so hardy, they've become practically the standard for decoration of doctors' waiting rooms, lobbies, that sort of thing.

The fact that Helen's garden isn't particularly impressive isn't surprising: we've no info about how long she's been in that flat & no reason to think gardening interests her personally, so if Sean only moved in himself fairly recently, then even if he works in it--as he's seen to do--it'd still have taken a season or two for some headway to've been made.

I have to say again I'm really glad you resurrected this topic, I was afraid it was going to wither away unwatered, drop off the rota & that'd be that. So thanks!

abzug PostPosted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 4:52 pm

Re: Flowers
Just Another Mad Bad Fan wrote:
Come on abzug! I was expecting you to run with the Jewish thing here! Isn't there, among other things, something about the fig tree as a sign of protection & safety, and an association with the rule of Solomon & therefore linked to wisdom? Very Happy

I know I know! I had literally five minutes before running to a work meeting, so I thought the least I could do was tell you how impressed I was, and then give a thought-out reply a little later (after I had time to think). Smile

I also think you may have overestimated my knowledge of Jewish/biblical imagery. Its my sister who is the rabbi, not me. Smile Actually, I suppose I could give her a call and see what she thinks.

Anyway, I promise to figure out what I think, I just need a few more hours to contemplate.

abzug PostPosted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 6:07 pm

Quote:
there may also be the suggestion that (as you mentioned about the idea of Geraniums) they are hardy. The bedding plants that you can usually get hold of in the nursery, at almost any time of the year in this country, are Pansies and Polyanthus. The implication may be that they are growing within the prison environment, so like the prisoners they need to be tough/hardy in order to survive.

I like this association quite a bit, and it works thematically. It would have seemed awfully strange if Nikki was growing orchids or something like that, now wouldn't it? We all would have noticed and been jarred by it.

Lets not forget (or, to put it another way: I am now going to introduce a topic that I just thought of; it may not belong here, but I don't want to forget to bring it up, so I'm bringing it up now) that Nikki also grows marajuana, so there's certainly the association of gardening with an area of freedom or resistance. And that the prisoners don't have to grow just what's provided to them (ie pansies, polyanthus etc)--they can grow whatever is important to them. Is it also fair to expand this idea to say they can develop whatever qualities within themselves which they want to develop? Ie Nikki and studying literature, Denny and learning how to read and write etc. So even a "plant" (literal and metaphorical) which isn't hardy can flourish/grow/develop in the prison environment if a prisoner has the will to water it, fertilize it, help it grow.

Quote:
One lot of Nikki's potting shed plants, actually has the little name & information tag still on it. It is called Arabis - Spring Charm, but they appear at a time when Nikki is neither springy or charming

Wow, your powers of observation and attention to detail are truly unequaled! But again, another fantastic observation of the irony of the use of that plant.

Quote:
We have this scene of Helen sitting in the middle with Dom on the one side framed by this fig/vagina and Sean standing on the other, holding another large fig/vagina, saying "Look what I've won"! Perhaps abzug, like your notion of Fenner with a mock vagina, this represents Dom & Sean both offering Helen their mock vaginas, but they are both doomed to failure as she is already on the path to wanting a real one!

I might draw a different conclusion from this framing of Helen by the two men with plants. What if the plants in this case represent male virility? There is a strange sense in this scene that Helen has been flirting with Dominic, but in a totally guilt-free way because she knows she's off limits and that Sean will show up at some point. But then she's in a situation where she has two men aroused (emotionally, if not physically), all ready to start sowing their seeds. In this sense, its almost like sexual interest in Helen is equated with growing plants. Nikki = flowers (how feminine!) while the boys are ficus trees, more upright, kind of phallic. (I wish I could visualize this scene a little better so I could be more confident in this interpretation.) But in the end, the emotional symbolism is the same: Helen is flanked by male sexual interest, and its starting to trap her now that her interest in Nikki is burgeoning.

Quote:
The Tree of Knowledge also provided Adam & Eve with leaves to cover their nakedness, and therefore offered them the first step towards spiritual redemption. Perhaps it represents then Helen's moving towards her own personal redemption, in discovering who she really is.

I've done a bit of research online, and in the old testament (the Jewish bible) the fig tree generally represents three things:
fig fruit = sexual desire
fig leaves = covering of nakedness (ie sexual desire/knowledge)
fig tree = protection and safety
So, if the fig leaves provide the means of covering up sexual desire, and eating from the tree of knowledge as becoming aware of sexual desire, then in the image above, both Sean and Dominic are offering Helen the opportunity to cover up or hide her burgeoning sexual desire for Nikki, to protect her from it, in essence.

I think the idea of the potential for spiritual redemption is more of a Christian interpretation of the fig tree, so I don't feel qualified to comment too much on that. Of course, I'm not all that qualified to comment on the Jewish interpretation either, but that didn't stop me!

(For more info on biblical fig imagery, I actually found this this silly term paper sample online which traces fig imagery throughout the bible.)

Last edited by abzug on Thu Apr 27, 2006 12:55 am; edited 1 time in total

Jeanna PostPosted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 10:29 pm

Good lord, I don't read the posts for one furkin day and I'm so woefully behind I'm running twice as fast to get anywhere, and here I thought y'all were slackin' off lately. Damn.

I can tell you from nurturing for many years since childhood the vine that became a bush and then a tree, more or less, in my back garden from grandma's fig tree cutting she brought with her from Italy that the fig, the plump empurpled fig, is THE sexiest fruit of all. Find a ripe one at the market (they are ridiculously overpriced) and tease it open at the pinkish aperture in the base. It splits to reveal the ultimate in rubyfruit, soft on the tongue, effervescent on the palate. If you've only ever had Fig Newtons and never partaken of the fresh fruit, you don't know what you're missing. <G>

ekny PostPosted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 10:49 pm

Jeanna wrote:
Good lord, I don't read the posts for one furkin day and I'm so woefully behind I'm running twice as fast to get anywhere, and here I thought y'all were slackin' off lately. Damn.


It seems to go in surges, ain't it odd though?

Quite the Ode to Figs!

I'm partial to pomegranates myself. Sure they're a pain in the ass to deal with but the flavor's great & the nature of the fruit means you have to take your time with it.

Jeanna PostPosted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 10:55 pm

Oh, they're lovely. A very sensuous and beautiful fruit. I had quite the run on them at xmas time. They are a pain tho. I saw the 'perfect' way to deal with them on Martha and then promptly forgot. It had something to do with peeling them under water. I added them to my salad with snow peas, crisp chinese noodles, ginger sesame dressing and ginger sesame tofu. Yummo.

ekny PostPosted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 10:57 pm

Jeanna wrote:
I saw the 'perfect' way to deal with them on Martha and then promptly forgot.


Gawd, yknow I read that & thought, on Martha's Vineyard, well, she *is* in Maryland, that'd make sense--before I remembered: Television. That Woman. Etc. !

Aussie PostPosted: Fri Apr 28, 2006 12:34 am

Re: Flowers
Definitely not with Sean Parr thanks Aussie! Anyway, I said he must have been a crap gardener!

**********************.

JABMF , Here I was thinking you must of been in that class with Nikki Shell & Denny that day learning all about bulbs with roots hanging down .

Just Another Mad Bad Fan PostPosted: Fri Apr 28, 2006 2:19 pm

Flowers
Are you developing an interest in Sean's "pair of 'airy balls" then Aussie? What? You gone off Dominic then? Very Happy

ekny, you said that you weren't surprised that Helen's garden was a bit of a mess, and that it would have taken a season or two for Sean to have made some headway into the garden. Aah well you see, you must have different landscape gardeners in the US from the ones in the UK! Most suburban gardens here are pocket handkerchief sized, and if Helen had got the previously mentioned Charlie Dimmock in, her garden would have been sorted in 24 hours! Laughing

There is usually a pretty large selection of indoor plants available at any time of the year in this country (and they do use a few different ones), so that is why I thought that they would be able to be a bit more specific in their choice of plants for indoor set-dressing, there would therefore be more of a chance of them using a particular plant to make a point/statement . I also think that Series 1 is more finely crafted than the others, so they may well have thought about the type of plants which they chose.

Jeanna PostPosted: Sun Apr 30, 2006 1:12 am

So I was watching this cute brit mystery series on PBS this evening, "Rosemary & Thyme" with Felicity Kendal (always liked her) as one of a pair of gardeners (the other being portrayed by Pam Ferris) whose avocation of sniffing out murder suspects follows hard upon their horticultural occupation. In other words, it's a series in that sub-genre of detective fiction that strains credulity (but'cha don't care) in that wherever the amateur sleuths go, murder happens. One would get the idea that they are merely jinxes plain and simple.

Well, anyway, I had a strange and sudden presentiment (something that has been known to happen before in my viewing habits, if only I could harness this power for good, my own good <G> like winning a lottery, e.g., instead of mediocrity) for no damn good reason that I can explain that "Sean" was going to be in this ep. And, sure enuf, I amazed myself (but took it in stride) when he popped up, looking as supercilious as ever. The thing that most amused me tho is that he was playing a botonist or something! Most of his scenes were in a long white lab coat in a greenhouse. Now...this suggests a whole new level of highly specialized typecasting, don't you think? LOL 'Get me that "poncy plant guy" again.'

Aussie PostPosted: Wed May 03, 2006 4:37 am

Re: Flowers
[quote="Just Another Mad Bad Fan"]Are you developing an interest in Sean's "pair of 'airy balls" then Aussie? What? You gone off Dominic then? Very Happy .

JAMBF , I ought to wash your mouth out with soap for even suggesting some thing like that Shocked .

How could you even think that I could ever do some thing like that Rolling Eyes .

I remain loyal to Dominic Laughing .

As for Sean and his airy balls I could bury him in the Larkhall Garden bed along with his airy balls

Just Another Mad Bad Fan PostPosted: Wed May 03, 2006 1:09 pm

Flowers
You do that Aussie! Perhaps you could even plant him in the exact spot where he burnt his suit - a bit of rough justice! Just remember to plant him with his " 'airy balls " sticking out though - kind of like "eggs" marks the spot! Very Happy

ekny, I am not going to let your flowers die. You planted the bloody things and now you haven't watered them for days!
abzug, you commented that you thought the Ficus was perhaps "more upright, kind of phallic", well I don't think I agree with you there. Especially the one behind Dominic - the Weeping Fig, which by its nature is kind of droopy - although that fits in quite well with Dom doesn't it, he seems kind of droopy himself! He doesn't put up much of a fight for Helen and you can see him visibly sag when Sean comes in all cockily. (Sorry! No pun!) He doesn't put up much of a fight against Nikki either, even though he thinks he'll be better for Helen than she is, this contrasts quite dramatically with Nikki who comes out all fiery and fighting! He generally seems a bit impotent.

The Ficus which Sean has is admittedly a bit more upright seeming, but it is a Rubber Tree, maybe this hints at Helen's growing sexual flexibility! There is however another plant which makes an appearance on several occasions, which does have a phallic element to it, and that is the Dieffenbachia which is on the windowsill of Helen's office. When this plant does actually flower, it has a flower which is a bit like the flower of an Arum Lily (being in the same family) in that it has a poker-like yellow spadix. Now I couldn't see any particular significance to the presence of this plant, although it is there a lot of the time, but is strangely changed for another unidentifiable (out of focus) trailing plant, when Nikki is in Helen's office post-1st-kiss to discuss her exam.

But it is there when Helen is asserting her sexuality to Nikki immediately after the boob-grabbing incident, "I'm a heterosexual and I'm getting married very soon". But soon after this scene is the scene where Helen has just come in from a run or something, and she goes and flops down on the sofa with her glass of juice, and there is the ficus right behind her. It is as though she has gone for a run to try and sort her head out, but instead of doing that, it has in fact moved her closer to a realization of her attraction to a woman. She then asserts her desire to get married to Sean "as soon as we possibly can", in a desperate attempt to stave off those feelings.

(I am going to have to continue this post later, as I have to go out. So hold that thought!)

Last edited by Just Another Mad Bad Fan on Wed May 03, 2006 6:13 pm; edited 1 time in total

song_stress PostPosted: Wed May 03, 2006 2:22 pm

JAMBF...I had a Dieffenbachia and it never flowered, sadly. Of course when it comes to anything green I could be left with explicit instructions, follow them to a tee and still end up with a dead plant. <shrugging my shoulders>. Although I must say that this plant was the only one to survive my botanically declined ministrations.
interesting note, I looked up the common name for Dieffenbachia : dumb cane.

Just Another Mad Bad Fan PostPosted: Wed May 03, 2006 6:12 pm

Flowers
Aah! There you have pre-empted me Song Stress! My next point was going to be, that perhaps the presence of the Dieffenbachia, in the prison, was something to do with its common name, which is as you point out, Dumb cane. The reason why it is called this is because if the stems are chewed, the very acrid sap causes great irritation of the mouth, lips and tongue and such a great deal of swelling, as to cause great difficulty in breathing and swallowing. It renders the tongue immobile - thus the name Dumb cane (not the American sense of the word abzug!). Death can occur through asphyxiation. Dieffenbachia seguine was the Dumb cane used in the past to torture slaves in the West Indies. So this may have a link or a reminder of past prison history. It may look like a pretty plant sitting on a windowsill, but it is still in a prison, and some pretty unsavoury things went on in prisons in the past, as went on with this plant. There are still unsavoury things going on in prisons, as Helen reminds us in her sarcastic line to Nikki,"Thank goodness we've got rid of all of those", regarding the terrible prison in "Little Dorrit. It is also perhaps a reminder that the prison would probably prefer the prisoners to be dumb - just shut up and be good and serve out their time without speaking out against the status quo. Something which Nikki fails to do - she refuses to be struck dumb and speaks out.

The problem with this idea though, is that it is in Helen's office - it would have been better if it had been in Simon's, or the Officer's room. But perhaps it reminds us that Helen unwittingly initially props up the status quo. Speaking of Simon, he interestingly, has no plants in his office. He is not the nurturer that Helen is. On the nurturing front, the plant that Helen has in her office when she is in charge of the Lifers' Unit is Chlorophytum comosum. the commonly named Hen and Chickens, so called because it has the main plant, and then little ones trailing from it - now there's a nurturing name, for Helen in her nurturing role!

Another possibly phallic point abzug, is when Sean is giving the talk to the prisoners, he has a poster behind him with a bulb diagram with a rather phallic looking plant shoot poking up out of it. This scene could have happened just as easily without the poster in the background, so it does seem as though they rather pointedly put it there. When Helen walks in she is positioned alongside Sean with the "True Bulb" poster behind them and we can see the arrow with the heading "Good Signs" behind them - the perfect little picture of a heterosexual couple, with a nice erect looking shoot on the "True Bulb"! Nikki on the other hand, stands in front of the diagram of a vase of flowers - another association (as you pointed out abzug) of Nikki with flowers - the feminine contrast to the phallic shoot, in this scene which sets up the boob-grabbing shed scene.

Now ekny, I know you are going to say that I am really pushing my boundaries with your topic here! So I am going to push them just a little more and go back to the ubiquitous pansies. The botanical name for the Pansy is Viola. In Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night", the character Viola disguises herself as a male page, and has a woman Olivia, fall in love with her! Laughing
btw, In the so-called "language of flowers", pansies supposedly mean "thoughts" - I looked it up!

"Oops! I almost forgot!" In the scene where Sean is talking about inviting Jeff & Sarah & Mark & Sue (and old uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all) to the wedding, the flower arrangement in the hall is of dried flowers. The flowers are dead, which is what their relationship pretty much is at this stage. At this point I'll ignore the fact that the same arrangement appears when Nikki breaks out of prison to patch things up with Helen, and we see them when Helen flees from the door - but perhaps at that stage Nikki thinks that their relationship is dead too! After Spencer's death when Monica is contemplating her collection of pills, we see more "dead" flowers, Monica's curtains are adorned with large flowers.

Okay, enough of pushing my luck, for the time being! (At least I got some exercise sitting in front of the computer I suppose!)

abzug PostPosted: Wed May 03, 2006 6:20 pm

Wow JAMBF--thank you for another amazingly insightful post. I particularly liked your take on the Dumb Cane plant--the symbolism is really rich. And I can't believe I never noticed all that stuff about Sean's plant diagram--it seems so obvious now that you point it out!

ekny PostPosted: Wed May 03, 2006 6:22 pm

Re: Flowers
Just Another Mad Bad Fan wrote:
"Oops! I almost forgot!" In the scene where Sean is talking about inviting Jeff & Sarah & Mark & Sue (and old uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all) to the wedding, the flower arrangement in the hall is of dried flowers. The flowers are dead, which is what their relationship pretty much is at this stage.


That's very nice, I like this reading particularly. --e

mercy23 PostPosted: Thu May 04, 2006 2:04 am

Holy crap JAMBF!!!!

I'm only half joking when I say that the next time I need some advice or information or answer to any question about anything in the world, I'm coming to you!
Wink Your posts here are truly educational and fascinating!!

You all just make my head swim at the things you pick up on!!! I'd always considered myself to be more toward the analytical side but you guys blow me away!!!
Whew...I think I need a little nap.

Just Another Mad Bad Fan PostPosted: Fri May 05, 2006 12:56 pm

Flowers
mercy23, I hope you are not suggesting that I dispense advice about poisoning and torture here!

ekny PostPosted: Fri May 05, 2006 3:58 pm

Re: Flowers
Just Another Mad Bad Fan wrote:
mercy23, I hope you are not suggesting that I dispense advice about poisoning and torture here! :lol:


Wouldn't poisoning be an appropriate subheading for horticulture? It does rather come up in BG6, as I recall. ; )

mercy23 PostPosted: Mon May 08, 2006 1:50 am

Re: Flowers
Just Another Mad Bad Fan wrote:
mercy23, I hope you are not suggesting that I dispense advice about poisoning and torture here! Laughing


Hmmm...the thought never crossed my mind til now! Heh..
Now I know who/where the BG writer's got some of their ideas from!!

Jeanna PostPosted: Wed May 10, 2006 3:04 am

I want to frame JAMBF's entire post and hang it on the wall. Maybe as a sampler with a flower border. <G>

Abzug has been thinking of doing a read of "Romeo & Juliet" and I thought that might also dovetail nicely with this thread. And with all the talk of poison... <G>


Friar Lawrence Act 2, Sc. 3 on the duality of a plant that can be used to cure or kill:

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
And vice sometimes by action dignified.
Within the infant rind of this small flower
Poison hath residence and medicine power


"The drug the Friar offers Juliet is compounded of opposites and will give Juliet the appearance of death so that she can regain her life and her love."

*******

If, in your reading, you want to check out some of the other flower allusions in the play:

*1.3.77-8 (in reference to Paris-"He's a very flower")
* 2.1.162-3 (Juliet's speaks of their "bud of love" ripening into a flower)
* 2.2.8, 23 (priest's references to the power of flowers)
* 2.3.51 (Mercutio and Romeo pun on "pink")
* 4.1.99 (priest on the effect of the potion-"the roses in thy cheeks will fade")
* 4.4.55-6, 63-4, 116 (on death deflowering Juliet-parents lament her death)
* 5.3.9, 12, 280 (Paris strews flowers at Juliet's tomb)

abzug PostPosted: Wed May 10, 2006 4:13 pm

Hey Jeanna, thanks for bringing up the association with R&J. As well as telling everyone I was planning to reread it! Now I've really got to get going on that particular endeavor--to avoid public embarassment!

Just Another Mad Bad Fan PostPosted: Wed May 10, 2006 4:49 pm

Flowers
Yes Jeanna, it would have been nice if it had been hemlock that was used in R&J, then it would have linked back to Bad Girls in another area too - Fenner's remark to Nikki "Haven't you got some hemlock to go and weed?" Very Happy But it was probably more likely to be mandrake... well, I suppose mandrake/ Mandana... Rolling Eyes especially as Juliet makes reference to mandrake in Act IV S3 "And shrieks like mandrakes torn from the earth", which of course makes reference to the legend that the mandrake plant, when uprooted emitted a shriek that brought death to anyone who heard it, so harvesters would have to give a loud blast on a trumpet to drown out the sound. (JK Rowling makes use of this legend in Harry Potter.)

Mandrake has narcotic and stupefying properties, and has a long history of use as an anaesthetic, for its power to paralyse sense and motion. (In Harry Potter on the other hand, it is used to return people who have been transfigured or cursed to their original state!)

ekny, you are really a lousy gardener! You planted these flowers and you haven't watered or weeded them since 5 May! So it looks like I'm going to have to get in here with my watering can and my trowel and do some weeding!

Relating to Nikki's seemingly never-ending parade of pansies, I was interested to see that in John Everett Millais' painting "Ophelia" (1852) in the Tate Britain, Ophelia is depicted lying on her back in a stream with flowers floating beside her. Among those flowers there are pansies, and the note to the painting made the point that pansies represented "love in vain". I thought that it was rather apt then, that our Nikki should have so many of them.

Also in the Tate Britain is a painting by Philip Hermogenes Calderon, "Broken Vows" (1885). It depicts a woman who has recently discovered that her lover has been unfaithful, behind her is an Ivy covered wall, which the note mentioned "may represent her previous belief that their love was everlasting". In the scene in S1, right before Sean rushes into the flat to press Helen for an answer to his proposal,
and she makes the excuse that she is in a hurry, Sean is out in the garden (fiddling with his geraniums!) and behind him the wall is covered in Ivy! Sean is soon to discover that their love isn't everlasting either!

When you did last water your plants at the beginning of May ekny, you mentioned the rhubarb poisoning in S6. Now that you've watched it, you can come back in here and discuss it! Rhubarb leaves apparently contain dangerous amounts of oxalic acid and oxalates (unlike the stalks which contain malic acid which merely gives rhubarb it's pleasant acidity. If eaten in quantity, or by persons whose diet is deficient in calcium, oxalic acid is highly toxic, because it combines with blood calcium to form virtually insoluble calcium oxalate. This collects in the kidneys, blocking the tubules, and poisoning by oxalates can be rapidly fatal. So, perhaps not the nicest of deaths then! It makes you wonder how wise it was to have it in a prison garden! Perhaps as wise as having rat poison lying around!

Thanks for the ivy/pansies symbolism, JAMBF--I love when a scene is so coherent that even the flowers contribute towards the thematic whole. :)

Since you've brought this thread back to life, and since I've now seen all 7 series of BG, I've been thinking more and more about the importance of flowers and gardening for Nikki and Helen. Time and time again we refer to the H&N storyline as "privileged" meaning its the story on which the writers seem to have bestowed the most care and attention, and its also meant to provide the emotional involvement and release in the context of all the corruption and abuses at Larkhall.

I bring that up here, because I think the importance of flowers and gardening in S1-3 is another way the writers subtly emphasized the emotion and fertile-ness of Helen and Nikki's storyline. This is a big contrast to later seasons. Partly I think this is due to practical issues: once they stopped filming at Oxford, they didn't have the cinematic grounds and gardens, but instead were stuck filming outdoor scenes on a small, closed-in exterior set. But had they wanted to emphasize the nurturing and caretaking abilities of any character through their gardening, they still could have. But they didn't. Instead, every character who gets a job in the gardens uses that job for another goal: Shaz builds her escape tunnel, the Costas set up their distillery, etc. Pat also gets a job in the garden, but she's there literally to shovel shit (they say this explicitly!) not to plant and tend flowers.

To me, this is a major shift in the show's belief in a potential for the transformative and nurturing power of love and relationships in the context of the prison. To me, Nikki's attention to her gardening, her ability to make beautiful things grow, represents her influence on Helen, her ability to provide a safe, loving and motivating situation for Helen to grow from a repressed heterosexual bulb into a beautiful flower. The lack of "gardeners" in later seasons seems to imply how unique Helen and Nikki's experience at Larkhall was--for most everyone else its destructive, not a place where relationships can flower. I would even argue that its not an accident that in later seasons all flowers are grown inside, in the greenhouse, rather than outside. There's a real sense that nothing can flourish freely outside--the only place anything can flourish is in the controlled interior of the greenhouse, analogous to the controlled, confining interior of the prison.

abzug,

Simone would kill herself laughing if you told her about Helen, the repressed heterosexual bulb. Sometimes that hyperactive mind of yours...
why not beautiful lesbian flower?

I was at the gym today without my ipod, so you'll have to forgive me. Its what happens when I'm bored.... ;)

Excellent thread with loads of great insights!

I just wanted to pick up on the comparisons with later series especially with series 7.

One of the practical issues that has wrought changes IMO is that many of the series 7 writers are different from those of series 1-3. Certainly Chadwick stopped writing for the prog. And mostly it's different directors and producers too. I think that the people in control of the prog. in later series haven't given the care and attention to the later lesbian storylines that was done in series 1-3.

I also think it's "fertile ground" for writers to have a character who is interested in literature. This is because it's an interest that the writers usually share, so they can kind of indulge themselves with literary references: e.g. to flowers.

I have a bit of a niggle in this regard that whenever there's a movie or TV character being transformed by education they most usually study literature. For myself the most transformative subject has been sociology, and for others it may be history or even science. But writers write about the subject that they have experienced as the most transformative subject for them.

I want to comment on the Pat reference by abzug so will take it to the series 7 thread to avoid spoiling those who haven't seen this series.

isn't it also that literature is the most non-controversial one and the one the most people can connect to?
I mean I'm like you but with philosophy and politics. All the same,, I know some very articulate people who draw heavily on literature.

Imagine Helen (and with her, the viewers) seeing Nikki reading "The Female Eunuch". And then follow with "The Feminine Mystique". She would have appeared as this snobish dyke (which she wasn't).
I don't know why did Helen suggest literature at the OU, maybe it was because she saw Nikki reading literature or because she thought a literature degree creatively temper Nikki's fighting streak. But in any case I think by making her go for literature and for gardening, Shed have softened Nikki's rough edges and at the same time showed her caring, soft nature.