MovieChat Forums > The Hanging Garden (1997) Discussion > I think Sweet William died and Violet wa...

I think Sweet William died and Violet was aborted.

posted 18 years ago by sangshao
5 replies | jump to latest

And that the mother eventually abandoned the family or killed herself in the aftermath. I think the Aunt and the daughter blamed the father for everything that went wrong and he eventually turned to alcohol. I think the daughter held the wedding their in an attempt to make everyone forget about the day they found William hanging there. I think Fletcher was in love with William and never really let go even after his death and I think his wife knows that and has comes to terms with it. I think they bonded over missing William on top of the fact of their already being friends and dating as kids. I think Violet really was aborted by the prostitute despite attempts by William's mom to change the woman's mind. And I think the ending was basically the ghosts of William, Violet, and the mother finally being exorcised from the community.

[–] Bill-i-am 18 years ago

How droll.

[–] rachelpendle25 18 years ago

That's one way of looking at it. It's probably more likely although I would really like for William to have gotten away and taken Violet with him.

One thing I would argue with is that I think that alcohol was not something that the father eventually turn too. I think he had always turned to alcohol and that was why he was so abusive to his children.

[–] RemovetheLensCap 17 years ago

Even though, I haven't seen the whole movie yet... I think the movie is William's vision of what would have happened if he really hadn't killed himself. Kinda a Christmas Carol with Scoroge present to the future.And Violet is a girl? That totally looks like a boy.

[–] mrlpratt 14 years ago

I too haven't seen the whole movie yet but can't wait to. And like you I can't believe "Violet" is a girl.

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"I don't love you enough to hate you!!"

[–] nomen_meltdown 12 years ago

This is sort of on the sliding scale towards an idea I had after watching this again recently-- that maybe the whole movie takes place in some afterlife and they're all dead. Maybe it starts just after the last member of the cast of characters died, whether it was of old age or whatever, and now that they're all in this Purgatory together they can appear however they need to in order to finally play out all of the unresolved issues that were left "hanging" (oh I'm gonna burn for that one) when William committed suicide as a teenager. Now that the whole lot of them are reunited, they can see each other as they were at various times in their lives-- William can even appear as the man he imagined he might grow up to be, or appear young and old at the same time-- and replay events that left emotional crises that couldn't be resolved until they were all together again.

More succinctly, maybe the whole movie is a reunion of their "souls," outside of time after they've all died, allowing them to resolve everything that they couldn't when William committed suicide and they all went on living.

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