The last leaf
Our bodies are our gardens to which our wills are gardeners.Justify this
statement with reference to Johnsy in The Last Leaf.

Solution
Jhonsy had a pessimistic point of view about her life. She thought that she would die when the last leaf on the ivy tree will fall. She was losing hope and willpower to live. When she saw the leaf next morning, she got back her will to live. Similarly our bodies are our gardens to which our wills are gardeners. Our will to live can keep us alive and hence our bodies. A gardener keeps the garden flourishing and gives life to plants. In the absence of gardener, the plants and flowers start dying. Similarly, in the absence of will power, we can not be alive. Therefore, will to live acts as a gardener to keep our garden like body alive. 

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Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our / wills are gardeners” (1.3.323-324). Rather than Iago’s body however, this portrays the four lobes of Iago’s brain as his “gardens” with different flowers symbolizing a part of Iago’s character. As the “gardens” approach the center of the canvas the flowers represented are slowly dying. The flowers go from flourishing to looking as if they had been hit by frost, then transition into a state of decay, and finally the flowers have been taken over by weeds, ugly and villainous in their mangled and twisted state. The flowers are scattered inconsistently, not one more important than another, with the layout of these “gardens” representative of how Iago does not exemplify any one trait above another. Though the flowers used to symbolize each characteristic are different colors on their own, the use of various colors help to portray the complexity that is Iago’s mind. The “gardens” however do transition consistently into their state of decay rather than in pieces, reflecting that his good and honorable characteristics are all decaying together. As Iago becomes more and more manipulative, his villainous will of ruining Othello’s life has become the “gardener” of his mind, this “gardener” who would therefore let a “garden” of honorable traits die as they are forgotten and left untended. This creative piece is a representative interpretation of Iago’s mind, the lobes of his brain being his “gardens,” and represent the effect of villainous wills as the “gardeners” of once flourishing and honest frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital “gardens.”

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