In this article we'll take a look at another fascinating object that we often deal with in our everyday lives - a wardrobe. We'll explore how wardrobes and closets find a peculiar reflection in culture, children's fantasies and fiction books.
Wardrobes have long evoked mystical, romantic associations in people, especially the old majestic wardrobes with pompous decor. Poetic fantasy often turned their doors into a magical portal leading to an alternative fairy-tale world. A good example is the wardrobe that appears in The Chronicles of Narnia. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis:
"She immediately stepped into the wardrobe and got in among the coats and rubbed her face against them, leaving the door open, of course, because she knew that it is very foolish to shut oneself into any wardrobe. Soon she went further in and found that there was a second row of coats hanging up behind the first one. [...] She took a step further in – then two or three steps – always expecting to feel woodwork against her fingertips. […] Next moment she found that what was rubbing against her face and hands was no longer soft fur but something hard and rough and even prickly.
“Why, it is just like branches of trees!” exclaimed Lucy. […]
A moment later she found that she was standing in the middle of a wood at night-time with snow under her feet and snowflakes falling through the air"
The wardrobe to Narnia is a good example of a banal object that has magical properties. But why is it that the human imagination generates that sort of images? What's the nature of wardrobe fantasies?
Cultural analysts offer different interpretations, but the most common one is that people tend to associate wardrobes with secrets and mysteries. And there are some good reasons for that.
Keeper of Secrets
If we look at the English word wardrobe, it takes root from the Old French words warder, wardereube, where warder meant "to guard" and robe meant "garment." Its synonym - closet - was originally used to describe a tiny, quiet space, such as a place for meditation or prayer. This notion of privacy gave rise to the idea of hiding something or keeping something secret. One more variation of a closet - secretaire - originates from the Latin word secretus (private, secret).
Hence, all these words allude to certain secrecy, a place for storing things that are not intended for prying eyes. Couldn't this be the origin of phrases like "Skeleton in the closet/cupboard" (an embarrassing fact that someone wants to keep secret), "to be in the closet" (to be kept secret, often spoken of a sexual identity), "to be out of the closet" (to no longer be a secret)?
According to the French philosopher Bachelard, the theme of wardrobes, chests and storage spaces is an inexhaustible source of dreams and fantasies. For one thing, wardrobes and closets usually have a complex structure. While a table, chair or bed consist of a flat surface on 4 legs, where everything is quite simple and clear, the wardrobe consists of many parts: drawers, cells, shelves, hooks, hangers... And most importantly: a wardrobe has doors (often locked), which you need to pick up the key to open and see something hidden from view. Its very setup awakens curiosity, and the desire to look inside:
"There was no key in the cupboard!... the big brown cupboard with no key!... You kept looking at the dark brown door... No key!... That was strange!... you kept wondering about the mysteries sleeping within its wooden sides; and you seemed to hear, from the bottom of the huge keyhole, a far-off sound, an indistinct and joyful murmur..."
- The Orphans' New Year's Gift Poem by Arthur Rimbaud
A Portal to Another Dimension
Apart from being a repository of secrets, wardrobes have another fairytale function - that of a portal, a vehicle to alternative worlds.
We see this in many fairy tales, from E. Nesbit's The Aunt and Amabel and J.K. Rowlings' Harry Potter (vanishing cabinet) to Little, Big by John Crowley and the aforementioned Chronicles of Narnia. It is curious that in the latter 2 stories, wardrobes transport the children nowhere other than to a magical forest. This can't be just a coincidence, given that the forest and trees are the materials that the wardrobe is made of, this is where it originates from. In a way, it turns out to be a portal to the "other world", in which the inanimate comes to life.
In The Chronicles of Narnia, we find a whole series of images that connect the worlds of fairy tales and reality, and which are mirrored and reversed by the portal.
Apart from the wooden wardrobe that turns out to be a symmetrical image of a spruce forest in Narnia, fur coats are replaced by a real lion named Aslan, the bright day in the room is replaced by a night, the moth powder is substituted by the snow - a symbol of the eternal winter that has been conjured by the evil Narnia witch. Because of all the interconnections between these images, which kind of link the two worlds, we perceive Narnia as an almost natural extension of the wardrobe. At the end of the day, this is what creates the illusion of reality.
And that's probably why things like wardrobes are so captivating despite being relatively trivial objects in their essence!
Unleashing the Imagination with Wardrobes
It's fascinating to see how such an ordinary object like a wardrobe can hold so much meaning and be so intertwined with our culture and imagination. From the secrets they keep to the portals they become, wardrobes have a special place in our hearts and minds. It's no wonder that they have been used in literature and film as a device to transport us to other worlds. So the next time you open your closet or wardrobe, take a moment to appreciate the magic and mystery that it potentially holds. And who knows, maybe you'll find yourself transported to a magical land, just like Lucy in The Chronicles of Narnia!
Sources
Bachelard, G. (1994). The poetics of space (M. Jolas, Trans.). Beacon Press.
Conkan, M. (2014). On the Nature of Portals in Fantasy Literature. Caietele Echinox: Possible Worlds: Fantasy, Science-Fiction, 26.
Crowley, J. (1981). Little, Big. Bantam Books.
Lewis, C.S. (1950). The Chronicles of Narnia. HarperCollins.
Nesbit, E. (1916). The Aunt and Amabel. Dodd, Mead and Company.
Rimbaud, A. (1870). The Orphans' New Year's Gift [Poem]. Retrieved from PoemHunter.com. https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-orphans-new-year-s-gift/
Rowling, J.K. (1997-2007). Harry Potter series. Bloomsbury Publishing.
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