Tackling "The Garden" is a pretty ambitious literary goal, so we think it's only fitting that ambition is one of the themes at work in the poem. In fact, it's the first major theme to pop up, but it's not exactly being portrayed in a positive light. Our speaker spends several lines criticizing ambition in the opening stanzas, but a little digging reveals that he isn't without ambitions of his own. So does "The Garden" define good ambitions versus bad ones? And where is that line in the poem? Let's find out…
Questions About Ambition
- Would you describe the speaker as ambitious? Why or why not?
- What is the difference between the ambitions of the speaker and those of the men he criticizes in stanza 1?
- What literary devices does Marvell use to convey ambition? What is the effect?
Chew on This
The speaker's criticism of men's public ambitions in stanza 1 is unfair, as the speaker is an ambitious figure himself. So take that.
"The Garden" portrays ambition as a bad thing, a character flaw, and thinks the same thing of the people who strive for recognition. (Guess we'll just slink away now…)