What is The Riddle of the Ivy?
Chesterton’s short written story, “The Riddle the Ivy”, centres on the idea that someone has to leave home in order to really appreciate it. Most individuals can relate to this text, as they sooner or later in their lives have been away from their native soil. However the text also treats the political situation in England, a theme to which I will return later in the essay.

The narrator believes entirely in the idea that one has to set foot on one’s own country as foreign land in order to appreciate it. When the friend is asking the narrator where he is going, he calmly replies: “To Battersea” (p.131, l.6), which is odd because he lives in Battersea. The narrator then introduces the friend to his impression of travelling, but the friend doesn’t understand the deeper meaning behind the narrator saying that he is going to Battersea and he consequently says; “I suppose it is unnecessary to tell you … that this is Battersea?”(p.131, l.17-18)

A riddle is defined as “a statement or question or phrase having a double or indirect meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved.” The text is named “The Riddle of the Ivy” the Ivy must therefore have a double meaning. In this text I perceive the Ivy as a symbol of Growth, Renewal, Connection and most of all Friendship. The Ivy in the text can be symbol of the friendship that as a consequence of the Entente Cordiale (A series of agreements signed on 8 April 1904 between the United Kingdom and France) aroused between the United Kingdom and France. With its intertwining and wrinkling, “the ivy is an example of the twist and turns a friendship can take, but also a testimony to the long-lasting relations and bonds we form with friends that last over the year. Another tribute to friendship is the ivy’s ability to grow in challenging environments.”
Not only is the Ivy through its metaphorical meaning maybe referring to the Entente Cordiale, France is actually, by the narrator, mentioned in the text; “In France things are attacked and defended for what they are”(p.133, l.8-9). The narrator compares this with the English politicians’ capacity to console everybody “… by explaining that the house of lords is not really the house of lords, but something quite different” (p.133, l.13-14) The narrator seems unsatisfied with the English policy which he, by indirectly calling the English politicians lairs, expresses in following sentence: “If the Conservative defender of the House of Lords were a logical French politician he would simply be a liar. But being an English politician he is simply a poet.”(p.133, l.17-19) The narrator is also unsatisfied with Mr. Balfour’s speech, which he calls humbug (p.133, l.7-8). The specially English kind of humbug is shown when the Tory leader Balfour said that the House of Lords must be preserved “because it represented something in the nature of permanent public opinion of England, above the ebb and flow of the parties.” Later in the text the narrator again expresses his discontent with the society and the poor’s missing influence on it by saying: “… if you want to know what the very poor want you must ask the very rich.” He so claims that there is some sort of corruption and non-democracy in the society hiding behind all of that beautiful ivy.

Besides the opinion of the political situation in the country the narrator’s sight of traveling, and especially returning from a travel, is also expressed in the text. The narrator tells us in the text that “he happened to be leaving Battersea, and being asked where he was going, calmly replied to Battersea, which is really to say that we find our way home more eagerly by way of for example Dubai than by way of Kennington. In a few words, it is what we mean when we say, as every traveller says at times, “Home, sweet home.” I fancy this is what the narrator means. It is a beautiful thought—a fine love of the home.”

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