When I was teaching high school English, one exercise we did when discussing denotation (the literal meaning of a word) vs. connotation (the implied meaning of a word) was to look at Psalm 23 and rotate the emphasis onto different words. Students were surprised to observe how the meanings of familiar verses changed and expanded depending on which words were emphasized. For this week’s BP film, How Green Was My Valley, I thought we would use this emphasis exercise to extrapolate layers of meaning using the film’s rather creative title.

How Green Was My Valley

HOW: An adverb indicating extent or the degree of something. Huw’s valley is not just green, like the other valleys in Wales. His valley is so green—how very green it is. Right away in both the film’s title and in the film itself, the emphasis is on the uniqueness of the setting of the story. This valley which the Morgans call home is stunningly verdant. As Huw describes it in the opening minutes of the movie, “Green it was, and possessed of the plenty of the earth. In all Wales, there was none so beautiful.” The valley is the provider of life to its residents, giving them food, shelter, and employment through its coal repositories. Since “nature is the hand-maiden of the Lord,” according to Reverend Gruffydd, God gifts the Morgans and their neighbors with provisions for their daily needs through the abundance of their valley. It is such a wonderfully perfect place that the only word that Huw can find to describe its flawlessness is “how,” not a precise description like “perfect” or “amazing,” but a word that is limitless in its connotation of the valley’s greenness. The valley is utterly emerald, lush, and nurturing.

The Morgan family in its “greenness”

How Green Was My Valley

GREEN: A color. Since this film is in black and white, it’s ironic that the greenness of the valley is so important to the story and to the overall meaning of the film. Although at the beginning of the film, the valley is seen through the window covered in the black waste of the coal mine and completely desolate and ruined, Huw chooses to go back to the former greenness of the valley in his memory—even while he packs up his meager belongings to leave the valley forever physically. Yet “green” refers to more than just the color of the location of the story. It can also refer to the harmony of the Morgan family and the community that existed in the past when the coal mine was new and the economy was strong. The Morgans with their six sons and one daughter thrived as the picture-perfect Welsh family, ruled by the authoritarian father and domestic mother. Mr. Morgan is unquestionably the supreme head of the family, but his undeniable love for his gentle wife and his children garners both the respect of his family and community, as well as that of the film’s viewers. For Mr. Morgan, being the leader of the family is not about power and controlling those beneath his authority; rather, it is about providing for their needs and raising them to be capable, respectful (and respectable) adults. Furthermore, the addition to the family of the lovely, caring Bronwyn as the wife of Huw’s older brother Ivor only embellishes the family’s already flourishing state of being. As the valley is green and prosperous, so also are the Morgans, full of life and love and possessed of the esteem and companionship of those around them.

How Green Was My Valley

WAS: A past-tense, state-of-being verb. The valley is no longer green when the story commences. Its greenness was a reality of the past. What changed it? Obviously, the coal mining had more than a little to do with the change in the color of the landscape. But, again, more than merely indicating the hue of the characters’ natural surroundings, the valley and the fact that its color has changed in a negative way connect to the experiences of the characters themselves. Much of the conflict within the plot develops from economic conditions. As the wealthy owners of the coal mine become greedier and as other out-of-work miners become more desperate for employment, the conditions under which the Morgan men work grow more stressful and difficult, ultimately leading to the exodus of four of the Morgans’ sons to other countries in search of livelihoods. Their absence is partly to blame for the metaphorical darkening of the valley. Similarly, the marriage of Angharad, the Morgans’ only daughter, to the cold, snobbish son of the mine owner, a man whom she does not love, increases the growing gloom of the valley—especially since her marriage is barren and loveless, opposed to the marriage she would have had with the man she truly loves, Rev. Gruffydd, had he not been so self-sacrificing as to refuse her in order to spare her a life of poverty. Death also contributes to the reduction of the valley’s original loveliness.

The quaint houses of the miners lining the valley up to the coal mine

How Green Was My Valley

MY: A personal possessive. When Huw begins speaking at the opening of How Green Was My Valley, it becomes clear to the film’s viewer that the events of the story will be seen from Huw’s perspective. From the film’s title, it is evident that the valley likewise belongs to Huw. Thus, the movie deals with personal issues rather than with sweeping national economic crises or wars between powerful countries, examining human issues on a micro level rather than a macro one. The valley belongs to Huw. The story belongs to Huw. And Huw is the hero of the tale. Interestingly, more than once in the film, Huw is forced to choose between the valley and another option for his future. Having been injured when he and his mother fall into a frozen pond, Huw, with Rev. Gruffydd’s constant encouragement, must decide if he will painfully teach himself to walk again in his valley or remain an invalid for the rest of his life. He chooses the valley. Later in the film after excelling in school to the delight of his father who wants Huw to have a different life than that of a miner, Huw again picks the valley, electing to follow his father and brothers into the mine instead of pursuing further education as a doctor or lawyer. Perhaps Huw expresses more ownership of the valley than the other characters do because he so often has to deliberately decide to intertwine his fate with it, while most of the other Morgans abandon their green home.

How Green Was My Valley

VALLEY: The only noun in the title. Valley, not mountain. The lows, not the highs. The trials, not the victories. Although the valley is surrounded by hills and mountains, the lower geographical region is the focus of the film’s story. The Morgans’ experiences in the green valley are seen through Huw’s memory as a series of ups and downs, with the downs predominating. From worsening labor and economic conditions for the miners, to Angharad’s disappointment in love, to Huw and his mother’s accident, to the abuse Huw suffers at the national school, to the hypocrisy of some of the church’s members, and finally to the sudden deaths of members of the Morgan family, Huw’s remembrances of his home valley become as progressively dark as the vale itself. The story is not one of triumph, even though Huw regains his ability to walk and is able to join the older men at work in the mine (doubtless, a mark of attaining manhood in Huw’s mind). Instead, it is a story of change—some good, but most bad—of how industry demolishes nature, hypocrisy smothers love, and the past gives way to a present that is certainly not better than what has already been. Though the final memories Huw gives the film’s viewer are of his family, all together and all living, in the green, green valley, the word he adds to the title of the film simply points out the cold reality of the revolting present when compared to the thriving past: “How green was my valley then.”

For Me Then…

What does the future hold for Angharad and the Reverend?

I had a lot of questions at the end of this movie, and I’ve been pondering them all this week. First, why does Huw leave the valley after 50 years? My hunch is that he stays until his mother dies since he’s wrapping his few belongings in her cloak. But that only leads me to wonder what happened to Bronwyn and her baby. Did they also die, or is Huw taking them with him? Next, what is the final relationship status between Angharad and Rev. Gruffydd? Does Angharad divorce her hated husband and marry her pastor, or are they separated again? Rev. Gruffydd does tell Huw that he would be unable to leave the valley if he were to see Angharad again, and he does see her in the final scene…I hate loose ends. I feel like some, if not all, of my questions could be answered via novel if I picked up the original text as well as its two sequels. We’ll see if that happens this summer.

It’s also super interesting to me that again a BP winner emphasizes the glory of the past over the tribulations of the present. Times used to be good, but the world is growing darker. Death is always lurking (witness the young widows with black shawls over their heads in various scenes of the film) and can snatch whomever it will from this life. So morbid and so depressing. Yet I find myself reminiscing about the past like it was only glorious all the time—and comparing my earlier memories to more recent pains and trials and wishing that I could go back to a simpler time. But in reality, that simpler time didn’t exist; and it was not all sunshine and roses back then either. I’ve just blocked out the bad from years earlier and tinted my memories with a shimmering haze. So, contentment is the lesson I’m trying to take from this film. For as the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy: “But godliness with contentment is great gain” (I Timothy 6:6).