The Secret Garden

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The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Children’s

Jul 29, 2018

The story begins in India, with sickly, plain, moody Mary Lennox. Unloved by her pretty mother, Mary has been raised by servants who’ve done nothing but indulge the child in order to appease her petulance. Orphaned by cholera, she is shipped off to England to live with her uncle, Archibald Craven, an equally ill-tempered person whose slight hunchback symbolizes his cramped heart, embittered by ceaseless mourning for his deceased wife. Soon after arriving on the estate, Mary stumbles upon a walled garden that’s been locked and abandoned since the death of Mrs. Craven. Unbeknownst to anyone, Mr. Craven has buried the key; Mary, guided by a helpful robin (one of the story’s several fairy-tale touches), unearths it and surreptitiously rejuvenates the dormant plot, creating—with the help of her maid Martha and Martha’s resourceful young brother Dickon—an oasis that will not only nurture Mary’s emotional flowering, but restore the health of her invalid cousin and rouse her uncle from his profound grief. Ripe with metaphor and a heartwarming faith in the sympathetic magic of nature and friendship, The Secret Garden is a lovely fable of perseverance, restoration, and redemption.

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