Frances H. Burnett ''The Secret Garden'' (Audio Book): Summary and Commentary
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INTRODUCTION
Frances Hodgson Burnett published The Secret Garden (in original language The Secret Garden) in installments in the American Magazine in 1910, and then published it as an independent text in 1911. The novel is a classic of children's literature and follows the adventures of two children, the orphan Mary and her cousin Colin, who work to make a garden hidden by a high wall on the estate of Colin's father and forgotten by him after the death of his wife, which occurred in that very place, flourish again.
The secret garden presents numerous very modern pedagogical ideas compared to the education that was given in the years in which it was conceived. The text, in fact, claims an unprecedented ability of children to operate sensibly and help each other to get out of a moment of crisis. The characters in the novel, therefore, show that they can manage their time independently without necessarily needing the severe supervision of an adult. The education promoted by Burnett, therefore, is not that imparted in dark school classrooms, but that guaranteed by life in the open air and by cooperation. Furthermore, the two children are a boy and a girl and also in this case Burnett moves against the trend with respect to the dictates of the time: the excessive emotional closeness of two children of the opposite sex was in fact judged unbecoming, while Burnett shows through the evolution of its characters how it can also prove fertile in stimuli.
The key metaphor of the entire text fits into this context: that of the garden, which should not only be understood as a physical place but also as a place of the soul, to be cultivated and made to flourish following a problematic situation.
SUMMARY
Mary Lennox has English origins, but due to her father's work, a captain in the army, she has always lived in a distant and exotic land, India, with parents who are as rich as they are selfish and affectionless. At ten years old she undergoes a traumatic experience: her parents and all their servants are struck by a cholera epidemic, only Mary survives and, now completely alone, she is found by a group of soldiers and entrusted to her closest relative, an uncle who remained widower, Lord Archibald Craven.
Mary, who is a grumpy and lonely girl also due to her upbringing, arrives in London and from there taken to her new residence in Yorkshire, Misselthwaite Manor, a majestic residence isolated on the moors. The housekeeper, Mrs. Medlock, works here, a stern and stern woman who dictates the house rules (stay in the rooms assigned to her and not disturb anyone, especially during long periods of uncle's absence) and Martha, a young waitress. who contributes with his cheerfulness to make Mary's arrival at Misselthwaite Manor less traumatic.
Mary is very struck by her uncle's coldness and by the austerity of the place where she will have to live and she discovers from Martha that the strange atmosphere is caused by a misfortune that struck her uncle some time before her. Lord Craven's young wife, Lilias, in fact died following a fall from the swing in her private garden, where she used to spend many pleasant hours. The garden, almost as if he himself were guilty of the woman's death, was forgotten and her only access has been closed ever since. Mary is very curious and does everything to find the hidden door to the garden and the key that can allow her to access a place so full of mystery, but she is unable to satisfy her interest.
Despite Martha's explanation, Mary understands that the mansion hides another secret: in fact, she often hears the sound of distant crying: she tries to inquire with the servants but everyone denies that she can hear anything.
Over time, however, Mary's life at Misselthwaite Manor improves: the little girl gets used to the inhabitants of the house, to which are added the old gardener Ben and Martha's brother, Dickon, and discovers the beauties of the moor, where she is free to run and spend her days.
Mary, in any case, has not abandoned the search for the key to the secret garden and with perseverance she manages to find both the access, hidden by a thick wall of ivy, and the key, hidden under a boulder.
The garden, without care for years, is now dead, buried under mountains of dry leaves and weeds and as soon as Mary sees it she understands that she wants to take care of it. Thanks to Dickon, who keeps her secret and explains the secrets of botany to her, she begins to spend most of her free time working in the garden.
In the same period Mary also solves the second mystery that surrounded Misselthwaite Manor: the inexplicable crying. In one of her explorations of her house, which she set out to try to locate the source of the moans, Mary finds a room inhabited by a boy of her own age who is sick in bed. It's Colin, the cousin she didn't know she had, constantly kept in bed because he suffers from a back disease (Lord Craven is hunchbacked and his son is sure the same fate awaits him) and other physical problems. Colin spends his life lying down and this existence of confinement has made him an unpleasant, spoiled child convinced that he has a series of potentially fatal illnesses. Furthermore, Colin very often has violent hysterical attacks during which he screams and cries without being able to stop. She Mary understands that she has an influence on him and that she can calm him down: she therefore goes to visit him several times and she distracts him by talking to him about the beauties of the moor and telling him about the existence of the secret garden.
Lord Craven, as often happens, is travelling, and Colin, stimulated by his cousin's stories, manages to get the housekeeper's permission to go outdoors. He is thus taken out in a wheelchair, since he has not walked for a long time and everyone thinks he is unable to do so. Mary, with the complicity of Dickon, manages to take Colin to see the garden, but they are caught in the act by Ben. The gardener, who has remained faithful in his memory to his old landlady, flies into a rage and then, having seen Colin for the first time, asks him if he is really "crippled" and has crooked legs and back.
The boy, seized by a surge of pride, stands up and little by little manages to walk. Mary is thus certain that Colin is not really ill, but that his pathology was psychosomatic and determined only by the forced seclusion, which probably lasted years. Colin therefore begins to go out more and more often, recovering his lost strength and contributing to the care of the secret garden with Mary, Dickon and old Ben, who has decided to help them. Dickon and Martha's mother, Mrs. Sowerby, is also made aware of the secret, thanks to whose intervention the story comes to a conclusion. The woman, in fact, decides to write a letter to Lord Craven in which she warmly invites him to return for the sake of her son, but remains very vague about her real motivations. Lord Craven, therefore, after receiving the letter and dreaming of his wife in the secret garden, decides to return.
Once at Misselthwaite Manor Lord Craven, mindful of his dream, heads to the secret garden, where he finds Mary and Colin. Moved to see the garden so loved by his wife returned to its former glory and his son miraculously healthy, he understands that it is time to forget the suffering of the past and start a new, cheerful life with Mary and Colin.
COMMENT
The Secret Garden presents some very peculiar themes for the period in which it was written, both in terms of pedagogical theories and those regarding the regenerative power of nature and the healing power of "positive thinking".
Burnett's ideas are largely influenced by a religious movement called Christianity Scientist (Christian Science in English) and by a set of theosophical doctrines, the so-called New Thought, which had great success in America between the 19th and 20th centuries and which are mainly founded on the belief that everything that comes from God is good by nature and that the divine spirit pervades everything: living in conformity with the things of God, therefore, leads to healing and well-being.
Although the novel therefore has a clear ideological message, Burnett is never pedantic in validating his own thoughts, but lets the narrative convey it, in a non-invasive way, through the mere unfolding of the plot.
At the beginning of the narrative, therefore, the main characters (with the exception of the Martha-Dickon sibling couple) are closed in an unemotional and unhealthy dimension: Mary, victim of her parents' selfishness and their premature death, arrives at Misselthwaite Manor with a solitary nature and not very open towards others. It will be the contact with nature, first that of the moor and then that of the secret garden, and with the others, therefore the gardener Ben and Dickon (the young man has an innate ability to communicate with animals), that will encourage the adhesion of Mary to external reality and to shape her character positively. Over the course of the novel, therefore, Mary changes, becoming an attentive little girl, dedicated to growing new plants and helping her cousin to emerge from the state of psychosomatic illness in which she finds herself.
In the same way, Colin also reinvigorates and comes back to life thanks to outdoor activity and his father, Lord Craven, recovers from the painful introspection into which he sank after the death of his wife thanks to the sight of the garden once again in bloom and of his son now healthy.
It should also be noted that both Mary and Colin come from an extremely wealthy family whose opulence, far from being a means to achieve happiness, has instead constituted a prison. Mary's parents taught the little girl to prefer external things, such as parties and jewels, to emotional relationships between people, and Colin grew up in the belief that the outside is a source of danger and that the only protection is constituted by solid walls of the house, within which he has a series of comforts which, however, instead of promoting his recovery, end up suffocating him.
They are contrasted by Martha and Dickon, who grew up in the countryside in a poor family, finding themselves in daily contact with the fauna and flora of the moor. Martha and Dickon have benefited from living in nature: the two are healthy and cheerful and perfectly at ease with the world.
As we have mentioned, the theory of "positive thinking" is also of considerable importance in the economy of the novel. The lives of the characters, in fact, are unhappy as long as they indulge in fatal thoughts: Mary withdrawing into herself, Colin convincing himself of his own illness and Lord Craven obsessively remembering the happiness of a married life lost forever. The three characters, therefore, acquire both spiritual and physical strength from "positive thinking": Mary decides to revive a dead garden, Colin decides to show the world that he is not "a cripple" but a normal boy, and Lord Craven, admiring the prosperity of the garden and the renewed energy of his son, he manages to forget the past.
In The Secret Garden, Burnett also transposes her own personal experience: in fact, like Mary, she lost her parents at a young age and she too suffered an intercontinental move (in her case from Manchester, England, to Tennessee) and the resulting trauma of having to adapt to life in a new country.
