The Secret Garden
by Frances Hodgson Burnett
[Please note that this review does include spoilers.]
Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden is probably the most popular children’s book written by someone not named Suess, Rowling, Silverstein, Baum, Carroll, or Grimm. Like any book that inevitably falls into the category of “classic children’s book,” Burnett uses devices, characters, plot transitions, and subject matter that kids will find interesting and, simultaneously, adults will enjoy even if the respective reasons for enjoyment are mutually exclusive. Kids will always find secrets to be intoxicating; adults will always admire grown-up themes that are constructed around a child’s universe.
The Secret Garden begins with Mary Lennox having to move in with her uncle in Yorkshire from India after her parents have died of cholera. Mary is an unlikable and gaunt little girl who is used to having every one of her whims carried out by servants and is used to being kept away from people (her parents thought her to be so ugly and crass), so her arrival to the Yorkshire moor is viewed as being completely unspectacular in her eyes. She does not like people, has no desire to befriend anyone, could care less about all of the nature that envelops her, and mostly wishes she could have brought her servants with to her new home. After being introduced to her uncle Archibald and the housekeeper Mrs. Medlock, she meets Martha, the maid, and is told that somewhere on the estate is a secret garden that her uncle locked up ten years ago after his wife died.
On her way to searching for the secret garden she runs into one of the gardeners—the gruff and grunting Ben Weatherstone—before finally unearthing the key to the ivy-covered entrance of the secret garden. The rest of the book follows the great and time-tested formula of “kid(s) meets other outcast-type kid(s) and they band together to find something hidden.” In this case, it is Mary who stumbles upon her cousin Colin, who believes he is terminally sick, and Dickon, younger brother of Martha. As Mary becomes more and more engrossed with the garden and hanging around Dickon, she eats more, begins to fill out and wears happier expressions. Just like Mary, Colin was raised in solitude and started to believe that life was unrewarding. His father, in a way to escape the pain of his dead wife, travels all over the country on business trips for most of the year and avoids his son. Add to this, Colin has been told over and over that he is in bad health and will die at a young age. When Colin and Mary finally meet and when she finally confides in him that the garden exists, Colin becomes a happier and more playful child because he, like Mary, has something positive to look forward to everyday.
As alluded to earlier, successful children’s books must convey themes that will resonate with adults and Burnett used The Secret Garden to project to her readers what Christian Science was by advancing the idea that Mary and Colin became healthier once they thought positively and did healthy work. The idea that fresh air, hard work, positive thoughts (what Colin refers to as the “Magic” later on), and the resistance of negative thoughts can provide a good life for you. Christian Science helped Burnett get through the death of her son so it would stand to reason that its themes would ultimately form a foundation of the story. Overall, it is a good book that is a short read but it definitely feels dated, especially after reading all seven Harry Potter books.
This is not a slight against the book or against Burnett as The Secret Garden is very much a microcosm of the time in which it was written (the introduction makes the very astute point of referencing the other writings—most notably, The Varieties of Religious Experiences and Hard Times—that may have shaped the story). The Secret Garden was the Harry Potter of its time and, at some point, even Mr. Potter’s adventures will be seen as tiresome and/or boring by future generations of kids. This is why adults are the key to a book achieving “classic” status and adults will probably still enjoy The Secret Garden or, at the very least, use it as a template for bedtime stories for many, many generations to come.
