Literature about Childhood and Adolescence
ENG 204

The Secret Garden
Essay

The Secret Garden is partly based on Frances Hodgson Burnett’s experience and beliefs, particularly when she evokes the garden but also when she describes the characters. Nowadays, this novel is considered as a classic of children’s literature but it seems that actually it is more addressed to adults than to children. We can wonder how the narrator presents chracters and events and how he renders judgements on them. How does the narrator’s commentary shape-or attempt to shape- the reader’s perspections? Does this reinforce or undermine the separation between adult and child? Does the narrator’s voice support or undermine children’s literature’s traditional didactic function?
The aim of this essay is to demonstrate that this novel is addressed to children in the sense that it is a criticism of the way children were raised in the upper classes, during the early 20th century. The moral aspect is embodied by the characters and norms are reversed as moral lessons are given by children to adults. The story is laden with religious connotations which are part of the morality of the story and demonstrate how the narrator tends to shape the reader’s perspections, particularly by using Christian Science and New Thought theories.

First of all, one can notice that adult figures are nearly absent in this book. The main characters are Mary Lennox, her cousin Colin Craven and Dickon Sowerby. The way these characters are described expresses the narrator’s opinion about specific subjects. Indeed, Mary is described as a sickly, unsightly, foultempered little girl who loves no one and whom no one loves: “she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen” (p.1). She has similarities with her cousin Colin as they are both sick, tyrannical and spoiled. Through these characters and their behaviors, the narrator renders a judgement on education. As a matter of fact, the omniscient narrator makes it