61 pages • 2 hours read
Frances Hodgson BurnettThe Secret Garden
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1910A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Mary Lennox was born to English parents in India. Her father worked in the British government, and her mother was vain and beautiful. Her mother didn’t want a child, so after Mary was born, she was handed over to a native nurse, or “Ayah,” who was told to keep the infant out of her way. Mary’s weak and sickly father took no interest in Mary. Mary also was sickly and grew up fretful and unloved. The servants gave her whatever she wanted so she wouldn’t cry or scream and disturb her mother, and she became unbearably spoiled.
One morning, when Mary is 10 years old, she wakes to find that her Ayah has not come to dress her. Many of the other servants are gone, and Mary is left alone. She plays by herself in the garden, sticking flower blossoms into little piles of dirt. Mary later learns there has been a cholera outbreak. Her Ayah and parents have died, and many of the servants are sick while the rest have run away. Amid the panic, everyone has forgotten about Mary.
Chapter 2 Summary
Mary is found and sent to stay at the home of an English clergyman with five children until British officials can locate her real family. Because she is so disagreeable to the other children, they make up a nickname for her. One of the children finds her pretending to make a little garden under a tree. Mary snaps at him, and he and the other children taunt her with a nursery rhyme: “Mistress Mary, quite contrary, / How does your garden grow? / With silver bells, and cockle shells, / And marigolds all in a row” (6). After that, they all call her “Mistress Mary Quite Contrary.”
Later, Mary is sent to England to live at Misselthwaite Manor with her uncle and guardian, Mr. Archibald Craven. She is met in London by Mrs. Medlock, the housekeeper from Misselthwaite Manor, who says that the Manor is big and grand and gloomy. It is 600 years old and has almost 100 rooms. She tells Mary that it stands on the moor's edge and is surrounded by gardens and trees: “But there’s nothing else,” she adds quickly (9). She then tells Mary not to wander and poke around the house because Mr. Craven wouldn’t like it.
She warns Mary that Mr. Craven isn’t going to trouble himself with her, just as he doesn’t trouble himself with anyone. Mrs. Medlock adds that Mr. Craven has a crooked back, and since his wife’s death, he’s had a sour disposition.
Chapter 3 Summary
After getting off the train at the Thwaite station in Yorkshire, Mary hears the local dialect for the first time spoken by the stationmaster, and Mrs. Medlock answers in the same way. It is dark on the 5-mile drive across the moor, but Mary can see a little. The moor is wide and flat with no trees but many bushes and low-growing things. The wind through the bushes sounds like the sea, and Mary doesn’t like it. Finally, they pass through the gates onto the Misselthwaite grounds and drive another two miles along a tree-lined avenue.
They arrive at a long, low house where only one window in an upstairs corner room shows any light. After passing through the huge oak entrance door held together by iron bars, they enter an enormous room with portraits on the walls and spooky looking suits of armor. The butler, Mr. Pitcher, tells Mrs. Medlock to take Mary to her room; the master, who is leaving in the morning, doesn’t want to see Mary and doesn’t want to be disturbed by anything.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
The Secret Garden is written from the omniscient point of view, which allows the author to speak directly to the reader and share things the characters don’t know about themselves. For example, the author reveals that Mary often thinks other people are disagreeable but doesn’t know she also is disagreeable.
Twice on the way to Misselthwaite Manor, Mrs. Medlock stops herself, declaring there is nothing else to say about the house or Mr. Craven. She finally warns Mary not to wander around the house. These three incidents foreshadow the existence of a mystery inside the house. Mr. Pitcher adds to that impression when he reminds Mrs. Medlock that there are things Mr. Craven doesn’t want to see. Mary is oblivious to these clues, but they tell the reader there is a mystery to uncover.
Mary’s first exposure to the Yorkshire dialect at the train station signals her arrival in what is, to her, a foreign land with its own language. The language will come to symbolize everything magical and mysterious about her new home. Her arrival in a strange land is also symbolized by gates, doors, and passages. She passes through the gates into the park that marks off the boundaries, transforming Misselthwaite Manor into a magical little country of its own. The gates symbolize the end of her old life and the beginning of a new one. She then goes through a long tunnel under the canopy of trees. A tunnel—usually that of a passage underground—is associated with death, so when she comes out of the tunnel at the other end, she returns to the living world as if reborn. Finally, the huge oak and iron-bound front door of the house is menacing and intimidating. It warns her that she should think carefully before passing through because once on the other side, there will be no going back. However,, Mary has no choice. She has nowhere to go back to.
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By Frances Hodgson Burnett
