61 pages • 2 hours read
Frances Hodgson BurnettA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Two days later, the rain stops, and the moor no longer looks gloomy or dreary. Martha promises the moor will soon be covered in flowers, and Mary asks if she will ever be able to go there like Dickon. Martha is doubtful because Mary isn’t fit and strong enough to walk that far. It is five miles to Martha’s family cottage on the edge of the moor, but Mary insists that she’d like to see the place. Martha promises to ask her mother how it might be managed.
Mary says she likes Martha’s mother and Dickon, even though she’s never met them. Martha wonders what Dickon would think of Mary. Mary replies that Dickon wouldn’t like her because no one does. Martha prompts Mary about her own self-view, and Mary concludes that she doesn’t like herself, either.
It is Martha’s day off, so after giving Mary her breakfast, Martha leaves, looking forward to a day spent helping her mother with the washing and the baking. Feeling lonely, Mary goes out into the garden. Passing the ivy-covered garden wall, she encounters the robin and follows him to a bare flower bed. He hops onto a little pile of upturned soil, and Mary sees an old key half-buried in the dirt. Pulling it out, she realizes it must be the key to the hidden garden.
Martha returns the next morning and tells Mary all about her day of laundry and baking and the activities of all her younger brothers and sisters, and Mary is charmed and captivated. Martha says that all the young Sowerbys, including Dickon, were fascinated to hear about Mary. Mary promises to tell Martha stories about India so that Martha can entertain the younger ones on her next day off. Martha says that her mother was interested and concerned about Mary and plans to talk to Mrs. Medlock about Mary’s needs. Finally, Martha produces a gift for Mary from Mrs. Sowerby, a skipping rope.
Mary is delighted with the skipping rope once Martha shows her how to use it. She skips up and down the garden paths until she meets the robin, and he greets her with a chirp. Just as Mary steps close to the robin, a gust of wind moves the ivy on the garden wall, and Mary spots the door to the secret garden. Clearing away the ivy, she unlocks the door with the key. A moment later, she is inside the secret garden.
Mary thinks the garden is sweet and mysterious looking even though everything is brown and overgrown. It all looks dead, and Mary wonders if it really is. As she walks along the overgrown paths, she sees tiny plants just sticking out of the dirt of a flower bed. Looking closely at everything, she finds many more plants starting to grow. She is excited to think that not everything in the garden is dead.
For the rest of the day, Mary weeds the flower beds, finding the little green growing points and making room for them to breathe. By day’s end, Mary is surprised to realize that she has been happy and smiling every minute. That evening, Mary asks Martha whether she thinks it would be all right for Mary to have her own little garden. She doesn’t tell Martha that she has got into the secret garden. She knows that if Mr. Craven finds out, he will lock up the garden again, and Mary couldn’t bear that.
Martha thinks Mary’s having a garden is a wonderful idea, and her mother had suggested that very thing. Mary receives enough money from Mrs. Medlock every week to buy a set of garden tools and some seeds. Martha assures her that Dickon can go into the village and obtain exactly what she needs. Martha leaves to fetch some paper for Mary to write a letter to Dickon. While Martha is gone, Mary hears the sound of distant crying again. When Martha returns, Mary asks her about the crying, which she has now heard three times. Martha pretends to hear Mrs. Medlock calling and darts out of the room.
Spring is coming, and Mary feels more a part of her new home and its people. She has taken an interest in Martha’s family, and they are becoming people to her through Martha’s stories. The fact that Mary likes Martha’s family shows that she is learning to see other people as individuals. For example, when she learns that Martha’s brothers and sisters are fascinated with her, she makes a plan to entertain them by sharing exotic stories about India.
Mary is learning to think of herself as more than just her feelings, as she does, for example, when Martha asks her whether she likes herself. Martha’s family seems to like Mary despite never having seen her, which also helps Mary see herself as other people see her.
Martha’s mother is like Mary’s fairy godmother. When she sends Mary the skipping rope, the gift appears as if by magic. The skipping rope is a clever solution to the problem of how Mary will ever get strong enough to walk all the way to the cottage to meet Martha’s family. Skipping rope will help Mary build her strength and stamina for such a long walk. In the future, Mrs. Sowerby will also smooth the way for Mary in other ways by speaking to Mrs. Medlock and Mr. Craven about her and advising them on what is best for her.
Martha demonstrates an adult attitude about work when she looks forward to laundry and baking with her mother. As children grow older, they become more interested in activities with goals other than having fun in the moment. Martha has learned to find pleasure in tasks that produce something valuable, like baking bread to feed her little brothers and sisters, and she enjoys the little tasks in the process, like kneading dough or mixing batter. Mary will learn from her labors in the garden that work can be as happy as play when it is done to accomplish something worthwhile.
Martha has a very close relationship with her mother. She admires her mother and is proud of her importance in the community; Mrs. Sowerby is a wise woman, and people take her advice. Part of Martha’s pleasure in going home is that, by doing some of the work, she makes her mother’s life easier.
Mary’s incremental maturation triggers the incremental revelation of the secret garden. For Mary, thinking about herself and realizing that she doesn’t like herself is the first step in her maturation. After that step, the robin leads her to the brass key that opens the garden door. The next day, using what she has learned about herself, Mary progresses to thinking about what will make Martha’s brothers and sisters happy. By thinking of others, she earns the right to enter the garden, and the robin shows her the door. Once inside, Mary begins the real work of discovering herself while bringing the garden to life. As she weeds, prunes, and plants the garden, Mary weeds, prunes, and plants the seeds of her new self.
The garden is a metaphor for Mary’s mind. The garden appears sweet and mysterious to Mary even though everything looks dead. Only when she looks closely does she see the tiny green points of life popping up from the earth. On the surface, Mary’s mind seems like a great dry tangle with no life in it, but on closer look, the first newborn bits of her personality are beginning to poke through the surface. Under everything that seems dead and dry is the real Mary and discovering herself is a happy mystery.
Mary has heard the sound of crying three times now. Three is a significant number in myths and fairytales. The third repetition signals that the source of the crying is about to be revealed. Mary has also completed the first two tasks in her quest—finding the key and entering the garden. Her third task is discovering Colin and raising him from the underworld.
By Frances Hodgson Burnett