Character Analysis of Secret Garden

     Mindanao State University

College of Social Sciences and Humanities

College English Club

An Analysis of the Characters

 Of the novel “Secret Garden”

Irish Belle H. Cabes

Fiction

Prof. Donna Alna COrtez

November 2015

1. Author’s Biography

Frances Hodgson Burnett was born on Nov. 24, 1894 in Manchester, England. The playwright and author was best known for her children’s novels, including Little Lord Fauntleroy and The Secret Garden. She also wrote the novel Through One Administration about corruption in Washington, D.C., in 1883 and later a historical novel called A Lady of Quality in 1896.

Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett was the eldest daughter in a family of two boys and three girls. After her father's death when she was three years old, the Burnett experienced severe financial difficulties. As a young girl, she would scrawl little stories on sheets of old notebooks, as she was unable to afford proper writing materials. In 1865 the family moved to Tennessee where they lived in a log cabin and the teenage Frances set up a little school. She began submitting stories to women's magazines and in a time when most women did not have careers, Frances Hodgson was a literary success.

In 1873 she married Dr. Swan Burnett and they had two sons -- Lionel, born 1874, and Vivian, born 1876 -- but the marriage was not a happy one. Her younger son, Vivian, clamored for something for little boys to read, so Frances wrote "Little Lord Fauntleroy" and modeled the main character after him. In 1890 tragedy struck when her eldest son, Lionel, died of influenza. Frances and Swan separated and finally divorced in 1898, and she went on to remarry Stephen Townshend. Frances moved to Long Island, New York in 1901 and there began to write her two most famous stories -- "A Little Princess" and "The Secret Garden", inspired by her poor childhood and her love for gardening. She began rather eccentric in her old age, but delighted in her grandchildren. Frances Hodgson Burnett died on 29 October 1924.

Her Works:

That Lass o' Lowrie's (1877), Lindsay's Luck (1878), Haworth's (1879), Louisiana (1880), A Fair Barbarian (1881), Through One Administration (1883), Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), Sara Crewe or What Happened at Miss Minchin's (1888) The Fortunes of Philippa Fairfax (1888), The Pretty Sister of José (1889), The Drury Lane Boys' Club (1892), The One I Knew the Best of All: A Memory of the Mind of a Child (1893)

Little Saint Elizabeth, and Other Stories (1893), Two little pilgrims' progress. A story of the City Beautiful (1895), A Lady of Quality (1896), In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim (1899), The Making of a Marchioness (1901), The Land of the Blue Flower (1904)

A Little Princess: Being the Whole Story of Sara Crewe Now Told for the First Time (1905)

Queen Silver-Bell (1906), The Shuttle (1907),The Secret Garden (1911), My Robin (1912), The Lost Prince (1915), The Little Hunchback Zia (1916), The Head of the House of Coombe (1922)

1. The Secret Garden Summary

Mary become orphan as her mother and father died in the cholera which leaves her alone. Mary is sent to live in Yorkshire with her uncle; a man whom everyone describes as a miserable hunchback. Her Uncle Archibald Craven live in Misselthwaite Manor estate with over one hundred rooms but many of them have been locked down.

As the day passed Mary hears about the locked garden also known as the secret garden. According to Martha, the good- native servant of Mary. The garden was locked up for ten years because it was Mrs. Craven’s garden that she had made when they were married but one day as she was sitting under the big tree, the branch broke she fell on the ground and hurt badly that  in the next day she died.

When Martha walk to the garden everyday, she simply looking to the door of the Garden. One day, she met Ben Weatherstaff and his only friend a bird with the red breast, the Robin.

One day, Mary followed the Robin because he won’t stop hopping. The robin stop to a small pile of freshly turned up earth. He stopped there and looked for a worm. The earth have been turned up because a dog have been trying to dig up a mole and as a result a deep hole was formed. Mary looked at the hole she saw something almost buried in the newly- turned soil. It was a ring of rusty iron. It was more than a ring, it was an old key which been buried for many years. Mary realized, it is the key to the secret garden.

The Next day, Martha give a skipping rope to Mary and Mary keep on skipping in the garden he found again the robin. As the wind passed the wind swung aside some loose ivy trails and Mary seen something under it – a round knob which have been covered by the leaves hanging own it. It was the knob of a door and a few seconds later Mary was standing inside the secret Garden. Few days later, Mary finally met the famous Dickon whom he bought her garden tools and some seedings.

One day in Misselthwaite Manor the rain won’t stop from pouring down that made Mary sat up in bed and felt miserable and angry. She hated the heavily beating rain and wind until the door of her room was slightly open and the sound came down the corridor a fretful crying. She steady for a few more minutes she become and become sure about it.

Mary decided to find what it is. It was the second time she hears crying person in the corridor. She took the candle and went softly out of the room. She found the tapestry door. She pushed it open very gently and closed it behind her. It was a big room with ancient, handsome furniture in it. She found a boy lying on the bed and crying fretfully.

The boy had a sharp delicate face and he seemed to have eyes too big for it. He is a boy who had been ill, but he was crying more as if he were tired and crossed than as if he were in pain.