The Secret Garden Essay.

The Secret Garden Essay.

By Helen Van Buskirk

   

Do you know what it feels like to live in a house that you don’t like and out of the blue you find a part of the house that amuses you? In the book “The Secret Garden,’’   by Frances Hodgson Burnet, a girl named Mary is a spoiled little girl. Mary’s parents, in the beginning send her away because she’s too hard to handle. So she is sent to a house where she has to live until, she is old enough to live on her own. The book I read mostly follows Tragedy of mode of literature because it follows the plot line and some of the characteristics.    

               

It follows the plot line of Tragedy. In the beginning, the first point is “World is in conflict for the main character.” Mary has an okay life in India. She doesn’t care about anyone but herself. So her parents send her off to live with a different family. Mary is not so happy about the idea of the new house she’s going to live in so she's pretty upset in the beginning of the book. The next point on the plot line is “Rise to power.” In the middle of the night while Mary is trying to fall asleep she starts to hear crying. Every night, she starts to get more concern and scared. She asks everyone that lives in the house with her where it’s coming from but, no one seems to listen to her. Until one night she follows the noise and finds a boy in a bed crying. Later, on the plot line is the “Tragic flaw/ fall.”  It probably be that Mary gets caught talking to the boy. She wasn’t supposed to know that he was living there to because he was sick. There is really no death in the story. Really "The death" is that she finds out the boys mother died so that's why there's a secret garden. When his mom was alive she take him to the garden. Ever since she's been gone he's been sick. So Mary decides to take him in the garden    every once in a while. That's how the book follows the plot line of Tragedy.   

Besides the part of following the plot line, “The Secret Garden" also follows the characteristics and the purpose. Characteristic is that the main character is in control. In the beginning Mary is a annoying or stubborn girl. For an example she was so use to getting whatever she wanted. But, in the house she now lives in... NO ONE does anything for her. Threw out the story you start to see her not being so stubborn. Mary starts to think about other people and realizes the world doesn’t revolve just on her. In the purpose, you have to think about what the moral lesson is. Moral lesson is basically about Mother Nature. The boy that is sick had a mother, and his dad and him made the secret garden for the mother for one her birthdays. Everyday they go in the garden till the boys mother died. His mother loved flowers and with the love that was shown by the flowers and animals in the garden, was connected to the love his mother had shown for him and for his father by the garden. Flowers, the birds that nested there, the trees and plants were all symbolic of motherly love. Which bring us back to Mother Nature.

   

As you can see "The Secret Garden" best represents Tragedy of mode of literature. It follows the characteristics for when Mary is learning to care about others and not just herself. The moral lesson is about Mother Nature. It also followed the plot line.