Frances Hodgson Burnett, a world-renowned female writer, was born in England on November 24, 1849, and immigrated to the United States with her family in 1865.
She is best known for three works of children's literature: The Little Lord, published in 1886, The Little Princess in 1905, and The Secret Garden in 1911. In particular, "The Secret Garden", once published, immediately became popular and was adapted into films and TV series countless times. For more than a hundred years, it has been a traditional reading for British and American families.
The story of The Secret Garden goes like this:
The little girl Mary was born in British colonial India, her father was a British government clerk, and her mother loved to socialize and did not care about her. She was accompanied every day by an Indian nurse and a servant. Mary was not good-looking, arrogant and rude to the wet nurse and the servants.
Even her governess didn't like her, and none of them taught her for long. One day cholera broke out, Mary's mother's parents and many others died, and the undead servants in the house ran out. An officer who knew her father came to the house and was shocked to find that there was still a little girl alive in the abandoned house.
Mary was taken back to England to the estate of Monsieur Archibald-Cranvin. Mr. Cranvin is Mary's uncle and will be her guardian. Mary was picked up by Mrs. Mordrock, the housekeeper of the manor.
Mary arrives at the manor and is told that the owner does not want to see her. The maid who took care of her was called Martha, and Mary treated Martha rudely, and Martha was not angry, but told her that she should do what she should do herself.
Mary met an old gardener on the estate and made friends with a mockingbird.
One day, while playing with the birds, Mary found a garden, but the garden was surrounded by walls and could not find a door to enter. The servant Martha told her that the garden belonged to the deceased Lady Crane. After madame's death, the garden was closed. At night, Mary heard a cry in the house, but Martha told her it was the sound of the wind.
Some days later Mary heard crying again, but no one told her what was going on.
Spring came, and Mary gradually began to like the maid Martha, and accidentally found the key to the secret garden.
Martha often told Mary about her family and about Mary. Martha brought a jump rope from home to Mary. Although Martha's family is very poor, Martha's mother still paid for a jump rope for her daughter to bring to Mary. The mother wanted Mary to be strong and happy. Led by the robin, Mary accidentally discovers the door of the secret garden: it is hidden under the ivy.
Mary entered the garden and excitedly worked in the garden for hours. In the house, Mary heard crying again.
The maid Martha asked her brother Deacon to bring Mary tools for gardening and some flower seeds. Mary and Deacon go to the Secret Garden and work together to renovate it. Mary loved Deacon.
The owner of the manor, Mr. Cranvin, wants to see Mary. Because the maid Martha's mother talked to the owner of the manor about Mary. Mr. Cranvin was an unhappy man, hunchbacked.
Mary finally found the source of the cry. It turned out that there was also a little boy living in the house, named Colin, who was the son of the owner of the manor, Cranvin.
The boy was bedridden all day, and the father did not want to see the weak son, choosing to spend most of his time traveling. The whole house believed that the child's back would also be deformed like his father's, and that he would not live long.
Colin has a bad temper and is prone to hysteria. His doctor was his father's cousin, and some hoped that the child would die so that in the future he could inherit the estate as a relative.
Colin was intrigued by Mary of the same age and instructed the servants and doctors to see Mary often.
Mary and Deacon often worked in the garden. Colin and Mary quarrel and scold each other for being selfish.
Colin began to go hysterical in the middle of the night, and the maid and nurse could do nothing. The nurse approached Mary, who reprimanded Colin and examined his back, finding that there was no deformation at all. After the adults dispersed, Mary took his hand and sang a song to lure him to sleep.
Unconsciously, Mary found herself less obnoxious than she had been before. Mary tells Colin that they have a secret garden, and Colin hopes to visit it with them one day.
Mary often talks to Colin about the outside world, and Colin's mental state gradually improves. His doctor, though somewhat disappointed, did not lose his integrity.
Colin orders the servants of the house not to go near the garden, and he finally sees the garden with his own eyes and learns that it is his mother's garden. Colin planted roses.
When the weather was good, Colin worked and played with Mary and Deacon in the garden every day, and he grew stronger day by day. On a rainy day, Colin and Mary explore the rooms in the huge mansion where no one lives.
One day, the maid Martha's mother came to their garden, and she brought them food. The radiance of her motherhood made everyone feel happy and warm, and Colin really wished she was his own mother.
Colin's father receives a letter from Martha's mother, hoping he will return home. Colin's father returns from a long trip and is pleasantly surprised to find that his son has turned into a strong and handsome young man.
The book "The Secret Garden" writes about the changes of two people, one is from Colin, the son of the owner of the manor, and the other is from the little girl Mary. Colin's changes were intense and eye-catching, bouncing between the lines of every line describing him. He appears as a pale, frail little boy who believes he will inherit his father's hunchback. His world was like an ice cellar, noisy but without any sense of existence: the servant felt that he was a hysterical little master who would soon die, and his dearest father did not want to see him.
His doctor also wanted him to die so that he could inherit the estate as a relative in the future. The child lived like an invisible man in this deep house, and Mary had not known for a long time that she had such a cousin. Colin was afraid of everything, thinking that the air outside would kill him.
The arrival of cousin Mary changed all that. She sees Colin as an equal and doesn't buy his bad temper. She was convinced that nature would make the boy better, and she brought outside information, about plants, about animals, about friends, about the garden, and then she insisted on taking the boy to their secret garden.
In the garden, Colin basked in the sun, basked in friendship, bathed in the vitality of life, leaving that gloomy world far behind. Colin grew stronger and stronger, and finally became a healthy and handsome boy.
In contrast to Colin's strong change, the little girl Mary's change is somewhat invisible. Mary is not attractive when she appears, she is mediocre, has a bad temper, and treats her mother and maid very badly. She was ignored by her mother and did not know how to love others. When sent to her uncle's estate, she treated her maid Martha with impolite manners.
But she discovered the outside world, met the gardener, and got to know a mockingbird, which made her realize the warmth of being liked. Then she began to like Martha, and liked Martha's brother Deacon.
Feel the warmth that Martha's mom brings to her. When colin's situation is clear, the little girl who was once so unpleasant becomes the only person here who cares about the little boy who is dying.
She insisted on giving him hope for life in the way she believed, so that his life would wake up from the brink of death, slowly stand up, and finally become strong. And she herself has unconsciously become mature and strong.
The warmest thing in this book is the maid Martha's mother. What is wonderful is that this mother has very few direct appearances, and her appearance is mainly in the mouth of others. But her image is unusually clear and kind.
She raised many children and allowed them to run freely on the wasteland. Her family was poor, but in the heart of her eldest daughter, Martha, she was heavenly, happy every time she could go home. She listened to her daughter tell about Mary, and although she had never seen the nasty little thing, she was full of maternal love and understanding for the child.
She instructed the manor's housekeeper to treat Mary kindly, even ignoring her humble status, and plucked up the courage to talk to the owner of the manor, Mr. Cranvin, and reminded the latter that there was a little girl in the manor not to ignore her life. Martha's mother, who had little money, took out two pennies and bought a jump rope for her daughter to give to Mary, because she wanted to make the skinny little girl stronger.
While the owner of the manor, Clenvin, was wandering around, she wrote a letter to the father asking him to return to her home to have a look. Martha's mother was particularly knowledgeable about children, and Mrs. Mordrock, the housekeeper of the manor, once said, "Yesterday when I went to Sweet Village, I stopped at her farmhouse and we talked. She said to me, 'Well, Sarah Ann, she may not be a good child, she may not be a beautiful child, but she is a child, and children need children.' At the end of the story, Colin leaned against Martha's mother "standing very close, eyes fixed on her, with a kind of fascination of admiration, when suddenly he grabbed the cloth of her blue smock and clenched it." "You're just like me—I want to," he said, "and I wish you were my mom—and Deacon's!" ”
Another delightful character in the story is the maid Martha. Martha had not read any books and was the eldest daughter of a family of many siblings. She usually works as a maid and goes home to help her mother on her days off. Growing up in a poor family and working in an indifferent environment, none of these negative things seemed to leave any bad marks on Martha.
She was happy, kind, and as simple as the wind in the wilderness she loved, bringing the warmth of spring to a sojourn little girl in a big, gloomy mansion. She taught the girl that she could be taken care of, but that she should also learn to be independent.
She also taught this unpleasant little girl that life can be hard, but happiness is there. It can be said that this simple and self-loving girl was the first teacher of the little girl Mary.
Like the author's other children's works, there is something in this beautiful story that is chillingly realistic. Behind the passionate change of life of little girl Mary and cousin Colin is a cold truth: they are both abandoned children. Mary's mother was beautiful, but her life was like not having this child.
She loves to socialize and always lets the nurse and maid take the little girl to a place where she should not disturb her. So much so that people just heard that there was a child in their big house. When cholera broke out, people fled to the death, and no one knew that there was a little girl alive in the house.
Colin grew up without a mother, and his father believed he would inherit his hunchback and die before he could reach adulthood. So he chose to stay away from this child and wander around all year round.
Colin's doctors also want him dead so he can inherit the manor in the future. The other people around him have created a terrifying atmosphere without malice, that is, the child's back will be hunched in the future, and he will not live long. Until Mary entered his life.
The girl is like the only child in The Emperor's New Clothes who tells the truth, she examines Colin's back, tells him that his back doesn't have any bulging places, and tells him he's not going to die. In this way, two children who were initially abandoned by the adult world survived hand in hand.
Loved the name of the book, The Secret Garden. The manor in the story is surrounded by wasteland, and in this cold environment, the secret garden sounds particularly warm. In each of our lifetimes, long or short, we will all experience winter. But as long as we have our own secret garden in our hearts, we will always have spring.