The Secret Garden and Catholicism

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susankirwan

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I would like to reopen the topic of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Ten years ago (according to this website) a woman wrote that the secret garden represented the Kingdom of God, the robin represented the Holy Spirit, and Colin was healed thanks to prayer and the healing forces of nature and love, that Dickon was like St. Francis who loved the animals and thus could talk to them. St. Francis also referred to the Sun as “brother Sun” and the moon as “sister Moon.” (St. Francis was not a new-ager by the way, nor was Frances Hodgson Burnett, although she had been interested in Theosophy, in fact, she had been interested in all religions.
My husband who is a Jewish convert to Catholicism, has a slightly different interpretation for the Secret Garden. This book, he thinks, was an unconscious lament for the loss of our Blessed Lady. When Henry VIII began shutting down all the monasteries and convents of England and persecuting the nuns and priests and other Catholic clergy to their deaths so as to head a “Church of England,” he seemed to have had a special hatred for Mary, the Mother of God, for he utterly destroyed her shrine at Walsingham. It may be significant that the person who found The Secret Garden is named Mary, and it is interesting that both of the children lost their “mother.” So too, Colin’s father “locked up” the garden at “the mother’s death” and “forbade” anyone into it, as the Anglicans forbade Catholicism and the honoring of Mary.
Furthermore, this book may have been born of an unconscious yearning for the healing “magic” of the Catholic Church itself (especially our veneration of Mary, a great source of consolation) as well as for the healing “magic” of a mother’s love for her children, especially Mary’s love for us.
 
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I agree with your husband. I haven’t read the book just the saw the movie and I found it cute yet boring. Under interpretation he brings this is now.a different story. Yet only the author of the story can confirm this intention.
PS I agree with Cecilia that maybe you move your topic to Casual Discussion or Spirituality. Site Feedback is for technical matters about the site. Your thread won’t get the attention it deserves here.
 
I think when one reads a book, one can put any sort of interpretation on it that they like.
However, there’s nothing in the author’s background to suggest that she had a specific interest in the Catholic church or in any specific religion other than Christian Science. “Mary” in “The Secret Garden” has been said by some commentators to represent Mary Baker Eddy, and the garden experiences, where people are basically cured of illnesses through exercise and positive thinking rather than through medical care, remind me of Christian Science. The author also suffered from depression and overwork herself and reportedly got some relief by enjoying the garden at a house she was living in just before writing the book, and wrote the garden into the book.

Furthermore, the author spent about as much time in the USA as she did in England, since she had been born in England but grew up in USA and lived large portions of her life there, so it’s hard for me to see her being that interested in English religious history.

The “absent mother” theme is also present in several of her books. Not sure whether it’s just a plot device or represents the fact that she was often absent from the life of her own two sons while she was pursuing her career. One of them became terminally ill and she was away during his illness so she could have based the sick boy character on that.
 
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Those interpretations do make the book more interesting. We just watched the movie, with Maggie Smith and John Lynch. My 5 year old even enjoyed it. It’s a beautiful version, with fast-motion photography of the garden and flowers blooming.
 
I was the bane of literature teachers because no matter what I read a tree was just a tree, a flower was just a flower, and the Little Prince was just a cute tale of a kid who could go from planet to planet. I’m very literal which is why I prefer murder mysteries.
 
I’m pretty literal also, except when it’s clear the author was writing something symbolic. For example, it’s pretty obvious that the Narnia story with the lion dying is symbolic of Christ’s passion and resurrection. The best symbolic work of literature I’ve ever read is Scott Spencer’s “Endless Love” which I picked up due to the dumb connection with Brooke Shields but turned out to be a much deeper book. I also am the bane of literature teachers because they’d probably give me a fisheye for seeing that as a great book. Fortunately I majored in engineering and advance placed out of all college English so I never had to worry about what literature types thought. Yay.

Re “The Secret Garden”, I tried numerous times to read it, but it was just too preachy. As an adult, the idea that fresh air and sunshine and a garden can cure serious depression is just laughable, as is the idea of the climate of India being unhealthy for kids. I much preferred “The Little Princess” and still love that one. It had a lot more action going on in it.
 
This is a fascinating discussion as this is one of my favorite books, and both the 1949 & 93 films are among my favorites too! Can you link the website you referenced in the first paragraph of your post?
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I’m pretty literal also, except when it’s clear the author was writing something symbolic. For example, it’s pretty obvious that the Narnia story with the lion dying is symbolic of Christ’s passion and resurrection. The best symbolic work of literature I’ve ever read is Scott Spencer’s “Endless Love” which I picked up due to the dumb connection with Brooke Shields but turned out to be a much deeper book. I also am the bane of literature teachers because they’d probably give me a fisheye for seeing that as a great book. Fortunately I majored in engineering and advance placed out of all college English so I never had to worry about what literature types thought. Yay.

Re “The Secret Garden”, I tried numerous times to read it, but it was just too preachy. As an adult, the idea that fresh air and sunshine and a garden can cure serious depression is just laughable, as is the idea of the climate of India being unhealthy for kids. I much preferred “The Little Princess” and still love that one. It had a lot more action going on in it.
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I saw the movie long before I read The Secret Garden. Our village school used to have movie afternoons and that’s where I saw The Secret Garden, Captains Courageous and various National Film Board of Canada offerings in the early 60s. I read the Scholastic Books edition of Sara Crewe when I was in grade 7 or so, and saw the movie The Little Princess with Shirley Temple shortly afterwards.

I bought The Little Princess, The Secret Garden, and Little Lord Fauntleroy for my goddaughter which is around the time I read them all, as an already married adult. I must admit I loved the stories.
 
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@susankirwan
Rather the author intended this interpretation or not there is nothing wrong with your husband interpreting it the way he did. Just like a song, the writer may have intended to convey one thing but it may mean something totally different to the listener.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
As an adult, the idea that fresh air and sunshine and a garden can cure serious depression is just laughable
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True. But seems as though what Colin, the sick child in the book, was suffering from was being called “ill” his whole life, and never allowed to go outside or even walk. I doubt he could have learned to walk in the short time portrayed, but he surely could have cheered up once outside in sun and flowers.
 
As much as I enjoyed these stories when I was young,I felt there was a subtle pagan undertone .I had that feeling way back then and still do 🤔
 
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You thought there was a pagan undertone in “A Little Princess”? It was basically a book about being Christlike in the face of extreme persecution.

Not sure how there’s anything pagan about a story about kids playing in a garden either…they talk about “Magic” but that’s somewhere between kid talk and “folk tale” talk.
 
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@Greenfields

I never thought of pagan undertones to the book, but I did see one movie version which had pagan overtones. I was saddened, first because I had let my children watch it, and second because otherwise it was a lovely produvtion.
 
I thought that too, with the addition of his having had no discipline, which struck me more.

I guess her moral, which was very common then, is that discipline is necessary and should be given with a friendly hand.
 
Interesting,I hadn’t known this before but the author turned away from her traditional faith of Church of England ,and embraced Spiritualism and Christian Science.That answers a few things for me.(just looked up her beliefs)
 
I can’t remember what age I was when I read her stories (13 maybe?) but it just had a wrong feel that I picked up on back then.
 
Yes, as I said above, “The Secret Garden” has a lot of Christian Science overtones.
Christian Science isn’t paganism though.

I don’t see a lot of spiritualism in Burnett’s children’s books, at least not any more than the normal “fairy story” or “adventure story” for kids. I could find “spiritualism” overtones in stuff like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn if I wanted to see it through that lens.
 
You’re welcome to disagree with the younger me who was fine with those other two books 🙂
It was Spiritualism with a Capitol S listed as her belief firstly ,and Spiritualism rings of paganism to me.God bless.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
As an adult, the idea that fresh air and sunshine and a garden can cure serious depression is just laughable
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In Britain gardening is currently being heavily promoted for its therapeutic benefits for people suffering from a wide range of mental health disorders. Gardening opportunities are often made available to patients in psychiatric hospitals, and for those not actually being treated in a hospital there are now community gardens which exist specifically to provide the kind of therapy. Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals are in fact able to refer their patients to these kinds of gardens as part of their treatment. There is one garden near me that specialises in helping people suffering from PTSD after being in conflicts (mainly in the Middle East). That’s not to say that gardening on its own would be sufficient to treat major depressive disorder, but I think it can be very beneficial, perhaps especially in cases that are described as “treatment resistant”, which I think usually means “drug resistant”.
 
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