The Secret Garden study guide

Mary

Mary survives the outbreak that kills her parents and later shares the secret work of reviving the garden with Dickon. Her challenge to Colin's fear, followed by a comforting garden story, shows her growing ability to care for someone else.

Key chapters: 1, 11, 17

Colin

Colin commands the household, but talking with Mary brings him cheerfulness, and entering the garden gives him hope of recovery. His eventual run toward his father and walk home without his chair show a change from dependence to confidence.

Key chapters: 14, 20, 27

Dickon

Dickon earns Mary's trust by bringing seeds and tools into the work of the hidden garden. He also urges outdoor healing for Colin and brings food and exercises, making his friendship a practical source of care.

Key chapters: 10, 18, 24

Martha

Martha comforts Mary while challenging her dependence and telling her about Dickon and the locked garden. Her help with gardening supplies shows how encouragement becomes practical support for Mary's new interests.

Key chapters: 4, 9

Ben Weatherstaff

Ben Weatherstaff befriends a robin but initially refuses Mary's questions about the garden entrance. When he discovers Colin's strength and reveals his own secret gardening, his guarded behavior gives way to a shared connection.

Key chapters: 4, 22

Susan Sowerby

Susan Sowerby supports Mary's need for freedom and exercise, and she brings motherly affection to Colin in the garden. Her letter urging Mr. Craven home extends this care toward a reunion.

Key chapters: 12, 26, 27

Mr. Craven

Mr. Craven is Mary's grieving uncle and guardian, but he gives her permission to garden rather than beginning lessons immediately. His return and joyful discovery of his son's health suggest a movement away from isolation.

Key chapters: 2, 12, 27

Renewal through nature

Mary's discovery of living shoots and Colin's new belief in recovery connect the garden's growth with the children's changing lives. Colin's act of standing and planting a rose shows renewal as something he participates in, not merely something he watches.

Where it shows: chapters 9, 20, 22

Friendship and care

Colin's account of Mary's help suggests that friendship changes what people attend to, giving companionship a place in recovery.

Where it shows: chapters 4, 11, 19

Grief and isolation

Mary's abandonment after her parents' deaths and Mr. Craven's avoidance of company show different forms of isolation surrounding loss.

Where it shows: chapters 1, 2, 27

Secrecy and trust

Mary's decision to admit Dickon and Ben Weatherstaff's revelation show secrecy becoming a basis for shared trust rather than complete separation. Yet Mary and Colin's concealment of their improving health suggests that a protective secret can also involve deliberate deception.

Where it shows: chapters 10, 22, 24

The secret garden

The garden holds living roses even before Mary and Dickon revive it. Its recovery alongside Colin's new hope suggests that neglected life can still respond to care.

Chapters 11, 20

The key

The buried key comes into Mary's life through her attention to a robin. Alongside her discovery of the entrance, it works as an image of access to a previously closed possibility.

Chapters 7, 8

Colin's chair

Colin's chair accompanies his first journey into the garden. His later walk home without it makes the chair a visible measure of the change in his strength and independence.

Chapters 20, 27

The narrator, Chapter 2. The line shows that her isolation involves more than her present situation as an orphan.

Mary Lennox, Chapter 9. Her attention to surviving plants suggests a new ability to notice hope rather than assume complete loss.

Colin, Chapter 17. His uncertain question shows hope beginning to emerge without pretending that his anxiety has already vanished.