Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Secret Garden

[Mild spoilers ahead for this book.]

Of course, you have heard of "The Secret Garden" by now. Not only is this book widely considered a classic, but it has been adapted into movies, television, and plays so often that it is very hard to miss. There was even a new film made in 2020. This was the primary reason I wanted to read it. It's all over the place and seems to be a story that the world just doesn't want to let go of.

"The Secret Garden" was written by Frances Hodgson Burnett and published as a book in 1911, although it was first serialized in "The American Magazine." I did not actually look to see when it was written before I read it. This might have been a good idea, because I have to say that it is written in a very easy to understand way. It could have just as easily been a modern book.

But enough about the little details about its production. I am here to ask this question: Is "The Secret Garden" a fairy tale? Well, it might be. If you read this story from cover to cover, it certainly brings up the question of what is really going on in this story.

The book never perfectly says that there is magic in the world... it merely suggests that there might be. It sort of offers fairies and magic on a platter and gives you the option if you want to accept it or not. It's easy to come to either conclusions by the end of it. You might come out of it thinking that magic is real, or you could just chuckle at the suggestion and push the platter away for something more realistic.

Nevertheless, the sorts of things you will find in this book certainly seems to suggest that the author, at the very least, seems to believe that there is some sort of spiritual force at work in our world that makes everything function the way it should. Let me explain some of it in the context of the book.

The story, on the surface, is about a spoiled little girl named Mary who loses everything (parents and caretakers) and ends up in a huge mansion filled with closed doors. Over time, she gains a better outlook on life as she is allowed to play and enjoy the sunshine. She finds out about a secret garden that the owner of the estate apparently locked up after his wife died 10 years ago. She finds this garden and, with the help of several friends, proceeds to revive it.

Among those she meets is a sort of fairy boy of 12 years, named Dickon, that can talk to animals and seems to know just about everything about people, plants, and things. There is also Colin, the supposedly crippled son of the man who owns the estate. He is interesting in his own right, and I'll go a bit more into Colin in a bit. As interesting as Mary is, the characters of Dickon and Colin provide the "magic" for the story.

There is no point within the story that Dickon does not feel like some sort of fairy person. Now I don't believe he was. I don't think he was any sort of demon or angel. He was just a human boy who had his eyes wide open to the world around him. He could see beyond seeing. And yes... he could clearly talk to animals within the book, and they could talk back. I don't really see how this is particularly unrealistic. The animals were still animals. They still did animal things. He was simply able to befriend them and communicate in the same manner of which they communicate with each other. Still, you have to admit, there are few in the world that could claim to understand exactly what he was doing.

As for Colin, his revival ultimately leads him into running, what he called, scientific experiments into the nature of magic. He seemed to believe that magic was the cause of why everything in the world worked correctly and that dark magic was when things were put out of place. Magic could be caused by humans when they would join together and chant in the affirmative for something they wanted to happen, and the book rather subtlety suggests that this influence can extend to areas of the world without any sort of personal contact. You could influence someone without the need to actually be there.

I did find the authors concept of magic fascinating, and there are sentiments presented in this book that I already agreed with, such as the transfer of energy through inspiration. I did enjoy it. The whole book for me really was it's ideals on how magic actually works. The whole world is, in its own way, powered by magical forces provided through God. And we have ways to redirect that magic ourselves. This is mainly what I took away from the reading of this classic piece of literature. Do yourself a favor and pick this one up.

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