![]() ![]() Mary finds the key to the garden, but she still can’t find the door. Mary hears someone crying in the middle of the night, but the servants try to convince her it is only the wind. One of the housemaids tells Mary about a secret garden that has been locked up for ten years. The servants also mostly ignore Mary, and she is left on her own quite a bit to play outside and wander the gardens. He sees her once and then goes away, travelling. Just like her parents, Mary’s uncle seems to take little interest in her. Mary is sent to England to live with her uncle, a rich widower she has never met. Mary’s parents die of cholera, and she is left all alone. Mary is mostly raised by servants, who fear her temper and give in to her every demand. Mary, a rich British girl, lives in India with her young and selfish parents who often forget they have a child. Let’s dive in and see how these function in The Secret Garden! Plot Points in The Secret Garden Stasis (e) Climax-does the protagonist succeed, or do they fail while learning something important? (d) Rising action-what stands in the protagonist’s way? (c) Point of no return-the event that ensures the protagonist can never go back to the way their life was before the novel opened. (b) Inciting incident-what sets the story in motion? ![]() (a) Stasis or status quo-what’s normal life like for the protagonist? You probably are somewhat familiar with the common plot points found in most novels. ![]() Let’s break down the novel further and delve into its plot points. Near the middle of the book, the garden takes on even more emotional significance, as it is used to help restore the health of her cousin Colin, the mysterious child she heard crying in the night. In this case, finding and restoring the garden gives lonely Mary something to care about, and as she works toward this goal, she becomes less spoiled, more independent, and much kinder. It has to matter to the protagonist and be part of how they are changed as a result of the events of the novel. Mary’s main goal then becomes “find this secret garden.” She does end up finding the garden about halfway through the novel, at which point, the goal shifts slightly to become “bring the garden back to life.”Īnother tricky aspect of finding our novel’s main goal is ensuring that this goal is not arbitrary or random. But in this case, the goal is pretty clear: when Mary first arrives at her mysterious new home, she learns about a secret garden, one that has been locked up and the key hidden ever since its owner’s death over a decade earlier. This can be difficult to put our finger on, as characters often have many goals along the way, as well as deeper psychological and emotional needs, which we will get to in a bit. Probably the most important (and difficult) part of writing any novel is figuring out what the protagonist’s main goal will be. When Mary’s parents die and she is sent to live with her uncle, she must discover the secrets of his estate and bring a garden back to life in order to gain her own happiness and save the life of her cousin. "When A (inciting incident) happens, B (character) must do C (action) otherwise/before D (catastrophe)." (Screenwriters might call this a logline.) For an example, we can use Hannah Sheppard’s pitch test: Mary sets out to discover the secrets of Misselthwaite and bring the garden back to life.ĭespite the complexities of any novel, I think it’s useful when studying structure to see if a novel’s plot can be distilled into one line. She also hears rumors of a mysterious garden, locked up for over a decade after the death of her uncle’s wife. The manor is full of secrets, though, and Mary often hears the screams of a child echoing its halls at night, despite the servants’ insistence that it is only the wind. At Misselthwaite, she is mostly ignored and left to wander outside in the gardens. Mary is disagreeable, used to being waited on, and initially does not even know how to dress herself. After the death of her parents, she is sent to live at her mysterious uncle’s Yorkshire estate, Misselthwaite Manor. The Secret Garden tells the story of Mary Lennox, a spoiled young English girl being raised in India. Classic children’s novels are my favorite books to study and pick apart when I’m looking at structure, as they are concise enough to read in a single afternoon, and yet as complex as any adult novel. Long considered a classic, it’s still sometimes dismissed by scholars as “just a children’s book.” But children’s books can provide a master class in how to tell a complex story effectively in a short space. The Secret Garden is arguably Frances Hodgson Burnett’s most famous work. ![]()
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