Theme of secret garden

[daisyxo]

hi

does anyone know the THEME of the secret garden? The purpose or the lesson learned from the book?

[rachel]

Dear Daisy xo

It has been a long long long time since I read the secret garden. It made me both hopeful and really scared, but what the author meant to teach I cannot be sure.
For myself, having been in a situation where I lived with people who were not my family and where I was more or less a burden and not wanted the book spoke to me of something that violet says in " a series of unfortunate events" which is "there is always something'. The little girl has left all she knew and loved and was accustomed to in another world really and thrown into a cold hostil environment. And the boy, well could hell be worse than his bare existence?
So they found one another and in the garden, a place of serenity and great beauty they grew and healed somewhat I think and life took on more of a deep meaning. They now had direction and they did it alone for the most part against the uncaring world.
So to me it is that you can find beauty in the midst of ugliness if you try and make something of yourself , never submitting to being a victim. Bet the author meant none of the above. Other's thoughts on this?

[Nightshade]

The theme is somthing to do with what martha and dickens's mother says about pieces of the orange, and the power of love (reocurring thenme in her books ) it is love and hapiness that cure Colin and calls Lord Craven (anyone notice anything about his name?) home. Colins mother spirit lives in the garden Burnett was fon of melodrama on occasion. Magic is also important but magioc and love she says somwhere may be in a nother book are the same thing. Family.

[boza]

i guess the main theme has to do with rebirth, love, innocence and the power of nature and Her ifluence on people, actually children.
can you help me? i'm having trouble with my theme 'images of india in the secret garden'. i have to write a veeeeery long seminar paper on this topic and i don't know where to start from.
by the way, i'm boza. i'm studying english lg and literature in serbia

[ennison]

A lovely little book. Yes it's about love. About healing. About bravery, confidence, nature and those secret places in our hearts and our imagination. Hasn't it got a fantastic opening too.

[mahabarake]

it's about discovering childhood,innocence and friendship. it's about love and family that both mary and colin were in need to.

[chancegardener]

The book is about the healing powers of love and gardening. And any gardener can tell you that the two things are not very different; when you've planted a shrub, watered it, pruned it, treated it for parasites etc. and watched it grow and bloom, you really love it. (Of course, you also learn to truly hate the aphids, beetles, slugs and other vermin in the garden that think you've provided them with an "all U can eat" buffet, but that's another story!!) Seriously, however, it's now a medically documented fact that gardening improves your health and lengthens your life. The activity is good for you on many levels: at the most basic, there's the good fresh air and exercise, and then there's the psychological pleasure of creating something beautiful (well, okay, not really creating it, but helping out Mother Nature to make it prettier) and the excitement of watching for buds to open. There's always some reason to look forward toward the future, watching for the next wave of blooms, or cleaning up in the fall to prepare for the next season. When irises or roses start to bud up, you feel like a little kid the week before Christmas, waiting to get your presents.

According to the biography of Burnett on this site, she knew about the healing powers of gardening from personal experience, because she went into a deep depression after her son died. Working in her garden was what helped cure her, and gave her the idea for this book. Read the first two pages of the last chapter -- that sums it all up for you.

I must have read this book 25 times when I was a little girl, and recently read it again. It's just as good as I remembered.