| The Secret Garden, as one of the most popular books, has received much attention from the readers, and the critics in the literary circle as well. Many scholars and critics make their journeys through the secret garden, from the aspects either of its motif subjects or symbolic metaphor.Much critical attention has been given to themes of nature and its power to heal in this text, and several critics have interpreted the garden itself as a nurturing space that cares for the children. Some argue that the garden acts as a spiritual mother to Mary while others identify the garden as a possible representation of the deceased woman or simply as Mother Nature herself.Although these scholars identify the important themes of nature and mother within the text, they fail to identify a deeper causality in the healing of both children, Colin and Mary, as well as Mr. Craven by looking beyond the beauty of the garden as the cure.This thesis ventures to interpret The Secret Garden in the light of analytical psychology, feminism, pathology, child psychology and psychiatry, and child developmental psychology and tries to explore the deeper causality in the healing of the restoration of the children (Mr. Craven included) and the rejuvenation of the garden.Employing the theories above, the thesis advances its way of exploring the deep relationship between the garden’s changes, from desolation, resurrection to rejuvenation, and the characters’transformation from invalids, recuperation to exuberance. It is not hard to notice that the motherless children’s morbid symptoms resonate with the desolation of the quite dead garden, and the children’s diligence in seeking and awakening and gardening in their secret garden is the very journey of looking for their mothers or mothers surrogate and making up the sense of alienation with them. Therefore it is the mothers’final replacement and their maternal care that leads to the garden’s rejuvenation and that of the children and Mr. Craven, and thus their ego identities are finally developed.The harmony between man and nature is attracted to love, which also has the effect of resurrection, the most precious human nature. The Magic and Secret in The Secret Garden are exactly the maternal care. The "white magic" in the book (The Secret Garden) will touch with its mystic glow all who read its pages. Thus the book is not only a book merely for the growing children as Colin and Mary, but also "a book of fate" for adult like Mr. Craven. |
