The Secret Garden | Characters & Character Analysis

The Secret Garden Characters

Mary Lennox

Mary is the novel's main character. The story is about how Mary - and the secret garden she re-opens - comes to life as she is given attention, kindness and care. She finds her humanity and imagination as she finds physical strength, learning gradually to care about the world around her. She takes everything she has learned and applies it to her cousin, a sickly, bedridden boy she discovers in the house by accident one night, and transforms him as she has been transformed, herself, into a strong, happy and curious child.

Mary is orphaned at nine years old when cholera strikes the compound in India where she has always lived, killing her parents and her Indian nursemaid. Mary has never known either love or affection. She has grown from a sickly and disagreeable baby into a sickly and disagreeable child, ignored by her parents, in the care and company...
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