The Secret Garden — Chapter 10

Narration Prompt

In two or three paragraphs, retell the chapter as an argument about companionship. Note the three relationships that advance across its span — Mary with the garden, Mary with Ben Weatherstaff, Mary with Dickon — and the moment each one turns.

Discussion Questions

1. Ben Weatherstaff's story of the young lady who kissed the roses is, strictly speaking, the first time Mrs. Craven enters the novel as a person rather than a rumor. What does it mean that she enters through a gardener's memory rather than through her widower's grief or her niece's inheritance, and what does Burnett gain by making a working man the novel's primary mourner?
2. The chapter places the reader in three modes of attention in succession: solitary work in the walled garden, conversation across generations with Ben, and the near-wordless recognition of Dickon in the wood. Does Burnett imply a hierarchy among these modes, or does she argue that a whole life requires all three?

+ 2 more questions in the complete study guide