The Secret Garden — Chapter 12

About This Passage

Mr. Craven's one honest sentence about himself. The three adjectives — ill, wretched, distracted — are the shape of his grief, and the admission of being a 'poor guardian' is the first step toward being something slightly better than that.

Narration Prompt

Retell the chapter in two paragraphs. Include Mary's account of Dickon to Martha, her meeting with Mr. Craven, his permission to take a bit of earth, and what she finds pinned to the rose-bush when she returns.

Discussion Questions

1. Mrs. Sowerby, a moor-cottager with twelve children, stops Mr. Craven on a country road to speak up for a child she has never met. Evaluate what Burnett is claiming about the proper source of advocacy on behalf of a neglected child — and what it means that the voice which reaches Mr. Craven comes from outside his household, outside his class, and outside his carefully maintained isolation.
2. When Mary's planned question fails and she hears herself ask, “Might I have a bit of earth?” Burnett notes that the words “were not the ones she had meant to say.” Consider what this slip reveals about the relationship between Mary's conscious intentions and her deeper desires, and argue whether Burnett means us to trust the slip or to regret it.

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide