The Secret Garden — Chapter 18

About This Passage

This is the first visible physical change in Colin in the entire novel. His face was 'pitifully white' when Mary walked in; it 'brightened' the moment she named the garden. Burnett is showing us that the garden is already working on Colin’s body through nothing but the IDEA of it — his imagination is doing the healing that no medicine has done in ten years.

Narration Prompt

Retell Chapter 18 in your own words. Start with Mary’s sudden inspiration to see Colin before Dickon, trace the way the garden first brightens Colin’s face and then brightens the whole house with laughter, and finish with Mary’s two-stage revelation — first the door, then the confession that she has already been inside for weeks.

Discussion Questions

1. When Mary is on her way to see Dickon, she turns back with a 'sudden inspiration' and goes to Colin first. What does that single decision tell you about how Mary has been changed by the previous night’s tantrum, and what does it forecast about the rest of the chapter?
2. Dickon responds to Mary’s story about Colin by looking up at the sky and saying, 'An’ we munnot lose no time about it.' How does the chapter suggest that Dickon, who has never met Colin, understands his illness more accurately than the trained nurse or Mrs. Medlock — and what does Dickon’s outdoor knowledge give him that their indoor knowledge does not?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide