The Secret Garden — Chapter 27

About This Passage

Burnett pivots the novel's point of view mid-chapter to follow Mr. Craven — a man the reader has seen only briefly, through Mary's eyes in Chapter 12, and then not at all for fourteen chapters. This paragraph is our first sustained access to his interior, and Burnett uses it to diagnose his grief in plain moral terms (he 'had not been courageous') before softening into the psychological account that will dominate the rest of the chapter. The rhythm of the long sentences imitates the monotonous circling of a mind that has refused to move.

Narration Prompt

Retell Chapter 27, paying attention to its structural shifts: the essayistic opening, the long-range view of Mr. Craven's wandering, the stream-side awakening in the Tyrol, the dream at Lake Como, Susan Sowerby's letter, the return home, and the reunion at the garden door. Note where Burnett changes register.

Discussion Questions

1. Burnett opens the chapter with a direct-address essay on the power of thoughts, comparing them to 'electric batteries' and 'scarlet fever germs.' Why frontload this meditation at the beginning of the final chapter rather than weave it into the earlier action? What does the choice say about Burnett's relationship to her young reader — and to the adult reader she clearly expects will also be present?
2. Mr. Craven's turning point arrives not at a summit or sunrise but by a small stream in the Austrian Tyrol, looking at forget-me-nots. Burnett has already shown him on mountaintops 'whose heads were in the clouds,' unmoved. What argument is she making about the kind of beauty that can reach a shut-up person, and how does the scale of the forget-me-not differ from the scale of a mountain?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide