The Secret Garden - Essay Example

The book is meant to give hope to children that mothering would always remain no matter how disordered the lives of children may be. This fact is evident in this novel as despite the fact that Mary and Colin were motherless, they still got mothered through people at Misseltthwaite Manor who provided them with “protection, nurturance, and training” (Horne and Sanders 46). These three duties are the basic mothering roles in the novel. Horne and Sanders (47) note that Barnett’s treatment of mothering, the role it plays in patriarchal culture and the manner in which it shapes the lives of motherless children are something that have proved problematic to feminists.

This, he explains, is due to the fact that mothering in a patriarchal capitalist culture is problematic in nature. Horne and Sanders (47) reveal that the role of the mother in the The Secret Garden is to protect, nurture and train their children in a non-traditional setting (Horne and Sanders 101). However, they do so within a cultural framework which circumscribes and transforms their work as mothers, that, in turn, then molds labor and children to meet the demands of patriarchy. Horne and Sanders (47) note that the kind of mothering that takes place in The Secret Garden is a reflection of this kind of problematic situation.

This is due to the fact that it is complicated in that it involves practical work, protection, training, and nurturing that happens within patriarchally organized social places. The characters who play mothering work of Misselthwaite Manor are Martha and Dickson Sowerby, Ben Weatherstaff and Mrs. Sowerby. According to The Secret Garden, these mothers play a great role in mothering children. This is evident when Barnett tells us that as Mary plays the role of nurturing the garden, she also gets nurtured herself.

Due to the nurturing that she gets from the community, she grows “stronger and fatter” Barnett