Previous
Idioms
Definition of Imagery
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines from Robert Frost's poem "After Apple-Picking" contain imagery that engages... read full definition
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines from Robert Frost's poem "After... read full definition
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines... read full definition
Key Examples in The Secret Garden
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—A Lace-Light Mother:
Burnett consistently describes Mary Lennox's mother using imagery of the ephemeral, the insubstantial, and the delicate. This woman, who is largely absent from Mary's quotidian life and is not caring or maternal, is as "full of lace" and as lacking in substance as her clothes. She cares only "to go to parties and amuse herself with gay people." Every part of her body is light, pretty and floating:
Her hair was like curly silk and she had a delicate little nose which seemed to be disdaining things, and she had large laughing eyes. All her clothes were thin and floating, and Mary said they were “full of lace.” They looked fuller of lace than ever this morning, but her eyes were not laughing at all.
Related Themes:
Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—A Lonely Castle:
Burnett uses dark, gothic imagery and language with a sense of enormous size to convey the strangeness and the frightening first impression Misselthwaite Manor makes on Mary Lennox in Chapter 3:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The entrance door was a huge one made of massive, curiously shaped panels of oak studded with big iron nails and bound with great iron bars. It opened into an enormous hall, which was so dimly lighted that the faces in the portraits on the walls and the figures in the suits of armor made Mary feel that she did not want to look at them. As she stood on the stone floor she looked a very small, odd little black figure, and she felt as small and lost and odd as she looked.
Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—The Wind Wutherin':
At the beginning of The Secret Garden the harsh and wintry weather of Yorkshire seems hostile to the young and intractable Mary Lennox. It is so different from the India of her childhood that it is actively frightening. In Chapter 13, she is especially unsettled by the wind blowing around the house:
Unlock with LitCharts A+She did not cry, but she lay and hated the sound of the heavily beating rain, she hated the wind and its “wuthering.” She could not go to sleep again. The mournful sound kept her awake because she felt mournful herself. If she had felt happy it would probably have lulled her to sleep. How it “wuthered” and how the big raindrops poured down and beat against the pane! “It sounds just like a person lost on the moor and wandering on and on crying,” [...]
Related Themes:
Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Green and Wick:
Burnett uses lush sensory language to describe the green and living insides of things that might otherwise seem dead—in both Misselthwaite Manor itself and in the "secret garden." In Chapter 11, when Mary and Dickon (a "magical" and green-fingered boy from the local community) first go into the garden she has "discovered," Mary is very frightened that everything in it is dead. Dickon shows her that it is not:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“There!” he said exultantly. “I told thee so. There’s green in that wood yet. Look at it.” Mary was down on her knees before he spoke, gazing with all her might. “When it looks a bit greenish an’ juicy like that, it’s wick,” he explained. “When th’ inside is dry an’ breaks easy, like this here piece I’ve cut off, it’s done for. There’s a big root here as all this live wood sprung out of, an’ if th’ old wood’s cut off an’ it’s dug round, and took care of there’ll be—” he stopped and lifted his face to look up at the climbing and hanging sprays above him—“there’ll be a fountain o’ roses here this summer.”
Related Themes:
Chapter 13
Explanation and Analysis—The Wind Wutherin':
At the beginning of The Secret Garden the harsh and wintry weather of Yorkshire seems hostile to the young and intractable Mary Lennox. It is so different from the India of her childhood that it is actively frightening. In Chapter 13, she is especially unsettled by the wind blowing around the house:
Unlock with LitCharts A+She did not cry, but she lay and hated the sound of the heavily beating rain, she hated the wind and its “wuthering.” She could not go to sleep again. The mournful sound kept her awake because she felt mournful herself. If she had felt happy it would probably have lulled her to sleep. How it “wuthered” and how the big raindrops poured down and beat against the pane! “It sounds just like a person lost on the moor and wandering on and on crying,” [...]
Related Themes:
