Burnett uses situational irony to make the reader aware of just how selfish the young Mary Lennox is in the time of her parents' deaths. In Chapter 1, when her family and their servants are all dying of cholera around her, and Mary is left alone in the house, the narrator tells the reader that:
She did not cry because her nurse had died. She was not an affectionate child and had never cared much for any one. [...] She had been angry because no one seemed to remember that she was alive. Everyone was too panic-stricken to think of a little girl no one was fond of. When people had the cholera it seemed that they remembered nothing but themselves. But if everyone had got well again, surely some one would remember and come to look for her.
Even when people are dying, the narrator makes the reader see that Mary can only think of herself. Ironically, Mary believes that everyone is being very selfish and that things will soon go back to normal. The reader can catch this implication from the subsequent comment that "surely someone would come looking for her." Mary believes that the cholera everyone has caught is making them "remember nothing but themselves," and she thinks that when people finally get over their selfishness, they will remember her again. The irony, of course, is that she's the one being selfish. Burnett shows readers through this use of situational irony that the younger Mary cannot even imagine a world in which she is not attended to, as she is so spoiled.
Burnett often uses similes that compare the moor surrounding Misselthwaite Manor to the sea, making its bareness and desolation at the beginning of the novel seem even more profound. Mary already feels stranded and isolated after the death of the life she knew in India. She is unsettled by the unfamiliar soundscape upon arriving in Yorkshire in Chapter 3, when she has to ask her caretaker Mrs. Medlock what she is hearing:
A wind was rising and making a singular, wild, low, rushing sound. “It’s—it’s not the sea, is it?” said Mary, looking round at her companion. “No, not it,” answered Mrs. Medlock. “Nor it isn’t fields nor mountains, it’s just miles and miles and miles of wild land that nothing grows on but heather and gorse and broom, and nothing lives on but wild ponies and sheep.” “I feel as if it might be the sea, if there were water on it,” said Mary. “It sounds like the sea just now.”
Mary feels so lost and overwhelmed in her new situation that it makes sense that she would confuse the rolling landscape for the ocean. Burnett uses sea-like sensory language to evoke this comparison, as the wind is "wild" and "rushing" like the ocean around the carriage. The repetition in the phrase "miles and miles and miles of wild land" is almost childlike, evoking the plaintive feelings rising in the vulnerable Mary. As she is carried toward her new home by the carriage, she fantasizes about what surrounds her:
Mary felt as if the drive would never come to an end and that the wide, bleak moor was a wide expanse of black ocean through which she was passing on a strip of dry land.
The sensory image of the "black ocean" echoes the expanse of mourning "blackness" from which Mary has just come, and the expanse of blackness (a different sort of mourning) that she is just about to enter at Misselthwaite.
Burnett uses ocean imagery repeatedly in The Secret Garden to indicate the scale of the "dull purplish sea" of the hills and dales of the Yorkshire moors. This representation of the landscape as oppressively vast and undifferentiated is a common one in 19th- and 20th-century literature, which often employs these lonely areas as sites of horror or transformation. In this chapter, Mary has just come from over the sea in her journey from India, but she does not seem in the least bothered by the "long voyage." Given this, it is ironic that this new home she has found makes her feel more adrift and more surrounded by imaginary obstacles than she did before.
In the early part of the novel, when Mary has only just come to Misselthwaite, she thinks she can behave like she did in the India of her childhood. Beginning in Chapter 4, Burnett uses an idiomatic phrase from the Victorian period to denote instances when Mary expects something to be done for her. Her English servants and counterparts find this idiom baffling:
“Why doesn’t tha’ put on tha’ own shoes?” she said when Mary quietly held out her foot. “My Ayah did it,” answered Mary, staring. “It was the custom.” She said that very often—“It was the custom.” The native servants were always saying it. If one told them to do a thing their ancestors had not done for a thousand years they gazed at one mildly and said, “It is not the custom” and one knew that was the end of the matter.
Ironically, when this phrase is being explained here, it seems like something the Indian servants would have said to Mary in order not to do what she wanted them to do. This is situationally ironic because Mary is utilizing a phrase her servants always used as an excuse to not do something—and yet, Mary now uses the very same phrase to convince somebody else to do something for her.
Mary doesn't want to change her behavior initially because she has no idea that it's even possible to do so. She has, like Colin Craven, been coddled her whole life and given whatever she asks for. When this phrase comes up, it is usually in situations where Mary does have to get used to English customs. Mary believes this phrase denotes superiority, but to people like Martha who have been raised to be independent, it makes her seem weak and helpless.
In Chapter 18, when Mary is describing her new friend Dickon to Colin Craven, she accidentally provokes Colin's jealousy by insisting that Dickon is "like an angel!" Burnett uses situational irony to amuse the reader in this instance, but also to illustrate Mary's real and unblemished love for this charming young Yorskhireman:
“He’s nicer than any other boy that ever lived!” she said. “He’s—he’s like an angel!” It might sound rather silly to say that but she did not care. “A nice angel!” Colin sneered ferociously. “He’s a common cottage boy off the moor!” “He’s better than a common Rajah!” retorted Mary. “He’s a thousand times better!”
The reader knows that Colin is jealous, as the narrator says so just before this, and Mary's comments just inflame this feeling. The narrator also wryly notes that this is hyperbole, as it's such strong praise that it "sounds rather silly to say." Dickon is of course not like an angel, but is in fact "a common cottage boy off the moor" with "ruddy" coloring and holes in his trousers.
However, this insult doesn't mean what Colin thinks it means. Dickon's excellent, loving, and "open" character makes him beloved by everyone and welcome everywhere. He is welcome both in Misselthwaite Manor and in the tiny cottages of Thwaite because of his unusually excellent qualities. He may be a cottage boy, but he is not a "common" one. Both the use of "angel" and "common cottage boy" are ironic in this instance: Dickon is both and neither.
Burnett uses irony here to demonstrate how little Colin and Mary understand their own feelings at this point and also to show Colin's possessive feelings over Mary. In Chapter 18, when Colin apologizes to Mary for his tantrum, the irony is resolved as he says:
“Well, it was rather funny to say it,” [...] “because his nose does turn up and he has a big mouth and his clothes have patches all over them and he talks broad Yorkshire, but—but if an angel did come to Yorkshire and live on the moor—if there was a Yorkshire angel—I believe he’d understand the green things and know how to make them grow and he would know how to talk to the wild creatures as Dickon does and they’d know he was friends for sure.”
As Colin is always being told that imperfections in his physical appearance represent faults in his character, the idea of calling a funny-looking child like Dickon an "angel" is quite alien to him. People who are very good and very beloved are, in his mind, supposed to be very beautiful as a result. He is able to recognize that Dickon's appearance doesn't mean anything about his personality in this hypothetical statement, with the caveat that Dickon would have to be a "Yorkshire" angel were he one at all.
In Chapter 18, when Mary is describing her new friend Dickon to Colin Craven, she accidentally provokes Colin's jealousy by insisting that Dickon is "like an angel!" Burnett uses situational irony to amuse the reader in this instance, but also to illustrate Mary's real and unblemished love for this charming young Yorskhireman:
“He’s nicer than any other boy that ever lived!” she said. “He’s—he’s like an angel!” It might sound rather silly to say that but she did not care. “A nice angel!” Colin sneered ferociously. “He’s a common cottage boy off the moor!” “He’s better than a common Rajah!” retorted Mary. “He’s a thousand times better!”
The reader knows that Colin is jealous, as the narrator says so just before this, and Mary's comments just inflame this feeling. The narrator also wryly notes that this is hyperbole, as it's such strong praise that it "sounds rather silly to say." Dickon is of course not like an angel, but is in fact "a common cottage boy off the moor" with "ruddy" coloring and holes in his trousers.
However, this insult doesn't mean what Colin thinks it means. Dickon's excellent, loving, and "open" character makes him beloved by everyone and welcome everywhere. He is welcome both in Misselthwaite Manor and in the tiny cottages of Thwaite because of his unusually excellent qualities. He may be a cottage boy, but he is not a "common" one. Both the use of "angel" and "common cottage boy" are ironic in this instance: Dickon is both and neither.
Burnett uses irony here to demonstrate how little Colin and Mary understand their own feelings at this point and also to show Colin's possessive feelings over Mary. In Chapter 18, when Colin apologizes to Mary for his tantrum, the irony is resolved as he says:
“Well, it was rather funny to say it,” [...] “because his nose does turn up and he has a big mouth and his clothes have patches all over them and he talks broad Yorkshire, but—but if an angel did come to Yorkshire and live on the moor—if there was a Yorkshire angel—I believe he’d understand the green things and know how to make them grow and he would know how to talk to the wild creatures as Dickon does and they’d know he was friends for sure.”
As Colin is always being told that imperfections in his physical appearance represent faults in his character, the idea of calling a funny-looking child like Dickon an "angel" is quite alien to him. People who are very good and very beloved are, in his mind, supposed to be very beautiful as a result. He is able to recognize that Dickon's appearance doesn't mean anything about his personality in this hypothetical statement, with the caveat that Dickon would have to be a "Yorkshire" angel were he one at all.
