Focus+Project

** Focus Assignment – Plot Summary ** //The Secret Garden// takes place in the early 1800s and is about Mary Lennox, a sickly, disagreeable-looking English girl, who is living in India with her parents. A deadly Cholera epidemic breaks out and everyone in the Lennox's household dies except for Mary. She is found by a group of soldiers and is sent to live in Yorkshire with her hunchback uncle, Archibald Craven. Once settled in, Mary learns of a secret garden that once belong to Dr. Craven’s wife. After her death ten years earlier, Dr. Craven decided to lock it up. Mary begins to search for the key and finds it buried by the door to the garden. Mary and her new friend Dickon begin to secretly re-plant the garden together. Later in the novel, Mary begins to hear distant cries in one of the manor’s corridors. The maids refuse to speak of the crying so Mary goes searching for their source. She finds sickly, bedridden Colin, Dr. Craven's hidden son. She learns that Colin was born shortly before his mother's death, and that Dr. Craven hates to look at the boy because he reminds him too much of his deceased wife. Colin believes he will become a hunchback just like his father and is constantly miserable. When Dr. Craven goes on a trip abroad, Mary and Dickon bring Colin outside to the garden in a wheelchair to cheer him up. He becomes stronger and happier the more he visits the garden and can now run like a regular boy. The children believe that the garden is magic, and decide to surprise Dr. Craven with Colin’s progress when he returns from his trip. When Colin's father returns, Dickon’s mother Susan, tells him to go to the garden. The climax of //The Secret Garden// is when Craven opens the door to the garden and Colin comes running out and accidentally falls into his arms. Craven is amazed by Colin's recovery and the father and son are reunited. The novel ends with Craven and Colin walking together happily to tell the rest of the household of this miracle. I really enjoyed //The Secret Garden// and its plot. It was a very relaxing and enjoyable to read. It was written in a way that you actually thought you knew the characters. I believe that the central conflict of the story is how Mary and Colin both were unhappy and felt alone. The title of the book is //The Secret Garden// which is very important because the whole book revolves around the garden. The garden is actually what solves the central conflict because it was able to cheer the children up. In the book, Mary and Colin believe that the garden is magical and is helping them become healthier, when actually all they needed was to believe and make friends. //The Secret Garden// was a very moving and powerful book that made you feel that magic could actually be real.