"A Mysterious and Wonderful Thing": Transformative Encounters in Frances Hodgson Burnett's "The Secret Garden"

Abstract

"The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a story about a young girl's encounters with nature, animals, people, and ultimately God, in a rural Yorkshire setting - it is a story about coming alive with the world on a spiritual journey in the midst of springtime. This essay will explore the encounters in "The Secret Garden" and their transformative impact on the characters and events in the novel, through the dialogic philosophy of Martin Buber, which is centred around the twofold nature of the I-You- and the I-It-encounter presented in his work "I and Thou". The purpose of this study is threefold: firstly, to offer a new way of reading and understanding "The Secret Garden" by looking at encounter as the source of the transformation that takes place in the novel; secondly, to show that "The Secret Garden" is not only a literary but a philosophical achievement; and thirdly, to demonstrate the mutual benefit of an interdisciplinary approach to both philosophy and literature.