Who Is Who
It covers the main characters of The Secret Garden, with light spoilers up to about the middle of the book, and nothing about how it ends.
By my count in the Project Gutenberg text, the name Mary appears about seven hundred times, Colin about three hundred and thirty, Dickon about three hundred and ten, and Martha close to two hundred. Colin doesn’t show up until chapter thirteen, so I’ll warn you before I get to him.
Mary Lennox
Our heroine is Mary Lennox. At the start she is about nine, thin, yellow-faced and sickly, born in India to parents who barely noticed her. Servants obeyed her, so she grew up selfish, used to slapping her Ayah when she was angry. After her parents die of cholera, she is sent to her uncle’s house in Yorkshire.
The other children called her Mistress Mary, quite contrary, after a rhyme about a garden. What changes her isn’t a lecture. It’s fresh air, hunger, a skipping rope, a robin, and a locked garden. She learns to dress herself, to say thank you, and to like people. Early on she wonders why she never seemed to belong to anyone, even when her parents were alive.
She doesn’t turn sweet. In chapter sixteen she is still stubborn and bossy. In my reading, that stubbornness is what the book needs her for.
Martha Sowerby
Martha is the housemaid who waits on Mary. She talks in broad Yorkshire, says what she thinks, and says she is too common to have been let upstairs in a grand house. She is one of twelve children, in a moorland cottage where fourteen people live in four small rooms on sixteen shillings a week.
Martha is one of the first people to say no to Mary. She tells her to dress herself and asks, how does tha’ like thysel’? And she is hiding something. She won’t explain the crying Mary hears at night.
Dickon Sowerby
Dickon is Martha’s brother, twelve years old, with round blue eyes, red cheeks and a turned-up nose. He is the animal charmer. He moves slowly and speaks low, and squirrels, rabbits and a pheasant come to listen to his pipe.
He has a pony named Jump, a fox cub named Captain, a crow named Soot, and two squirrels named Nut and Shell. He knows gardens too. When he cuts a gray branch and sees green inside, he calls it wick, meaning alive. He keeps Mary’s secret, and says she is as safe as a missel thrush.
Susan Sowerby
Martha and Dickon’s mother is mostly a voice at first. She sends Mary a skipping rope, stops Mr. Craven on the moor to say a child needs fresh air, and has opinions Martha repeats: that children are as good as arithmetic for teaching you things. Mrs. Medlock says she and Susan went to school together.
Her most quoted idea is the orange. Nobody owns the whole orange, she tells her children, only a quarter of it. I won’t say when she appears in person.
Ben Weatherstaff and the Robin
Ben Weatherstaff is the gruff old gardener, and a bachelor who lodges at the gate. He says what he thinks, and he thinks Mary is as sour as he is. He is lonely too, and his only friend is a robin.
The robin is close to a character in this book. He leads Mary along the wall, shows her where the key is buried, and perches by the door. He was hatched in the secret garden, and he is named more than a hundred times. Ben also learned about roses from a young lady he once gardened for.
Mrs. Medlock and the Staff
Mrs. Medlock is the housekeeper, a stout woman with red cheeks and sharp black eyes. She is hard on Mary, but she isn’t cruel. She keeps her comfortable job by never asking questions. Her first name is Sarah Ann.
Around her are Mr. Pitcher, the old servant who sees the master, Mr. Roach, the head gardener, Mrs. Loomis the cook, a footman named John, and a trained nurse who never gets a name. The nurse is a big young woman who can’t bear invalids.
Mr. Archibald Craven
Archibald Craven is Mary’s uncle and the master of Misselthwaite. He has high, crooked shoulders and black hair streaked with white. Mary notices his face would be handsome if it were not so miserable.
His wife died ten years ago. He locked her garden and buried the key. He travels, he forgets people, and when he finally speaks to Mary he is kind, but distracted. Take a bit of earth, he tells her, and make it come alive. He is away from the house for most of the book.
Colin Craven
Mild spoilers from here, from chapter thirteen. Skip this section if you haven’t read that far.
Colin is Mary’s cousin, ten years old, and he’s the reason for the crying. He is kept in a big room, with an ivory face, huge gray eyes with black lashes, and a lot of hair. He believes he will die young and that a lump on his back means he is turning into a hunchback, as he thinks his father did.
Everyone is obliged to do what he says, and he screams when they don’t. Mary calls him a Rajah. He is spoiled and frightened, and he and Mary are more alike than either wants to admit. I won’t tell you how that turns out.
Dr. Craven and Colin’s Mother
Dr. Craven is Colin’s doctor and his father’s cousin. Colin points out that the doctor would get Misselthwaite if he died. The book shows him as nervous and weak, though it says he is not an unscrupulous man.
Colin’s mother died when he was born. She appears as a portrait of a laughing girl in a blue ribbon, behind a rose-colored silk curtain, with the same gray eyes as her son. I’ll leave her there, because her garden is where the book goes.
Names and Words
A few words help. Tha’ is Yorkshire for you, and Martha has to translate it for Mary. Wick means alive. Nowt o’ th’ soart means nothing of the sort. Marred is a Yorkshire word for spoiled and pettish, which is what Mrs. Medlock thinks of Mary.
From India come Ayah, a nurse, and Mem Sahib, which is what Mary calls her mother. Colin is Master Colin to the staff, and Mester Colin to Dickon. And Rajah, in Mary’s mouth, means a boy who gives orders and is obeyed.
Who Is Who at a Glance
So, the main people of The Secret Garden are Mary, Martha, Dickon, Ben, Colin and Mr. Craven. Mary is the girl who has to learn. Martha is the maid who tells the truth. Dickon is the boy the animals trust, and Ben is the old man the robin trusts. Colin is the boy in the room, and Mr. Craven is the father who stays away. Then the creatures: the robin, Captain, Soot, Nut, Shell and Jump.
If you want the full story, the summary video is next. If you’ve finished the book and want to talk about the last chapter, the ending explained is a separate video. Subscribe, and tell me in the comments which character you would sit next to.
