From Volume 31, #5, March, 2005

The Secret Garden: Temenos for Individuation:

A Jungian appreciation of themes in the novel by Frances Hodgeson Burnett

Margaret Eileen Meredith

Toronto: Inner City Books, 2005, 160 pp.

The Secret Garden is a good introduction to basic Jungian method. The introductory chapter sets the reader up within the framework of Jungian psychology with such headings as: “The Reality of the Psyche,” “Symbols and Symbolism,” etc. For anyone who has spent time in the Jungian fields, this chapter is not a necessary concomitant to proceed with the body of the book. However, a neophyte to Jungian psychology would find this concise introduction quite helpful.

As a balance to the more theoretical introduction, the next chapter of the book is called “Personal Reflections.” Here the author explains why the symbol of the secret garden has particular meaning for her as she acquaints us with her own dream work and individuation process which was largely influenced by her childhood relationship with her grandparents’ garden. In later years, when she attended a workshop on symbolic analysis, she discovered that by superimposing her images from childhood over her images of present life she found that her bed was situated right in the midst of the picture of the grandparents’ garden. She had other garden dreams and also a visit to the garden of an elderly woman which Meredith realized symbolized the woman’s spiritual journey, in Jungian terms the journey inward to the Self.

There follows a short summary of the plot of The Secret Garden by Burnett. Although this chapter eliminates the need to read or reread the actual book, I would suggest that the book is well worth reading. It is the story of two children: Mary, who was first ignored by her parents and later orphaned, and Colin who, loathed by his father as a child, is feeble and unable to get on with life. Colin is also an “orphan” as his mother died in childbirth and his father cannot bear to be around him. The setting is Yorkshire. The estate where the two children find themselves is surrounded by the moor which is wild but beautiful. Within the estate is a secret garden to which Mary finds a key. She is aided in her quest for new life by Martha, a Yorkshire farm girl working at the house, and by Martha’s brother Dicken. Mary is guided by an old gardener and by a robin which leads her to the Secret Garden. The reappearance of spring and life in the garden and in the characters is the theme of the story.

In the chapter focused on “Setting and Characters in The Secret Garden” the heart of the book is exposed. Meredith walks hand in hand with Jung as she portrays the book symbolizing the journey to the Self:

The story of the secret garden embodies this principle and archetype of orientation, the Self, to which Jung refers. The children experienced the healing numinosity that radiated to them through the garden.

A characteristic of the Self is the “magic” which is discovered in the garden. Meredith also points out that the secret nature of the garden with its walls allows a temenos to be naturally present for the awakening of Mary and then her counterpart, Colin. This awakening is represented by the small green buds pushing through the soil which Mary finds on her first visit to the garden. Meredith mentions the healing character of Martha and the Pan representative in Dicken. She also mentions in passing The Green Man, a pagan god, which remained entwined with Christian symbolism in church façades, pews and fonts, and which would seem to me to have been a fruitful avenue to explore more thoroughly.

Meredith addresses cultural issues as well as individual issues:

If The Secret Garden is considered as a metaphor for the cultural situation at the beginning of the twentieth century, it could be said that the patriarchal world had lost its Eros, its animating connection with the world. The effects of the Industrial Revolution were being felt, but the Edwardian period still had vestiges of the earlier life. As the century closed, however, it was clear that the culture had been deeply affected by this loss of Eros.

The patriarchal, anti-eros nature of the society prevails throughout the book. Even though Colin’s “raja-like” opinion of himself is deflated in the course of the gardening, it is the father-son bond that is in need of healing and in the end Mary becomes but a facilitator. The story veers sharply toward the masculine in its ending with Mary displaced by Colin and Colin’s reunion with the father.

In the chapter entitled “Cultural and Psychological Implications,” Meredith presents some archetypal parallels, one of which she finds in the biblical garden of Eden and the other in a lecture she attended on gardens in the Papua New Guinea Highlands. Culturally, as implicated above, she finds these garden myths and customs an antidote to the Industrial Revolution which has cut us off both from our roots and from the numinous which is found in the garden renewal or “magic.” This magic is possible due to Eros and the connection made between people, and the reconnection to the earth. Although I would have preferred that Meredith explore the garden mythology through folk mythology of the British Isles, her parallels do hold up.

Finally Meredith turns to the transcendent principal. The temenos of the garden would lead, according to her book, and according to Jung’s understanding of the search for the transcendental Self, to that very objective.

This book is convincingly argued and a good guide for anyone wanting a clear notion of the process of Jungian individuation.

—Lucille King-Edwards