The Secret Garden serves as a strong example of the inescapable coexistence of animals and humans and the importance of that coexistence as it relates to children. The manner in which Frances Hodgson Burnett brings to light the interconnectedness of animals and humans is a testament to the importance of writers using every device available to deepen their chosen themes. She creates vivid settings and reinforces emotional states through animal correlatives, anthropomorphism, and zoomorphism, as well as by utilizing what Le Guin calls the "animal helper" to draw the reader's attention to--and sing out--the community of all living things.
By drawing upon Le Guin's study, I hope to support her assertions regarding the interconnectedness of human and animal communities, while at the same time, further contemporary discourses about Burnett's "classic" children's novel.
Journal
The Looking Glass : New Perspectives on Children's LiteratureISSN
1551-5680Volume
16Issue
1Publisher
La Trobe UniversitySection Title
Emerging VoicesAuthor Biography
Sandra Nickel Sandra Nickel grew up being fascinated by words and their meanings, with the dictionary being her most likely choice of bed-time reading. As she grew older, she discovered--and fell in love with--the Gothic novels of the 19th Century. Her continued love of the genre led to the writing of The Second Moonstone, her first work. Sandra is currently putting the finishing touches on The Saving of St. Martha's, a middle grade novel that is part mystery-part boarding school story-part girls saving the day!
Sandra holds bachelor degrees in Theology and Social Work, a juris doctorate in Law, and a diplome de langue from the Alliance Francaise. She is currently working on her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Born in Kansas, she later lived in New York City, Moscow and Paris, before settling in a village above Lake Geneva, Switzerland, where she currently lives with her husband and daughter.Date Created
2012-03-30Rights Statement
Essays and articles published in The Looking Glass may be reproduced for non-profit use by any educational or public institution; letters to the editor and on-site comments made by our readers may not be used without the expressed permission of that individual. Any commercial use of this journal, in whole or in part, by any means, is prohibited. Authors of accepted articles assign to The Looking Glass the right to publish and distribute their text electronically and to archive and make it permanently available electronically. They retain the copyright and, 90 days after initial publication, may republish it in any form they wish as long as The Looking Glass is acknowledged as the original source.Data source
OJS data migration 2025: https://ojs.latrobe.edu.au/ojs/index.php/tlg/article/view/281
