《秘密花园》女主人公玛丽人物性格浅析（英文）

摘 要

弗朗西斯霍奇森班内特的《秘密花园》被誉为二十世纪最受欢迎、最有影响力的儿童文学经典之作。这部作品被收入牛津《世界经典丛书》。本书自1911年出版以来，多位学者从不同角度分析此作，比如儿童教育、美学角度、原型理论、女性主义、生态主义等等。

本文从儿童文学分析角度，对《秘密花园》这部小说进行了解读。通过对小说主人公——玛丽的性格分析，揭示儿童性格养成的影响因素。在小说中，玛丽的性格发生了明显的转变：从早期的专横自私，到成长了以后的温柔体贴和果敢独立。在对玛丽的性格进行了分析以后，又进一步寻求了玛丽的性格发生转变的原因，主要是环境引导和家庭教育的影响。在此基础上，本文探析了《秘密花园》对于儿童性格塑造的启发。在上述研究基础上，本文针对如何更好地进行儿童性格塑造提出了针对性的建议，主要有：创设良好环境，培养良好习惯；鼓励求知探索，培养勇敢性格；优化家庭教育，培养健全人格。

关键词：《秘密花园》；儿童性格；家庭教育；性格养成

Abstract

Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden has been hailed as one of the most popular and influential children’s literary classics of the 20th century. The work is included in The Oxford World Classics Series. Since its publication in 1911, the book has been analyzed by scholars from different perspectives, such as children’s education, aesthetics, prototype theory, feminism, ecologic and so on.

The Secret Garden is analyzed in this paper from the perspective of children’s literature. Through the analysis of the character of Mary, the author reveals the influencing factors of children’s character development. In the novel, Mary’s character has undergone a remarkable transformation: from the domineering selfishness of her early years to the tenderness and assertive independence of her adult life. After the analysis of Mary’s character, the author further sought the reason for the change of Mary’s character, mainly the influence of environmental guidance and family education. On this basis, this paper explores the inspiration of The Secret Garden for children’s character building. On the basis of the above research, this paper puts forward specific suggestions on how to shape children’s character better, mainly including: create a good environment and cultivate good habits, encourage children to explore nature and improve the quality of family education.

Keywords: The Secret Garden; child character; family education; character cultivation

1. Introduction

1.1 Research Background and Significance

The Secret Garden is a children’s literary work created by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It is one of the best-selling classic children’s novels in the past 100 years.

Einstein once pointedout that “a good character will bemore important than wisdom and erudition. Intellectual achievement depends to a great extent on the greatness of character, often more than is commonly realized.” It can be seen that character has a great effect on one’s life and career, and should be cultivated and shaped as early as possible. Good character in the course of a person’s career success, is like the steel in the concrete column, and knowledge and learning is poured concrete. Without the support of steel bars and iron bones, no amount of concrete can build high-rise buildings. It is safe to say, therefore, that the most important condition for the accomplishment of life is a good character.

The Secret Garden has always been popular because of its appealing story-line, ingenious design and elegant writing style, as well as its enlightening role in shaping children’s character, which has also made this work enduring. Mary, the heroine of The Secret Garden, is takenas the object of analysis in this paper to explore the reasons for the transformation of Mary’s character, in the hope of providing some suggestions for the shaping of children’s character and enriching relevant research results.

1.2 Research Status at Home and Abroad

The Secret Garden is researched on CNKI and there are 127 results. The topic distribution of relevant literature is shown in figure 1 (the five topics with the highest occurrence frequency are selected).

Figure 1 Distribution of Literature Themes on CNKI with The Secret Garden as the Key Word (TOP 5)

As can be seen from figure 1, domestic researches on the secret garden mainly focus on the study of its translation, as well as the interpretation and research of the feminist views shown in the book. Based on the retrieval results of related literature and the research topic of this paper, the following three aspects of the research status at home and abroad.

1.2.1 Evaluation of The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden is considered one of landmarks in the development of books for Children. Its popularity has remained undiminished over three generations, Marghanita Laski, an English and novelist, calls it “the most satisfying children book I know.” It represents the accomplishment in the educational function of children’s literature and the achievement of the art of novel writing by female authors in the first half of the twentieth century. Burnett combines suspenseful plot, life likeness of characterization and profound themes, with simple language in a graceful style into The Secret Garden, which widely attracts lots of scholars and critics to do research on it from various perspectives of children’s education, feminism, class and gender, modernism, genre convention, Christian science, etc.

John Rowe Townsend, a British children author, in his best-known academic work Written for Children: An Outline of English Language Children’s Literature, remarks the The Secret Garden:

There is something about The Secret Garden that has a powerful effect on children’s imaginations: something to do with their longing for real, important, adult-level achievement. Self-reliance and cooperation in making something are virtues that Mary and Colin painfully attain (Townsend, 1974: 289).

Phyllis Bixler, an American writer and scholar, in his academic work The Secret Garden: The Nature ’s Magic, notes that Four Quarters by T.S. Eliot and Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence are heavily influenced by The Secret Garden. Moreover, Bixler argues that Burnett adapted themes and forms from fairy tales and moral tales about exemplary children to create a compelling story (Bixler, 1996: 75).

Linda T. Parson, in her article Otherways into the Garden: Re- Visioning the Feminine The Secret Garden, reveals the positive ways women subvert the hegemony of patriarchal society and the celebration of the divine feminine with the garden (Parson, 2002: 251).

Vivian Burnett (1927: 128), in the biography of Burnett, The Romantic Lady, Frances Hodgson Burnett: The Life Story of an Imagination, points that the garden is a symbol of the human-mind, and Burnett’s consciousness of Christian Science about the interrelationship between body and mind (Vivian, 1927:128).

The Secret Garden, however, receives criticism as well as acclaim. Gunther argues that it stereotypes female roles, positions women as subservient and subjugated to men and Colin remains trapped in the same kind of male self-absorption that characterizes his father. (1994: 159)

Compared to tremendous researches and articles about the book and its author, The Secret Garden has little popularity with Chinese readers, so there are only a very few relevant articles and master’s theses, not to mention the monograph on Burnett and her works. The following master theses discuss and explore The Secret Garden from different perspectives respectively:

Xie Guangping concludes that “the value of the book lies in the revelation of there reciprocal relationship between man and nature and even among men themselves.” Under an abominable environment, and isolated from nature, a person’s mental and physical conditions can be heavily distorted. The power of nature and affection of people can heal оnе’ѕ рѕусhоlоgісаl рrоblеm аnd еlеvаtе оnе’ѕ mіnd (谢广平, 2004).

Zou Quan adopts the feminist theory to prove that the protagonist Mary subverted the stereotyped gender roles of women, and confirms that Mary is an indeed potentially subversive girl in the patriarchal environment (邹泉, 2006).

Su Fang makes a detailed study of the protagonist Mary from a different angle, mainly using Virginia Woolf’s feminism to demonstrate that Mary is the embodiment of Burnett and the garden represents the Burnett’s spiritual world, a source of creation (张颖 & 苏芳, 2007).

1.2.2 The Study of Character Formation in Children

People’s character is not born. It develops with the life and is influenced by the environment. After the long-term researches, psychologists believe that, childhood is the golden age of character growth, when all kinds of habits and behavior patterns lay the foundation. If children’s character is ignored at this time, it is difficult or even impossible to hope that children will have a sound personality and healthy psychology after childhood.The formative period of character is from the birth of a baby to about 11 years old, which is what we call childhood. Experiments have shown that infants begin to accept the influence of their surroundings after birth, forming certain attitudes and habitual behaviors.

Before the age of three is the beginning of character, self-awareness and moral awareness. From 3 to 5 years old, it is the embryonic form of character formation: from 6 to 11 years old, it is the initial formation of character, self-control, moral values and behavioral habits are gradually developed, but this period of character is very unstable, vulnerable to environmental influences.

Freud paidspecial attention to the meaning of childhood, believing that a person’s character is basically set by the age of seven or eight. In China, there is also a saying that someone’s future development depends on someone’s character as a child, but this view exaggerates the role of childhood. The research of Chinese psychologists shows that, although the early experience plays an important role in the formation of personality, its final formation will come into being in youth and even adulthood, and it is formed gradually from quantitative change to qualitative change and from instability to stability.

Character, once formed, is quite stable, but not constant, but subject to certain changes in circumstances or physical conditions.

Liu Ming and Wang Shunxing and other scholars study the age development trend of Chinese children and adolescents’ personality characteristics. They used questionnaires to measure the emotional, volitional and intellectual characteristics of a total of 2, 127 subjects(urban and rural ratio, male to female ratio roughly 1:1). Among the three personality characteristics, four major personality factors are identified.

This research shows that the level of character development of Chinese children and adolescents gradually increases with the growth of age. It shows a development trend from a low level to a high one. However, the development rate is unbalanced and uneven. The development rate from Grade 2 to Grade 4 in primary school is slow, while that from Grade 4 to Grade 6 is fast. The development rate from Grade 6 to Grade 2 in primary school is especially slow and even relatively stagnant. The research also shows that the development trend of various aspects of personality characteristics is different.(刘明& 王顺兴, 1990: 396, 400, 409)

In the process of character formation, environment plays an important role, and children’s character is born on the basis of the material environment and spiritual environment in which children live. In the past, people often paid too much attention to children’s material living environment, but ignored the spiritual living environment, that is, the role of culture.

1.2.3 The Study of Family Education on Children’s Character Formation

The family is called the factory that creates the human character. Freud suggestedthat personality is actually formed in the first five years of life.

According to Kovalev, a former Soviet psychologist, personality formation can be divided into two stages: The first stage is the early school age, during which people’s character is a stage of development restricted by the situation. Children’s behavior is directly subject to the specific life and directly reflects the impact of the external environment. Children have not formed a stable attitude yet and their behavior is easier to be improved. The second stage is the early and middle stages of school age. Children’s stable behavior habits are forming, and their character has been difficult to change; The third stage is when a person’s behavior is conditioned by his heart and habits have been formed, which makes the transformation of his character more difficult. From the above psychological theories, it can be seen that preschool children’s character cultivation plays a decisive role in shaping their personality throughout their life, and the proper parenting style is directly related to the formation of children’s good character, psychological research on this aspect is also more.

Psychologist James Baldwin has studied the relationship between parenting attitudes and children’s personality traits (Table1).

Table 1 The Influence of a Mother’s Attitude on a Child’s Character Traits

Xu Zhengyuan, a psychologist in China, cooperates with ten regions in China to investigate the relationship between the parenting style and children’s personality characteristics of 225 children aged 3-6 years. The volume is divided into two types: one is the children’s personality characteristics questionnaire, and the other is the family education questionnaire. The results show that there is a significant correlation between the total average scores of education. In addition, it can also be seen that several types of parenting styles of authority, the acquisition of authority, the cultivation of independence, respect for children, and the demand for consistency are highly correlated with the personality of all surveys.

1.3 Overview of this Thesis

The Secret Garden is a masterpiece of children’s literature by Francis Hodgson Burnett, a famous American writer. Since its publication in 1911, it is always one of the best-selling books of the year and has been republished many times since.

The hero of the secret garden is a lonely, ugly little girl named Mary, who accidentally breaks into a long-locked garden. Later, with the help of the farm boy Dicken, she decides to save the abandoned garden and help her bedridden cousin Colin. In the process of labor, Mary realizesthe beauty of nature, and gradually growsinto a healthy and happy girl, while she also helpscolin to revive the hope for life. In The Secret Garden, Mary’s connection with nature is very strong: she takes good care of the garden, and the garden gives her the strength to grow.

2. Mary’s Personality Analysis

2.1 Mary’s Personality Changes

2.1.1 Early Stage — Bossy and Selfish

At the beginning of the story, Mary’s character can be seen from the first sentence of the full text:

“When Mary Lennox is sent to Misselth waite Manorto live with her uncle everybody said she is the mostdisagreeable-looking child ever seen. It is true, too.”(Burnettm,2002: 23)

Mary’s unpleasantness is inside-out. First of all, in terms of appearance, this is how the novel describes Mary’s appearance:

“She had a little thin face and a little thin body,thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair is yellow,and her face is yellow because she had been born inIndia and had always been ill in one way or another.”(Burnett, 2002: 1)

She is a plain, homely child. It can be seen that Mary, as a little girl, is not only very ugly, but also has a frail body.

Secondly, it can be seen from her character and attitude towards people around her. When Mary is born, she is entrusted to an Indian nanny, and the India nanny’s mother never wanted a girl. Because India is a highly hierarchical society, nannies and servants treat their masters with absolute obedience and no real love. In order to please her mistress, the nurse is likely to be afraid that Mary’s noise and crying would spoil her mistress’s mood, so she does everything she can for her, so that when Mary is just six years old, she has already become amost selfish little bully. One by one, Mary scares away the governess who has been brought in to teach her. As for the servants around her, Mary will bite her teeth and scold them again and again, calling them “pigs” and “daughter of pigs” whenever she is not satisfied with them. For the dead father and mother, she does not miss them, and there is no feeling of sadness, or as before, only thinking about herself:

“She did not miss her at all, in fact, and as she is aself-absorbed child she gave her entire thought to herself,as she had always done. If she had been older she wouldno doubt have been very anxious at being left alone inthe world, but she is very young, and as she had alwaysbeen taken care of, she supposed she always would be.” (Burnett, 2002: 2)

Mary doesn’t know how to get along well with her peers of the same age. While she is building the garden alone, Basil, who is watching, becomesvery interested and offersher a suggestion. Mary calls out rudely:

“Go away!” cried Mary. “I don’t want boys. Go away!”For a moment Basil looked angry, and then he began to tease.(Burnett, 2002: 2)

This performance is teased, laughed at and repelled by Basil’s gang, who nicknamed her “stubborn Mary”.

As for herself, Mary doesn’t like herself at all. She never knows that she is a little girl who is disliked by others. The author uses the “defamiliarization” technique to create such a rich family but an ugly, weak, bossy and selfish little girl image.

2.1.2 Growth Stage —Gentle and Considerate, Decisive and Independent

When Mary comes to the uncle’s manor to start a new life, Mary begins to show the courage and independence and adventure spirit of boys. One of Mary’s distinguishing features is her determination, independence, and adventurous spirit in exploring the rooms of the manor and discovering Colin.

Mary and Martha are talking about their uncle and aunt and the garden when they hear a strange cry for the first time. But Mary does not believe the lying Martha, and she knows for sure that it is a child’s cry, in one of those long corridors. Then Mary becomes curious about the one hundred rooms on the farm.

She wondersif they are all really locked and whatshe would find if she could get into any of them.

Are there a hundred really? Why shouldn’t she go and seehow many doors she could count? It would be somethingto do on this morning when she could not go out (Burnett, 2002: 6).

Mary has never been taught to ask permission for anything, and she does not know what permission is, so she begins to wander the corridors. No other girl has spendssuch a strange morning as Mary, who has passesalone in the vast, unsubstantial house, walking upstairs and downstairs, and through the wide corridors. During this process, Mary hear a cry that is not quite the same as the night before. It is not far away, and her heart beats a lot faster. It is the second time Mary hasheard crying. When she accidentally puts her hand on the tapestry beside her, she jumps back in surprise. Then an angry Mrs. Medlock appears, shocks and is angry at Mary’s arrival

“You come along back to your own nursery or I’ll boxyour ears.” And she took her by the arm and half pushed, half pulledher up one passage and down another until she pushedher in at the door of her own room. (Burnett, 2002: 6)

She refuses to listen to Mary’s explanation and pushed and pulled at her very rudely. Mary is so angry and resentful that she doesnot cry though Martha and Mrs. Medlock tries to hide their true feelings, saying that it is the wind, that it is the pain in the kitchen maid’s teeth, she doesn’t hear anything.

Mary has her own independent judgment:

“There is some one crying–there is–there is!”she said to herself (Burnett, 2002: 6).

Mary is thwarted by the housekeeper, but in a dark night, Mary hears the cry for the third time, she is determined to find out the truth:

“I am going to find out what it is,” she said. ”Everybody isin bed and I don’t care about Mrs. Medlock–I don’t care! There is a candle by her bedside and she takesit upand goessoftly out of the room. The corridor looks very long and dark, but she is too excited to mind that (Burnett, 2002: 12).

Without hesitation, Mary lights her candle and groped along the dark hallway, her heart beating so fast she could hear it. She asks no one for help but herself, and after overcoming her fears, she findsthat it is her cousin Colin who is crying. This is her first adventure.

Like all girls, Mary is not without tenderness. This tenderness is mainly reflected in the way Colin sings, tells stories and gets angry with him while he is sleeping. At the first time Mary finds and knows Colin returnsto the children’s room, Colin hopes to fells asleep as soon as possible. And Mary can feel Colin’s bad feeling, so she wants to help him to fall asleep as soon as possible. She says,

“Shut your eyes,” said Mary, drawing her footstool closer, ”and I will do what my Ayah used to do in India (Burnett, 2002: 13).

Mary doesit, singing softly in Hindi like a mother lulling a child to sleep, stroking and clapping Colin’s hands until Colin is completely asleep. Her voice and movements are gentle.

On another occasion, after a quarrel between Mary and Colin, Mary looksinto Colin’s poor, tired little face and red, swollen eyes, and promisesColin that she would not sing in bed this time but would whisper as she had done the first day about the imaginary secret garden. Mary takes Colin’s hand and begins to tell the story of the imaginary secret gardenslowly, gently, patiently . A soft, soft voice putsColin to sleep. From this, we can easily see that little Mary, as a girl, has feminine tenderness.

To sum up, Mary at this time has changed. She has become gentle and considerate, she has become full of curiosity and thirst for knowledge, she has the courage to take risks, to explore, and she is completely different from the person before.

2.2 The Reason for the Change in Mary’s Character

There are two reasons for Mary’s personality change. One is environmental guidance, and the other is family education.

2.2.1 Environmental Impact

The change in Mary’s character began when she movesinto her aunt’s house. Mary’s aunt, Mrs Craven, loves the earth and the sky and the things that grows. It is she who builds the garden and brings it to Mary’s life. Because of her early death, the beautiful garden is sealed off by Mr. Craven, making it a desolate garden of death. Ten years later her niece Mary comes to live on the farm. At first she is disgusted and afraid of nature:

“I don’t like it,” she said to herself. “I don’t like it,” and she pinched her thin lips more tightly together (Burnett, 2002: 3).

But with the increase of activities in nature, ideas have changed. Driven by curiosity and led by the robin, Mary finds the secret abandoned garden and discovers a world of her own. It is a lovely, mysterious, strange place. Mary falls in love with everything in the garden and with work. She works hard in the garden every day. She also lets Dicken buy flower tools and seeds, and works hard and devoted, as if playing a fascinating game. In the process of labor, Mary, who has never worked, is getting stronger and stronger, and her body is getting fatter. Her lonely state of mind is also irrigated by nature and love. Through unremitting efforts, a new life has been brought to this lifeless garden:

She clasped her hands for pure joy and looked up in the skyand it is so blue and pink and pearly and white and floodedwith springtime light that she felt as if she must fluteand sing aloud herself and knew that thrushes and robinsand skylarks could not possibly help it. She ran aroundthe shrubs and paths towards the secret garden (Burnett, 2002: 15).

And the vitality of nature also brings laughter, hope and vitality to Mary: she is no longer the sickly, bitter and unpleasant yellow-faced girl, but a beautiful and healthy girl close to nature, loving labor. From there, “I lived happily with my family” (Burnettm,2002: 72). We can see that nature plays an extremely important role in shaping people’s character. Mary’s growth is inseparable from the secret garden, and mutual benefit and win-win results can be achieved through hard work and nature. Mary takesthe initiative to help Colin recover and build confidence in life. Mary’s change is inseparable from nature and the vitality brought by nature. In the process of awakening the sleeping garden, Mary also gainshealth, confidence and courage, and finally she achieves both physical and mental health development.

2.2.2 Family Education

In addition to the guidance of the environment, Mary’s character changes, but also because of the change in family education. When Mary is a child, her family’s respect for her makes her imperious and insolent for a variety of reasons, which are caused by the lack and impropriety of family education.

One mother, Susan Sowerby, had a crucial influence on Mary’s transformation. She is the author’s idealized character. She is considerate, intelligent, tenacious, selfless dedication… With all the good qualities of all human mothers, is the only image of an adult full of love from beginning to end. She is a really understanding mother, and she said to Mrs. Meclod that Mary—

“…And she says to me,’Well, Sarah Ann, she mayn’t be a good child, an’ she mayn’tbe a pretty one, but she’s a child, an’ children needschildren.’ We went to school together, Susan Sowerby and me.” “She’s the best sick nurse I know,” said Dr. Craven (Burnett, 2002: 19).

These words are so philosophical and full of wisdom, which shows that Susan is not only considerate but also full of wisdom in teaching children. The children trust Susan because she understands them, believes in their magic, and keeps their secrets. Sowerby has twelve children, and her husband earns only sixteen shillings a week. The family of fourteen lives in poverty. She works hard. She is not afraid of hardship and she is a resourceful person. She reflects her attitude to life and fate is tenacious. With the family scraping by, when she learns that Mary is weak and anorexic, she buys a jump rope from her small income and asks Martha to teach her to exercise outside. It is also suggested to Mr Craven that Mary should be allowed to spend more time outdoors before getting a governess. When she knows that Mary, Colin, and Dicken are toiling in the garden, Sowerby is afraid that the child would be too hungry. She asks Dicken to bring a bucket of fresh milk, bread, and raisins. Sowerby also writes a letter to Colin’s father, Mr Craven, who is travelling in Europe, asking him to come home. At the end of the novel, with maternal affection, Mrs Sowerby goes to the secret garden to share her joy with the children.

Susan is not Mary’s mother, or even has nothing to do with her. However, great motherhood makes her love Mary and focus on her healthy growth. She is as broad as the earth to accept the injured heart, as the earth blindly silently paying but do not ask for return, as the earth nurtures and nourishes all things as full of mother nature. Such an understanding, wisdom, strong and selfless dedication to the mother’s female image shaping, makes people understand how great a mother’s love can be. Mother’s love can guide the children to be close to nature, learn to love and be loved, to learn abundant their inner feelings.

3. Inspiration of The Secret Gardento Children’s Character Building

3.1 Children’s Character Building

A person’s personality and mental health is embodied in his/her life style, which refers to the unique form and way of life that an individual displays in his environment. At the age of four or five, the child has already formed his life style, which is unconsciously manifested in a “prototype” way, which the child is not aware of.

As for what kind of life style a child forms, it depends on his living conditions and family and social environment. The wrong lifestyle is caused by three states in childhood: One, organ defects. It can cause children’s physical inferiority complex, may lead to unhealthy inferiority complex. Two, coddle or pamper. The child becomes the center of the family, and his every need must be met. When he grows up, he tends to be a selfish person without social interest. Three, being neglected or abandoned. Such children feel worthless and become extremely cold and hostile to society and others, and distrust all people.

Therefore, Adler shouts loudly, in order to avoid children to produce a wrong style of life. He believes that it should strengthened that the early education of children, especially from family education, from enhancing children’s social interests to education, so that they get the right meaning of life.

3.2 Influence of Family Education on Children’s Character Building

Family education is an important part of the whole educational cause. The family is the first and the most important place of a child to grow up. Children learn much through their family. It can be said that the child’s body development, the knowledge growth, intelligence training, especially the moral character edify, the good behavior habit and the individuality formation and so on are firstly obtained enlightenment in the family. In addition, family education is a lifelong education, with a long-term and lasting nature. From birth to entering the society, a child spends most of his/her time in the family. Even after he/she enters the society, he/she still cannot leave the influence of the family.

Compared with other modes of education, family education for children has obvious advantages in the early stage. From the first day of a child’s birth, in fact, family education plays an important role in the development of a person’s intelligence, the formation of moral concepts, character and other aspects.

Children’s family education is the education carried out by parents (mainly parents) consciously through their own words and deeds and family life practice to children, so that children can be into the most basic behavior habits, and with basic moral character.

Table 2 The Influence of Family Education and Kindergarten Education on Children’s Growth

*Data source: A survey of China by The International Association for Educational Achievement

The international association for educational achievement’s report on China shows that compared with kindergartens, family education has greater influence on the growth of children. The importance of early childhood family education to children can be seen.

4. Strategies to Help Children Build Character

4.1 Creatinga Good Environment and Cultivate Good Habits

Mencius’ mother led Mencius to move three times, from which we can see how important the influence of the environment on young children. Parentshave the responsibility and obligation to provide a good family environment for children, so that children form a good habit. Parents should first give their children a healthy family environment. In fact, for young children, they have no concept of material abundanceandtheir experience is the first. And this kind of experience, and the family atmosphere that parents build areinseparable. Therefore, parents must create a family environment suitable for the growth of children, but also through subtle ways to let children understand different truth, so as to develop good habits of children. For example, in the meal, let the children understand that every grain of rice is precious, let them understand that saving foodand cherish the fruits of farmers’ labor.

Parents can give children the necessities of life, but can not overindulge. Children’s behavior and unreasonable requirements should be stopped in time. Finally it can be made to develop the good habit of thrift, never iste.

In addition, in addition to the internal environment of the family, parents should also bring their children into contact with the natural environment. There are many beautiful things in the natural environment. When children observe things in nature, they can continuously perceive, appreciate and create beauty. This can not only increase the interest of children’s life, but also through a variety of plants, animals and other children’s love heart and sense of responsibility. At the same time, nature is a natural treasure. Parents can lead their children to collect the fallen ginkgo leaves and Chinese Indus leaves into plant specimens. They can also use small sticks to make toys.

4.2 EncouragingChildren to Explore Nature

In The Secret Garden, Mary’s exploration of the garden is not always easy. When she hearsthat there is a garden on the estate, she is intrigued. It’s a suspenseful adventure. The garden wasclosed ten years ago, the doors hidden, the keys buried. Mary walksalone through the gardens and orchards. Sheasksthe old gardener about the secret garden door, but the eccentric old gardener says:

“Get you gone an’ play you. I’ve no more time.” And he actually stopped digging, threw his spade overhis shoulder and walked off, without even glancingat her or saying good-by.(Burnett, 2002: 4)

But, even so, she continues to explore the garden, and in the process of working in the garden, she gradually gains the filling of character defects. In stark contrast to the gardener, Susan Sowerby encourages Mary to explore nature and be a brave child.

In fact, the cultivation of children’s brave character comes from the encouragement of the family. In the process of family education, parents should pay attention to creating opportunities for children to practice and practice brave qualities. Any good quality of children, must be formed in practice, the quality of courage is no exception. Therefore, parents should create opportunities for their children, guide them to participate in various activities, and train them to overcome difficulties and deal with emergencies calmly. Parents can do a variety of demonstrations and explanations to help children solve problems in life, and often give encouragement and praise, and gradually cultivate their brave quality.

4.3 Improvingthe Quality of Family Education

The family is the first school that children touch and the “factory of human character”. Family education has the characteristics of early, long-term, coherent and individual education, which school education does not have. Good character of parents and correct family education, easy to make children form good character characteristics. In particular, parenting style directly affects the formation of children’s character, and there is a great correlation between the two. The love – loving style of education often leads to the formation of children capricious, arrogant, selfish, weak character. Harsh parenting can lead to negative, submissive, lonely, and depressed personality traits. Ambivalent parenting can lead children to lie, jump into the air and become emotionally unstable. These types of education are not conducive to the formation of a healthy child personality. Objectively, there are a lot of parents who don’t receive the systematic education and training of civilized behavior habits, lack of scientific parenting methods.

Schools can teach parents theory and practical knowledge by holding parent schools. The school directs family education. Through this way,theygradually realize the family education science, modernization. At the same time, the ability and level of parental tutoring can also be improved. Ideal democratic family education can also be achieved.

5 Conclusion

In fact, the spiritual growth of children in the secret garden is of more universal significance and aesthetic value, and no other children’s literary work addresses the introspective problems of unlikable children in a way that children can understand. Growth, perhaps is such a search for the process, and a good growing environment and family educationis the best help to build children’s character.

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《秘密花园》女主人公玛丽人物性格浅析

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