#maybe even a journey with Ben’s articles and how we see his attention shift to weather -> to the increase of storms-> to Tornado Alley

[fluffypotatey]

Hopefully the Twister fandom grows for the sake of more people able to understand the fics you're writing because I love your stuff but I'm missing all the subjective love a fan of the series would have

same! both the 1996 and 2024 movies are so much fun and deserve all the love and fics and fanart and gifs

like it was only until last week I think since Twisters got an official tag on ao3 (which is just a combo between toy and a twister 1996 but still!!! huge props to all the fic writers contributing to the fandom) and i have found that the Jake “Hangman” Seresin & Tyler Owens (Twisters) tag is common enough to be included when typing for the relationship tag so 👀 we are definitely getting there!

[hereayourmirrors]

Secret Garden

I know, I know, it's an assignment book, but I will still include it in my reading log, and I do this because while reading this I had all sorts of questions. So let us dive into our small Q&A session

Q.#1 Why does the author dislike Mary so much?!

It is not really hard to figure out that the author hates Mary at least at the beginning. This poor girl has ALL the qualities to be disliked and even hated by the reader. Almost at the beginning of the book, we get a pretty explicit description of Mary:

So when she was a sickly, fretful, ugly little baby she was kept out of the way, and when she became a sickly, fretful, toddling thing she was kept out of the way also. [1, p. 2]

It seems like the author doesn't miss any chance he gets to accentuate how ugly and disgusting she is in every way possible. She has no manners, she hits people, she waits for everybody to do everything for her and doesn't even think to say please or thank you. Nobody really likes her, and the author seems to coerce the reader to despise her, but I rejected that position. Why do I have to hate the poor girls, who got half-raised by Indian servants and never truly belonged to anybody? Why do I have to hate Mary for her lack of obedience and manners if she has never been taught how to behave? 

I don't think I have an answer, although there is an assumption. The book was written in 1911, and at that time, the didactic influence on children's literature remained relatively strong. Deborah Stevenson, in her article "History of Children's and Young Adult Literature" states:

Didacticism remains a strong element of contemporary children's books ostensibly designed for pleasure.[2, p. 180]

So there we have it, Mary is designed to be disgusting at the beginning of the book because children who do not behave cannot be good. They have to take a spiritual journey, understand how to be a good member of society, stop being disagreeable. Only then they can be worthy of pleasing adjectives.

Interestingly enough, Marina Nikolajeva in her article “Did you Feel as if you Hated People?” states, that Mary is depicted in that way, because the author doesn’t want readers to relate to characters, to merge with their personality.

The “just-like-me” assessment of characters, frequently adopted by novice readers, is restricted by the readers’ experience and does not foster empathy [3, p. 101]

Nevertheless, the author admits that most of Marry's problems are a consequence of the complete absence of her family:

If she had been an affectionate child, who had been used to being loved, she would have broken her heart, but even though she was "Mistress Mary Quite Contrary" she was desolate, and the bright-breasted little bird brought a look into her sour little face which was almost a smile. [1, p. 23]

In this context, the word "desolate" caught my attention. Having looked at the Online Cambridge Dictionary, I discovered the meaning - "extremely sad and feeling alone". 

So Mary is not "ugly", she is not "quite contrary", not "fretful". She is just desolate and unjustly deprived of the basic human need - the need of a family, the need for being loved and cared for.

Q.#2 Is Colin really different from Marry?

Well, no. 

That would be the simple answer and the most evident one, as the author tells us more than once, that Colin and Marry are equal in how horribly they behave towards other people. Nevertheless, while reading, I couldn't help but notice how different author makes us feel about them.

Colin, who is another unfortunate child without a proper family, never gets to be called something as ugly or fretful. He is shown to be pretty egoistic, but from the author's perspective, it doesn't look like he needs to go on a spiritual journey to become "a good child". Moreover, not only once is he described as a beautiful boy, even though he often has tantrums and never goes outside.

He was a very proud boy. He lay thinking for a while, and then Mary saw his beautiful smile begin and gradually change his whole face. [1, p.129]

Now, maybe he is portrayed like that because most of the time, we see the world from Marry's perspective, and she evidently fancies him. That is why, despite him being a "brat", he has a beautiful appearance.

Q.#3 Is the book really racist?

Well, yes.

Although, that answer, just like the previous one, would be the shallow one. Let us dig deeper.

As I already mentioned, we see the world from Marry’s perspective, except only for two last chapters, where we see robin’s and Mr Craven points of view. She is the one who encountered Indian people, and she is ultimately the only source of information about India that all the other characters possess. So, being a spoiled little girl as she is, is it any wonder that she talks about Indian servants in such a humiliating way? I bet she would speak like that about any person who served her, no matter the race or nationality. There was also an interesting dialogue between Martha and Marry:

“Eh! I can see it’s different,” she answered almost sympathetically. “I dare say it’s because there’s such a lot o’ blacks there instead o’ respectable white people. When I heard you was comin’ from India I thought you was a black too.”

Mary sat up in bed furious.

“What!” she said. “What! You thought I was a native. You—you daughter of a pig!”

Martha stared and looked hot.

“Who are you callin’ names?” she said. “You needn’t be so vexed. That’s not th’ way for a young lady to talk. I’ve nothin’ against th’ blacks. When you read about ’em in tracts they’re always very religious. You always read as a black’s a man an’ a brother. I’ve never seen a black an’ I was fair pleased to think I was goin’ to see one close. [1, p. 15]

From this passage, we can see that Martha has nothing against black people. In fact, the notion of “respectable white people” comes out of her lack of proper education and the absence of intercultural communication.

In the world 21st century, it is tough to say something without enraging certain people. I dare say, the silencing imposed on the Internet speech came to the point, that you are afraid to state your opinion without being condemned (Twitter campaign with hashtags RIPJKRowling as the most recent example). 

The same thing applies to the books such as Secret Garden that cannot fit into modern cannon. Should we ban them? Where is the line between book propagandising the racism and the book that has racist characters in? Should we simply deny the existence of such people? And if yes, wouldn’t this denial be more dangerous than just putting the reality of the world out there for children to see? How do we insert that kind of people into a book and at the same time show that what they say isn’t quite right? 

These questions are not part of our Q&A session, because, sadly, I don’t have the answer. I doubt that anyone does.

Q.#4 Why would author put that Yorkshire accent in the text?

That is a question that I asked myself pretty frequently. Actually, I wondered about it every time I struggled to read and understand it... so, every two pages more or less.

When I first encountered it, I instantly remember the books of Stephen King. In almost every one of his books, some people speak a southern American accent, making it hard to understand them. Reading those books, I didn’t bother wondering, what was the point of that kind of speech. Still, in the case of Secret Garden, the answer came to me quite quickly - it is actually a great author’s linguistic attempt to make the reader feel like Marry. 

She comes to a place totally different from what she knew all her life, and even though people speak her language, she still struggles to understand them. It definitely helped me to relate to Mary, because, let me tell you, the Scottish accent is not an easy one to understand! So, I felt (and still sometimes feel) very awkward keeping asking people to repeat what they just said, just like Marry.

Q.#5 Is “The Secret Garden” anti-feminist?

It is not that hard to see, that "The Secret Garden", although started as an Entwicklungsroman, where the main character is supposed to develop and mentally mature, suddenly lost its point. The focus just shifted to Colin, and Mary was not even at the end of the story, discarded as a redundant character. While it may be seen so, there is an interesting article by Linda Parsons "' Otherways' into the Garden Re-visioning the Feminine in the Secret Garden" [4] where she argues that this novel is feminist in its core. Therefore, the author points out the fluidity of the gender depicted in the book. She gives an example of Ben Weatherstaff and Dickson, who are both caring and close to nature, something that is considered to be feminine qualities. 

Also, she argues that the shift of the focus from Marry to Colin is justified. From her perspective, the author's intent to show that Collin is expelled from the Garden. Therefore, it is still Marry's story, because she matured and grew as a person, while Colin, even though healed physically, couldn't reach her emotional level, so he has no place in the Garden. I accept her interpretation, although I would point out, that I can't entirely agree with her last statement "I rejoice that Mary remains forever in the garden" [4, p. 267]. The fairytale-like endings that include nouns such as forever cannot be perceived as positive. The characters should evolve, both mentally and physically, but staying in one place forever would prevent Mary from doing that. 

So at first, it was tough to understand Martha and Dickson, but with time it became more comfortable for Marry as well as for me. She even started speaking in Yorkshire sometimes, and that is a way of the author to show us one of the small but significant changes in Marry. Not only she becomes more kind towards other people, she genuinely wants to learn how to speak their language. Even Colin starts to master it, I guess, this skill he acquires after his magic ritual.

Interestingly enough, in the retold version, characters don’t speak Yorkshire anymore. I think although it makes it easier for children to read it, the book itself loses a valuable lesson of acceptance of other cultures and the assimilation. I would even argue that it’s one of the most important ones, as in our age of globalisation being acceptant of different cultures is a vital skill.

___

References:

1.  Frances Hodgson Burnett “The Secret Garden”, The Project Gutenberg, accessed on: 07 Oct 2020: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/113/113-h/113-h.htm

2. Deborah Stevenson. 19 Oct 2010, History of Children’s and Young Adult Literature from: Handbook of Research on Children’s and Young Adult Literature Routledge, accessed on: 12 Oct 2020: https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203843543.ch13

3. Maria Nikolajeva (2013) “Did you Feel as if you Hated People?”: Emotional Literacy Through Fiction, New Review of Children's Literature and Librarianship, 95-107 pp.

4. Linda Parsons “’Otherways’ into the Garden Re-visioning the Feminine in the Secret Garden”, Children’s Literature in Education, Vol. 33, No. 4, December 2002, 247-268 pp.