Children's Literature and the Rise of ‘Mind Cure' Book contents
- Children’s Literature and the Rise of “Mind Cure”
- Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
- Children’s Literature and the Rise of “Mind Cure”
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 The Inner Child in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Little Lord Fauntleroy and Sara Crewe
- Chapter 2 Fauntleroy’s Ghost
- Chapter 3 Rewriting the Rest Cure in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden
- Chapter 4 Sunshine and Shadow
- Chapter 5 New Women, New Thoughts
- Epilogue
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
Chapter 3 - Rewriting the Rest Cure in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 December 2020
- Children’s Literature and the Rise of “Mind Cure”
- Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
- Children’s Literature and the Rise of “Mind Cure”
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 The Inner Child in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Little Lord Fauntleroy and Sara Crewe
- Chapter 2 Fauntleroy’s Ghost
- Chapter 3 Rewriting the Rest Cure in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden
- Chapter 4 Sunshine and Shadow
- Chapter 5 New Women, New Thoughts
- Epilogue
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
Summary
Chapter three discusses Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic novel The Secret Garden (1911) and her lesser-known work, The Dawn of a To-morrow (1906), as feminist, Christian Scientist responses to the rest cure. This cure, which was invented by Philadelphia neurologist Silas Weir Mitchell in the 1870s, involved bed rest, isolation, and force feeding. Burnett herself underwent at least three modified rest cures during her lifetime, but lasting relief of her symptoms eluded her. In The Secret Garden, child protagonist Mary Lennox stands in for charismatic leader Mary Baker Eddy, who died shortly after the serial version of The Secret Garden began its run in The American Magazine in November 1910. Mary Lennox heals her bedridden cousin Colin Craven by convincing him to abandon a regimen of enforced bed rest and social isolation. Colin’s father, Archibald Craven, is likewise healed of his depression when he sees the changes Mary has wrought in his son. By showing a young girl curing hysterical males, Burnett inverted the gender politics of the rest cure and contradicted its key principles.
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- Children's Literature and the Rise of ‘Mind Cure'Positive Thinking and Pseudo-Science at the Fin de Siècle, pp. 83 - 114Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020