secret garden, like all other classic films, has rich cultural metaphors. The garden here is a metaphor for the human soul. A dried-up mind is like a deserted garden, and the process of rebuilding the mind is like rebuilding a garden. As mentioned above, the garden is a product of culture acting on nature. Isn’t it the human spirit? The beauty of this film is that she tells a story that brought the garden back to life, and let us see the lifeless lives bloom and become radiant.
Before Mary came to the manor, although her life in India was rich in material, she lacked the care of her parents; after she came to the humid and cold country town, she set out to find her soul, that is, to find the secret garden; Colin Being enclosed in his own bedroom for a long time, you can say that he was kidnapped by culture and became weak because of being out of touch with nature; you can also say that he represents a kind of culture, a kind of culture that he no longer seeks because of being over-protected Innovation and integration, thus losing the vitality of the culture. If Colin was over-protected and disconnected from nature, Mary was too little bound to be disconnected from culture (this can be seen from her attitude towards servants). So Mary came to the desolate Yorkshire, looking for a bordered garden on that vast land. Mary went from nature to culture, and Colin went from culture to nature.
In the film, Dickon has always felt very mysterious. He and nature are almost in complete harmony. He always appears at the most appropriate time and guides Mary and Colin to the garden. He seemed to know everything, and the people around him, including Mary, never doubted it. He fought to death at a young age, just as no saints or angels would stay long in the world. I guess, does Dickon allude to divinity? As Emerson and his like believed: Nature is the embodiment of God's divinity. Is Dickon a character in the film that embodies divinity?
Finally return to the garden. In fact, each of us has our own garden to operate. We have the body and senses endowed by nature; we use culture to trim these senses and cultivate some thoughts. Nature has no boundaries, and gardens have boundaries; just as the biological nature of human beings has no norms and laws, and no ethical boundaries; while socialized people, people who have undergone cultural pruning have boundaries. If we look at our garden frequently, we will notice whether he has become lifeless because of lack of pruning and lack of structure; or because of overprotection. People who walk in the world need to take care of their garden from time to time when dealing with the relationship between their hearts and the outside world.
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