There are so many critics and writers evaluate and interpret it in many different perspectives. Much critical attention has been given to themes of nature and its power to heal in The Secret Garden, and several critics have interpreted the garden itself as a nurturing space that cares for the children. In the essay “Digging up The Secret Garden: Noble Innocents or little Savages?” Christine Wilkie studies the issue of sexuality and liberation of the novel. American writer and scholar Alison Lurie figures that The Secret Garden clearly contains several important themes including the transfer period from tradition to modern models in the 20th western literature, such as the concern of people’s inner world, the advocating of returning to the nature and mysticism. 

Foreign researchers and domestic researchers they almost analyze the novel from archetype, children’s psychology, feminism to ecological views. There are few researches pay attention to the secrets in the novel, and the function of these secrets to the growth of children. I am going to dig out the secrets in The Secret Garden and find out how the secrets work on these children as well as the adults. Besides, I also find the secrets of children’s recover lies in the law of attraction, so I will also aim at how it functions. 

In recent years, there is increasingly number of researchers paying attention to the influence of secret, which means something should be remained hidden from others, on the growth of children. Researches in some areas like psychology and pedagogy, have already conducted plenty of researches regarding to the influence of secret on preschool children to adolescents. Secret does not only point to what is hidden inside but also some feelings and events which they only want to share with a few people. Secret plays an important role in children growth and it is bound to be focused by those who are devoted in home education as well as school education. In my thesis, children’s secrets will be discussed in chapter one. It will be pided into three parts: two types of secrets, three stages of secrets, and secrets promote the development of children.

Two types of secrets in the novel are hidden secrets and light secret. Hidden secrets refer to the secrets that are known to the protagonists, while light secrets refer to those are known to the protagonists. I will discuss about the transformation of the secrets from hidden secrets to light secrets as well as children’s recreation to the secrets. Besides, the study will mainly focus on the light secrets, which are children’s secret in their garden. 

The plots in the novel are pided into three periods as “before the secrets”, “in the secrets”, “after the secrets” and the story unfolds. This part will mainly talk about the changes of children in the novel both in physical and psychology in these three stages. In addition, the first stage talks about the process of looking for the secret, the second stage will be illustrated in three aspects: keeping the secret, sharing the secret and exchange the secret. It aims at children’s different behavior in the three processes, and the last stage is about the success of self-healing, the improvement of the quality in life and the public of secrets.