Comparing Charlotte's Web, The Secret Garden, And Tuck Everlasting

When one thinks upon the classics of great literature, usually the transformation of a main character will come to mind. Characters that go on an adventure or experience a tragedy develops and matures somehow in the process. The authors use many symbols to present different motifs that allow the process of personal development and maturing in each of the following novels: Charlotte’s Web, The Secret Garden, A Bridge to Teribithia and Tuck Everlasting. In Charlotte’s Web we meet a young girl Fern, who saves a pig from her father’s ax and names him Wilbur. Fern treats Wilbur like he is her own little baby. Fern spends all of her time with Wilbur and she gives him a bottle, tucks him into bed, and walks him around in a stroller. Wilbur is

“When Charlotte's web had said SOME PIG, Wilbur had tried hard to look like some pig. When Charlotte's web said TERRIFIC, Wilbur had tried to look terrific. And now that the web said RADIANT, he did everything possible to make himself glow” (White, 144). By the end of the summer Wilbur matures enough to longer think about himself when he hears that his best friend will die. He now talks to Charlotte and Templeton with an adult tone that persuades both of them. “Listen to me! … Charlotte … has only a short time to live. She cannot accompany us home, because of her condition. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that I take her egg sac with me. I can’t reach it, and I can’t climb. You are the only one that can get it” (White, 167). We finally see Wilbur as a responsible adult and no longer a child. In The Secret Garden, Mary Lennox develops in both maturity and behavior. When we first meet Mary she is a spoiled, unloved, lonely and selfish child. The soldiers who discover her after the Cholera breakout are shocked to find her, and refer to her as "the child no one ever saw" (Burnett, 8). As Mary’s heartbreak and circumstances change so does her

“ Mary was in such a rage and felt so helpless before the girl’s simple stare, and somehow she suddenly felt so horribly lonely and far away from everything she understood and which understood her, that she threw herself face downward on the pillows and burst into passionate sobbing” (Burnett, 33). Once Mary discovers the secret garden, Dixon and her cousin Colin she starts to thrive both physically and emotionally. Mary’s healing begins and she becomes interested in the world around her. “The Secret Garden was what Mary called it when she was thinking of it. She had no intention of going to sleep, and, in fact, she was becoming wider awake every day which passed at Misselthwaite” (Burnett, 106). Furthermore she begins to see herself in Colin and recognizes her flaws. “Mary had indeed been rather like him herself and since she had been at Misselthwaite had gradually discovered that her own manners had not been of the kind which is usual or popular”. (Burnett, 280). This is an important character development in maturity for Mary.

Mary starts thinking more about Colin and she takes him to her secret garden. Here she helps him learn how to walk again and experiments with the magic. "Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing” (Burnett, 287). By the end of the book Mary evolves into a happy playful girl and the once disagreeable child is