The Irony of Mary Lennox
Straley expounds, “Metaphorically linked to the flowers of the secret garden that constitutes the novel’s most significant setting, Burnett’s Mary Lennox might initially seem to exemplify Hall’s flower girl, measuring her development according to the vegetal states... Her progression from a passive plant to a selective gardener, she is associated with a variety of animals that exhibit traits of an advancing scale of motherhood that Mary’s growth recapitulates.”
Mary is drawn from Secret The Garden. Being a flower girl, Mary would not be expected to have male playmates. She would be anticipated to have female play partners. Mary’s development and ironic characterization are projected to empower her so she can rise above the traditional feminine passivity. Her selection of playmates alludes to transgendering; she does not permit her gender to restrict her in terms of what she can engage in.
The Irony of “Male Evolutionists’ Myopic Focus”
Straley elucidates, "Late-nineteenth-century feminists with varied background and audiences, like Congregationalist minister Antoinette Brown Blackwell and secretary to Charles Lyell turned children's author Arabella Buckely, argued that evolution depended on mothers. Yet as restrictive as defining a whole sex's contribution to culture by that singular biological imperative may seem, this recognition of the importance of parenthood and family structure in the success of a species challenged the male evolutionists' myopic focus on the male individual."
The male evolutionists overestimated the contribution of males to humanity's successful evolution. Nevertheless, men alone would not have succeeded to evolve successfully in the absence of women. Mothers' contribution to evolution cannot be underestimated. The male evolutionist' myopic arguments underscore the bias which governed their reasoning. They undermined the mothers' role in evolution due to the politics of biological sex that deemed males inherently superior.
The Irony of Buckley’s Empowerment
Straley elucidates, “Buckley’s attention to the familial instincts that give rise to the social values and her insistence that motherhood is an evolving set of strategies that pushes the animal kingdom ever upward and new initiatives promoting girls’ health…However, there was a darker side to this newly empowered and physically robust image of motherhood. Girls were encouraged not only to improved their bodies and minds in order to care for children but also to make reproductive choices according to the new “science” of eugenics.”
Buckley focuses on mothers’ biology and instincts to empower them. The focus is ironic because biology has been used to undermine women as well. Buckley would have been expected to cite other factors, other than biology, to empower all women apart from the white females from middle-class families. The empowerment is one-sided because it does not accommodate the non-white sisters.
“Eyes no Eyes”
Straley elucidates, “Watts's moral homilies about nature remained popular into the nineteenth century, and his ideas about the spiritual significance of observation were an almost ubiquitous trope of children's literature. This moral was pithily summed up in the title of j. Aiken's and Anna Barbauld's "Eyes, and no Eyes; or, The Art of Seeing" (1793), the story of two brothers, one who finds nothing of interest on his afternoon ramble through the countryside and the other who discovers infinite wonders just outside his door."
The two brothers' experiences are ironic because one discerns the wonder of nature whereas the other does not. The brother who does not recognize the beauty of nature is deemed to lack eyes. Observation and appreciation of nature is like an art that requires careful detail to nature to discern the beauty and messages that are being relayed by nature. Observational abilities are not inherent in all humans.
“Core of humanity”
Straley elaborates, “in The Water-Babies, Kingsley's more extensive exploration of how nature study might work in the instruction of chimney sweep and reader alike becoming humans entails using this wonder to imagine far more than nature can offer. In fact, that which develops after our "natural" growth and which is most "artificial" about us-which, like the water-babies themselves, is "contrary to nature"- is the core of our humanity."
Humans have artificial aspects that develop mechanically. The core of human beings would be projected to be natural and inherent in all human beings. Water-babies comprise an artificialness that is equivalent to the core attribute of humanity. Accordingly, human beings have natural and artificial components.
