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Why isn't Mary afraid of Colin like everyone else is in The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett?

Mary has many selfish habits, once of which is a desire to satisfy her own curiosity. When she keeps hearing the crying in the night, she gets up to investigate, not caring that she might get in trouble with Mrs. Medlock.


Finding Colin, she bravely talks to him, even though he has a frightening appearance. Her curiosity and a deep ache for the companionship of someone her own age make it so that she's not afraid of Colin.


While the staff members fear Colin for his unpredictable behavior, his frightening tantrums, and his ability to get them fired, Mary has no such fear. She herself has been an utterly spoiled child who has thrown tantrums to get her way, and she sees through Colin's behavior, even slapping some sense into him. Because, like Colin, Mary has also tried to ease her own misery by inflicting it on others, Mary is so similar to her cousin that she understands him well and realizes that his behavior shouldn't be tolerated:



When she had had a headache in India she had done her best to see that everybody else also had a headache or something quite as bad. And she felt she was quite right; but of course now she felt that Colin was quite wrong.



So, even though Mary still has a lot of character development to undergo, her loneliness, curiosity, and similarity to Colin help her feel no fear toward him.

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