Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Green Gables- Lucy Maude Montgomery

How I found this book: My mother, actually, without whom I would never have gotten the chance to read the wonderful literature out there for girls as a child. Not that my father didn’t throw literature at me left and right, he did, but Mom knew the types of things girls liked best. Also, my old college roomie, Faith, without whom I wouldn’t have lazed away Saturday afternoons when I was 19 watching the Canadian production of the book sighing longingly every time Gilbert Blythe came on screen.

Setting: Late 19th century Prince Edward Island, Canada.

Main Characters:

Anne Shirley: The heroine of the story, she is a 12-year-old orphan girl who has been kicked about from home to home since her parents death, but hasn’t let her hard life put down her fanciful and indomitable spirit. Anne is a dreamer, who despairs of her red hair and thin features, and who only seeks to do the right and good thing, even though her romantic spirit tends to get her into many, many scrapes.

Matthew Cuthbert: The elder of the middle-aged Cuthbert siblings, he is a bachelor. He falls in love with Anne almost at once, (though he is notoriously shy around females). He is Anne’s champion and confidant, and becomes the father figure in Anne’s life.

Marilla Cuthbert: Matthew’s younger, spinster sister, she is horrified that they received a girl instead of the boy they requested to help out at Green Gables, their farm. She agrees to let Anne stay to raise her properly, and though she is practical, brusque, and sometimes insensitive, she too falls to Anne’s charms, and becomes the mother figure for Anne as she grows up.

Rachel Lind: The Cuthbert’s nosey neighbor, she is both puzzled by Anne and delighted by her. She insults Anne on their first meeting, but the two patch things up. She often serves as the softening agent to Marilla’s strict, taciturn take on raising a child.

Diana Barry: Anne’s ‘bosom friend’, she lives next door to Green Gables. She is not as bright or romantic as Anne at times, but is a practical, sensible girl, often as a foil to Anne’s heights of imaginary ecstasy, (though not always, she can be just as prone to Anne’s fancies as anyone). She is dark haired and dark eyed, which causes Anne to think her much more the beauty than Anne is, and is not quite the scholar of her friend.

Gilbert Blythe: Anne’s nemesis at school, he made an enemy of Anne when he dared to call her ‘carrots’ in class, causing Anne, (who was always sensitive about her hair), to crack a slate board over his head. The two are competitors all through school, eventually graduating the tops of their class both in elementary school and at Queens College, (the equivalent of high school). Towards the end of the book the two begin to patch up their feelings when Gilbert offers to allow Anne to teach in Avonlea School so she can be close to home.


Plot: Anne Shirley is a wide-eyed orphan girl who is taken in by the middle-aged Cuthberts. A romantic dreamer, Anne struggles to be conventionally ‘good’ as the farming town of Avonlea would see it, but this often backfires on her when her imagination or thoughtlessness gets the better of her. However, Anne has a good-heart which quickly wins her over to those around her, and as she grows into a serious, scholarly young woman, she dares to dream of a whole world beyond the small home she’s made for herself in Avonlea. But a tragedy will cause Anne to reflect on all that has been given to her by her beloved Cuthbert’s, and opens the door to new and perhaps just as wonderful possibilities for her down the road.

Themes:

Kindred Spirits: Anne, who has been unwanted for nearly all of her life, yearns for ‘kindred spirits’, those who she can both love and accept and who love and accept her in return. In a world that is ruled by the Victorian sensibilities of the 19th century, Anne is a fanciful creature and hard to understand by some. But those who take the time to see beyond her dreams and see the girl underneath come to love her despite her stories and her interesting mistakes, and it is that love that helps nurture the unwanted waif into a strong and loving young woman.

Taking joy in the simple things: Anne falls easily in love with the world around her, and doesn’t require anything fancy or extravagant to please her, (well, except for poofy-sleeved dresses). She can be just as entranced by a drive through a beautiful wood as by a thousand jewels. Her imagination does the rest for her. For Anne, the world and her own mind is enough for her to make her happy, and every corner reveals to her a new wonder as she enjoys everything for what it is.

Learning from your mistakes: Anne makes plenty of those, mistakes that is. Being both an orphan and a child of fancy make her a little careless at times. Marilla’s patience helps teach and to learn from the many mistakes she makes, it isn’t often that Anne makes the same mistake twice. What’s more, it teaches Anne how to balance her nature and what she needs to do. As she grows older, she is no less romantic, but it is tempered by a patience and calm manner she never displayed as a child

Every book sucks somewhere: I totally believe this book doesn’t have a ‘sucky’ part in it. However, if I had to pick a flaw if it were, I’d say that the shining, happy display of childhood from L. M. Montgomery in her book perhaps clashes with the childhoods of many orphans in the 19th century; particularly many that Anne would have grown up with. This coupled with the occasional derogatory references to French Canadians tend to stick the book in a sort of LaLa-land of Montgomery’s own devising. She doesn’t seem to address the afore mentioned derogatory statements against the French Canadians, acting as if it were a matter of course, and seems to ignore some of the harsh realities of Anne’s situation, something other writers of the time period wouldn’t have shied away from.


What did I like: I LOVE this story. I love the impetuous Anne, as I think every little girl was Anne as some point. I love how she views her entire world and the joy she takes in it. I love how she feels so passionately about everything. And I love how she learns from the many mistakes she makes and mends them, even so far as forgiving Gilbert in the end.

How would I rate this wormy book: This is by all means a MONSTER book, I can’t imagine a life without Anne Shirley in it. It isn’t just because she’s a red head, (being one myself, I’m partial to those heroines), it is because she adds something to it as a character, something few other characters in literature have done for me. The story is wonderful and endearing, and something I highly recommend for any young girl who has ever dreamed up stories or lived in her own imagination.