Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
"Anne of Green Gables," written by L. M. Montgomery, is a beloved novel that follows the life of Anne Shirley, an imaginative orphan who is mistakenly sent to live with siblings Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert at Green Gables in Avonlea. The story begins when Matthew, expecting to adopt a boy to help on the farm, instead finds Anne, a spirited and freckled girl. Throughout her formative years from age eleven to sixteen, Anne’s vivid imagination leads her into various misadventures, notably her conflicts with classmate Gilbert Blythe and her struggles with her red hair. Despite her impulsive nature, Anne exhibits resilience and intelligence, eventually excelling academically and making sacrifices to support Marilla after Matthew's passing.
The novel, first published in 1908, captures themes of childhood joy, the importance of imagination, and the transformative power of love and friendship. It has been widely translated and adapted into numerous films and television series, solidifying its status as Montgomery's most famous work. The character of Anne embodies a joyful enthusiasm for life, challenging traditional views on childhood and suggesting that children can impart wisdom to adults. This enduring charm has kept "Anne of Green Gables" a relevant and cherished classic in children's literature.
Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
First published: 1908
Type of work: Moral tale
Themes: Coming-of-age, education, family, friendship, and nature
Time of work: The late nineteenth century
Recommended Ages: 10-15
Locale: Green Gables, Avonlea on Prince Edward Island, Canada
Principal Characters:
Anne Shirley , an imaginative orphan with a passion for life, who comes, in her eleventh year, to live at Green GablesMarilla Cuthbert , the outwardly severe woman who undertakes to bring up AnneMatthew Cuthbert , Marilla’s brother, a gentle, shy man who immediately takes to AnneMrs. Rachel Lynde , an outspoken good-hearted, nosy neighbor of the CuthbertsDiana Barry , Anne’s bosom friendMiss Stacy , Ann’s much-admired teacherGilbert Blythe , Anne’s schoolmateMrs. Allan , the minister’s wife and Anne’s confidante and model
The Story
Soon after the publication of Anne of Green Gables, Mark Twain wrote to L. M. Montgomery that she had created “the dearest, and most lovable child in fiction since the immortal Alice.” Anne’s sheer delight in life, despite the hard knocks it handed her before her arrival at Green Gables, is infectious; the reader, as well as Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, catches the fever. Anne’s gift is for happy anticipation, whether she is looking forward to a Sunday school picnic or to sleeping in a spare-room bed. Though the adults around her find this tendency worrying, they join in her enthusiasm, wondering what she will say or do next.
Anne of Green Gables chronicles the life of an imaginative orphan from age eleven, when she comes to live at Green Gables, to age sixteen, when she postpones her chance at a university to teach in Avonlea and keep Marilla company. Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, a middle-aged brother and sister, send by word of mouth to a Nova Scotia orphanage for a boy old enough to help Matthew on the farm. When Matthew arrives at the station, instead of the expected boy, he finds a freckled waif of a girl, all angles and bones and eyes, of whom the shy Matthew is at first terrified. Without telling her of the mistake, he drives her home to Green Gables, taking a liking to the girl on the way.
Marilla, however, whose precise, orderly, and painfully clean yard reflects her temperament, is harder to persuade. She must perceive the adoption of Anne as her duty before she allows her compassion to sway her. Anne begins her life at Green Gables inauspiciously when she flies out at Mrs. Rachel Lynde for commenting on her red hair, always a sensitive point for Anne. After a suitable punishment, Anne agrees to apologize to Mrs. Lynde, and her imagination then takes over to produce a wonderfully abject and flowery apology.
Many of the subsequent episodes in Anne’s life revolve around her imagination or her hair: Her five-year enmity for Gilbert Blythe begins when he calls her “carrots”; Anne responds by cracking her slate over his head. An assault on her vanity occurs when she buys a hair dye guaranteed to turn her tresses raven black. The coppery green color her locks become will not wash out. Anne constantly enters into scrapes like these: She accidentally gets her best friend drunk on what she thinks is raspberry cordial; she puts liniment instead of vanilla into a cake; she falls when trying to walk a ridgepole on a dare. Despite these mishaps, Anne grows to be a capable, intelligent young woman. She passes her entry examinations to Queen’s College tied for first place with Gilbert, and she earns a first-class teaching license in one year and wins a scholarship besides. After Matthew’s death, she faces her duty to Marilla gladly and stays on at Green Gables to help keep the farm going and to teach at Avonlea.
Anne’s imagination and impulsiveness may lead her astray, but her good nature and intelligence bring her back. She stoutly admires Miss Stacy, her teacher, and Mrs. Allan, the minister’s wife. For Anne, they are “kindred spirits,” people who see life in the same joyous way that she does, people who want to put into life as much as they take out. All Anne’s scrapes, her fancies, her efforts at school and friendship, result from her love of life and her desire to share that joy.
Context
Anne of Green Gables is Montgomery’s best-known work. It has been translated into numerous languages and has been made into several films: The popularity of the television version in the 1980’s spurred the reissue of many of Montgomery’s other novels. Anne of Green Gables was Montgomery’s first published novel, though she had previously been submitting stories regularly to various magazines. Six more novels, published between 1909 and 1939, feature Anne, and two, Rainbow Valley (1919) and Rilla of Ingleside (1921), focus on Anne’s children. These were written at the behest of her publisher, though Montgomery commented, “If I’m to be dragged at Anne’s chariot wheels the rest of my life, I’ll bitterly repent having ‘created’ her.” Anne of Green Gables is thus the freshest of these novels and has much in common with the trilogy that forms, perhaps, the best of Montgomery’s writings, Emily of New Moon (1923), Emily Climbs (1925), and Emily’s Quest (1927).
Both Anne of Green Gables and the Emily trilogy are lightly based on Montgomery’s own childhood experience. After her mother’s death, she came at age two to live with her maternal grandparents, who were strictly religious and rather isolated. Like Emily and Anne, she constructed for herself a fanciful world to ease her loneliness. Both Anne and Emily are imaginative, sensitive orphans who come to live with strict elders who mellow considerably under the children’s influence. Both are keenly attuned to nature and anthropomorphize it, and, most important, both write—Anne because it is an outlet for her romantic imagination and Emily because she must.
Anne of Green Gables is also similar in theme to several books by other authors published at roughly the same time. Kate Douglas Wiggin’s Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903) also concerns a young orphan who enriches the lives of an elderly farm couple, and Eleanor H. Porter’s Pollyanna (1913) features an orphaned little girl who thaws the hearts of all around her. Johanna Spyri’s Heidis Lehr-und Wanderjahre (1880; Heidi, 1884) perhaps prefigures all of these in its tale of a little girl transforming the life of her crusty grandfather amid Alpine scenery. Except for Heidi, Anne of Green Gables is perhaps the best of these because of the endearing qualities of its heroine. Unlike Pollyanna, Anne is not impossibly good; her scrapes and mistakes continue to be believable and to amuse and delight children.
Montgomery’s novel, as well as the aforementioned others, leaves behind the adage that children should be seen and not heard in favor of a conviction that children have something to teach their elders. Anne possesses a passion for life that she passes along to anyone near. Her enthusiasm has enabled Anne of Green Gables to continue to be as popular as it was in 1908.
Bibliography
Epperly, Elizabeth R. The Fragrance of Sweet-Grass: L. M. Montgomery’s Heroines and the Pursuit of Romance. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992. Anne is among the heroines discussed; bibliographical references and index are included.
Foster, Shirley, and Judy Simons. What Katy Read: Feminist Re-Readings of the “Classic” Stories for Girls. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1995. Feminist readings of stories including Anne of Green Gables; bibliographical references and index.
Gillen, Mollie. The Wheel of Things: A Biography of L. M. Montgomery, Author of “Anne of Green Gables.” Toronto: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1975.
Montgomery, L. M. The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career. Toronto: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1974. Reprinted from Montgomery’s autobiographical articles written for Everywoman’s World, a Toronto periodical, in 1917.
Montgomery, L. M. The Annotated “Anne of Green Gables,” edited by Wendy E. Barry et al. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. This edition of Montgomery’s novel adds critical analyses on both the work and its author.
Rootland, Nancy. Anne’s World, Maud’s World: The Sacred Sites of L. M. Montgomery. Halifax, N.S.: Nimbus, 1996. This interesting illustrated companion to Montgomery’s fiction shows literary landmarks related to the fiction of several Canadian authors including Montgomery. Includes maps and bibliographical references.
Rubio, Mary, ed. Harvesting Thistles: The Textual Garden of L. M. Montgomery. Contains essays on the novels and journals of Montgomery, with bibliographical references and an index.
Rubio, Mary, and Elizabeth Waterston. Writing a Life: L. M. Montgomery. Toronto: ECW Press, 1995. A biography of Montgomery including bibliographical references and an index.
Sorfleet, John R., ed. L. M. Montgomery: An Assessment. Toronto: Canadian Children’s Press, 1976. A collection of critical articles seeking to reassess Montgomery’s significance. Jean Little’s chapter “But What About Jane?” (pages 71 to 81) is especially good.