Anne of Avonlea

“’It’s a pretty good world, after all, isn’t it, Marilla?’ concluded Anne happily. ‘Mrs. Lynde was complaining the other day that it wasn’t much of a world. She said whenever you looked forward to anything pleasant you were sure to be more or less disappointed…perhaps that is true. But there is a good side to it too. The bad things don’t always come up to your expectations either…they nearly always turn out ever so much better than you think.’”

Ever the optimist, this quote proves why so many in Avonlea consider themselves changed upon meeting Anne. Life can drag people toward pessimistic outlooks based on experiences and past failures. With her childlike and innocent view of the world, Anne cannot see the bad. To a young girl who experienced much negative in her youth, this perspective highlights the entrenched optimism with which Anne handles any negativity.

“No, if I can’t get along without whipping I shall not try to teach school. There are better ways of managing. I shall try to win my pupils’ affections and then they will want to do what I tell them.”

In the argument with Jane and Gilbert about how to best manage a classroom, Anne still cannot see beyond her ideal view that children will naturally respond to love and affection. While that may be true for many children under Anne’s care, Anthony Pye is one example of a child who responds better to what he knows—corporal punishment. It is not until Anne breaks her vow and whips Anthony that he can actually learn from and respect her.

“Anne reached the school that morning…for the first time in her life she had traversed the Birch Path deaf and blind to its beauties…all was quiet and still.”

To Anne, nature always provided a means of communication and nurture. For the Birch Path to not affect her at all on the first day of school proves that Anne, in her nervousness, shut out all forms of imagination and dreams. Upon the most consequential moment of her life—in her mind—all that she normally relies on remains quiet, leading her to believe that she is all alone on this journey. While this may seem antithetical to Anne’s normal behavior, it explains why the first day of school is so hard for her—she turns off all that makes her unique.

“‘It’s the very worst road of all.’

‘That is why I chose it. Of course Gilbert and Fred would have taken this road if we had asked them. But you see, Diana, I feel myself responsible for the A.V.I.S., since I was the first to suggest it, and it seems to me that I ought to do the most disagreeable things’”

During an A.V.I.S. fundraising event, Anne volunteers to take the hardest road. Much like when she refuses to let Marilla speak to Mr. Harrison on her behalf at the beginning of the novel, Anne will not let anyone else answer for her responsibilities, showing a strength of character that goes unmatched by most other young people her age.

“’It’s best to be prepared for the worst.’

‘But oughtn’t we be prepared for the best too?’ pleaded Anne. ‘It’s just as likely to happen as the worst.’”

When faced with extreme pessimism—as in this meeting with Eliza Andrews—Anne generally responds with her characteristic optimism with the intent of changing people’s outlooks on negative circumstances. However, Anne does not always practice what she preaches. If certain things don’t go exactly as she pictures them in her mind, she tends to sink into a great depression until something—or someone—pulls her out of it.

“‘It’s a splendid profession’” he said enthusiastically. ‘A fellow has to fight something all through life…didn’t somebody once define man as a fighting animal?...and I want to fight disease and pain and ignorance…which are all members of one another.’”

Though Gilbert’s involvement in this novel is mostly filtered through Anne and other people’s thoughts, this segment of a conversation between him and Anne highlights his character. His vast insight into human nature—that ignorance, disease, and pain are all intertwined and must be fought together—joins his and Anne’s dreams. He sees her goal of fighting ignorance as an educator and his goal as a doctor fighting disease to be symbiotic. Anne, however, cannot see past her vision for her future and therefore does not understand what Gilbert is trying to say to her.

“After she had passed through life with a smile or a word thrown across it like a gleam of sunshine, the owner of that life saw it, for the time being at least, as hopeful and lovely and of good report.”

Numerous times throughout the novel, certain characters mention how their brief interchange with Anne changes their lives. It only takes one meeting with Mr. Harrison and Stephen Irving for them to realize that Anne’s youthful joy and desire to see the best in people brings a certain meaning to their lives. Though Gilbert has seen it since the beginning of their friendship, Anne remains oblivious to this effect, believing that people tend to take her as she comes with no real affirmation.

“Anne Shirley, you’re only pretending to be grown up. I believe when you’re alone you’re as much a little girl as you ever were.”

Anne manifests the secret of life in her day-to-day actions—never let yourself grow old to the point of pessimism. Her childlike innocence cannot be shaken, even as she ages. She continues to commune with nature as a child of the earth and sees the trees and flowers as friends, not objects. Though Diana can never understand Anne’s view of the world, friends like Miss Lavendar and Paul Irving share her viewpoint.

“You were always getting into terrible scrapes, I’ll admit, but your motive was always good. Davy is just bad from sheer love of it.”

There are many connections between Anne and Davy in Marilla’s eyes. Both children found it easy to get into dangerous and troublesome predicaments—except Anne’s scrapes usually spawned from innocent curiosity. Davy, on the other hand, chooses to remain impish and mischievous. However, the parallel between the two is clear to Marilla. Both children are orphans with little guidance in their lives.

“‘Dora is too good,’ said Anne. ‘She’d behave just as well if there wasn’t a soul to tell her what to do. She was born already brought up, so she doesn’t need us; and I think,’ concluded Anne, hitting on a very vital truth, ‘that we always love best the people who need us. Davy needs us badly.’”

Continuing from the previous quote, Anne relays to Marilla why educating Davy is of the utmost importance. Children like Dora do not need a guiding figure in their lives. They know how to behave automatically and respond based on how they think they should behave. Davy reacts with a natural, childlike curiosity, which Anne recognizes as a reminder of her younger self. Children like Davy—and like a younger Anne—need the helpful guidance of an adult to tell them right from wrong.

“A grin is not generally supposed to be a respectful thing; yet Anne suddenly felt that if she had not yet won Anthony’s liking she had, somehow or another, won his respect.”

For once, a downfall in Anne’s ideals leads to a positive outcome. Though she makes it a point to vow to never whip a student in her room, she loses her temper and whips Anthony Pye. Believing that that physical action would cost her Anthony’s respect, she is surprised to see that she wins it, proving that Anne cannot lump all human nature into one small box.

“Since the earliest mayflowers Anne had never missed her weekly pilgrimage to Matthew’s grave. Everyone else in Avonlea, except Marilla, had already forgotten the quiet, shy, unimportant Matthew Cuthbert; but his memory was still green in Anne’s heart and always would be. She could never forget the kind old man who had been the first to give her the love and sympathy her starved childhood had craved.”

Matthew Cuthbert may have passed away in the first novel, but his memory remains a major part of Anne’s life. Though Matthew spent his life in the shadows, unknown to most of Avonlea, his role in Anne’s life—and his vivid love for her—shapes the formation of the young woman she becomes. Matthew represents the only true father figure she has ever known, and her remembrance of him honors the meaning he holds for her.

“She was much better fitted for the task than Marilla, for she remembered her own childhood and had an instinctive understanding of the curious ideas that seven-year-olds sometimes get about matters that are, of course, very plain and simple to grown up people.”

Though Marilla beats Anne when it comes to age, Anne has lived a life much like Davy’s—her life lessons add up. For this reason, she can bridge the communication gap between Marilla and the twins. Since Anne is not far removed from her days in foster care and at the orphanage, she instinctively understands Davy’s questions and is best prepared to answer them.

“It seems to me, Anne, that you are never going to outgrow your fashion of setting your heart so on things and then crashing down into despair because you don’t get them.”

Anne’s greatest strength and greatest flaw is her vehement allegiance to her ideals. Her dreams, which often stand on pedestals of perfection, are wonderful when they come true but devastating when they do not. Part of growing up means handling losses with dignity, and by the end of the novel, Anne stops “crashing down into despair” when things do not go her way.

“He must be very tall and distinguished looking, with melancholy, inscrutable eyes, and a melting, sympathetic voice. There was nothing either melancholy or inscrutable in Gilbert’s physiognomy, but of course that didn’t matter in friendship!”

Subconsciously, Anne knows that Gilbert represents the man of her dreams, but she is so caught up in a made-up figure that she cannot face the fact that she’s already met him. Anne, with her obsession with romance—as seen in how she talks about Miss Lavendar and Stephen Irving—believes that the only way to live is to be swept off one’s feet with a dramatic flair. This ideal man may exist in her mind, but so does Gilbert, and he is the one who, more often than not, pervades her subconscious and refuses to leave.

“Perhaps it was because she was so absorbed in ‘drinking it in’ that Anne took the left turning when they came to a fork in the road. She should have taken the right, but ever afterward she counted it the most fortunate mistake of her life.”

Symbolically, a “fork in the road” represents a choice that must be made. In this case, the choice to turn left—towards Miss Lavendar’s—or to turn right—toward the Kimball’s—culminates in an everlasting friendship and the reconnection of two people in love. Though Anne has no idea where each road leads, her decision to go left leads to her meeting with Miss Lavendar and the snowball effect that follows, proving to her that mistakes often end in beneficial outcomes.

“You always bring youth in your hand life a gift.”

Though these words come from Miss Lavendar, they echo Mr. Harrison's words earlier in the novel. In both cases, Anne interacts with a middle-aged person brought down by the realities of life. However, her intrinsic vivacity makes people believe that they can dream again. Though Anne is not, by definition, a child any longer, her innocent and optimistic view of the world is a “gift” to those who feel like the realities of life drag them down.

“‘Ah, well, we’ll just have to plant them over again next spring,’ said Anne philosophically. ‘That is one good thing about this world…there are always sure to be more springs.’”

In literature, spring always symbolizes new beginnings. The advent of spring brings about new life even after the harshest winters. Though the A.V.I.S. encounters a setback with “Uncle Abe’s storm” and the destruction of all their newly planted trees, Anne’s belief that there is always the possibility of a fresh start highlights her eternal optimism.

“Sometimes Rachel had been a little hard on her Thomas in health, when his slowness or meekness had provoked her; but when he became ill no voice could be lower, no hand more gently skillful, no vigil more uncomplaining.”

Throughout two novels, Mrs. Rachel has epitomized the town gossip, the woman through whom all news is delivered. In many ways, she is antagonistic, intrusive, and even rude. However, these brief descriptions of Mrs. Rachel with her dying husband humanize the woman and add to her value as a character—there is more to Mrs. Rachel than being the town busybody. At heart, she is a loving, caring individual.

“She had come at last…suddenly and unexpectedly…to the bend in the road; and college was around it, with a hundred rainbow hopes and visions; but Anne realized as well that when she rounded that curve she must leave many sweet things behind.”

At the end of Anne of Green Gables, Anne dreams that she “doesn’t know what lies around that bend [in the road], but [she’s] going to believe that the best does.” Here, at last, is the bend in the road—symbolically, her future laid out ahead of her with the end slightly out of sight. Though she knows that the road leads to her college education, part of growing up means making sacrifices, and this time, she must leave behind the ones she loves and cares about, namely, Marilla and the twins.

“‘Do you care anything for Gilbert?’

‘Ever so much as a friend and not a bit in the way you mean,’ said Anne calmly and decidedly; she also thought she was speaking sincerely.’”

Diana, obsessed in her own way with her fresh engagement, asks Anne the question that seems to be on everyone’s mind but Anne’s—where does Gilbert fit into her life? Through the omniscient narrator, readers can see that Anne truly believes she is “speaking sincerely” when she answers Diana’s question, implying that she is, in fact, not speaking truthfully. Deep down, Anne must care for Gilbert a great deal and not as a friend.

“Anne had come down to dinner in a new dress of pale green muslin…the first color she had worn since Matthew’s death.”

Over two years have passed since Matthew’s heart attack and death. During that time, Anne keeps his memory alive in her heart—she does not wear colorful dresses, symbolizing that she is still in mourning. However, once she realizes she will be able to fulfill her dream of going to college, something changes in Anne. By wearing green—the color of new spring beginnings—Anne signifies that she is ready to start anew in her life.

“This was succeeded by a queer, little lonely feeling…as if, somehow, Diana had gone forward into a new world, shutting a gate behind her, leaving Anne on the outside.”

Throughout the novel, Anne learns lessons about failure and success, as many young adults do when they are growing up. However, nothing can prepare Anne for the realization that her friends are moving into adult relationships. Here, when Diana reveals her engagement, Anne feels like a “gate” is separating them from each other. This “gate” symbolizes a stage of maturity—Diana belongs on one side as a woman, while Anne is left behind as a girl. Her first response is that she cannot “tell [Diana] secrets after this” (215), which is a childlike response to her best friend’s engagement.