Is It Worth the Read? Anne of Green Gables
Image courtesy of amazon.com
By Caroline Morris
My family loves to ask each other weirdly difficult questions at dinner. If you were a state, which one would you be? What job would you have in medieval society? When asked at the dinner table what literary character I would choose to talk to in real life, I answered, “Anne Shirley.” I wanted to learn her secret to living everyday life with an outlook of wonder that transformed each day into joy; I still do.
Anne Shirley is the protagonist of L.M. Montgomery’s series Anne of Green Gables, with the first novel sharing the series’ name. Released in 1908, Anne of Green Gables follows the life of Anne (spelled with an “e”), a gangly, red-haired orphan girl of eleven years old who is accidentally adopted by unmarried brother and sister Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. Anne’s exuberant yet uncouth spirit, imagination, and good intentions lead to many hijinx and moments of tenderness.
This novel is often considered children’s literature, and in many ways, it is. I read it for the first time in sixth grade, when I was eleven years old, the same age as Anne. But it is an egregious error to believe this book is only worthwhile for children. It is in my mind one of the most significant pieces of literature, because it is so deeply entrenched in the ordinary.
When I think of literature that examines the experience of daily life, I typically think of the Modernists and their cynicism (yes, I’ll say it). Though there is a great deal of intricacy—and some might say hope—in the Modernist questions of self and the meaning of life after the horror of World War I, there remains an undeniable connection to darkness and chaos. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce and Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf come to mind for me when I think of literature that deals with the everyday. These novels have deep senses of negativity that discomfit the reader and undermine the significance and beauty of everyday life. They dislike the pedestrian.
Anne of Green Gables approaches life in the exact opposite fashion to Joyce and Woolf. While Modernist writers of a similar era to Montgomery fight tooth and nail to comprehend the horror of human existence, Montgomery writes with such joy and draws meaning into every line. Anne is a real child who makes real, childish mistakes: she accidentally dyes her hair green and mistakenly gets her friend drunk. Of course Anne gets through these experiences, because the devastations are ordinary and unimportant, except in that they are important to her. To her, these incidents feel monumental and devastating, and in that way the novel is incredibly real. Montgomery masterfully shows through Anne that though the minute trials of our everyday lives can seem ridiculously comical and pointless, if we step back far enough, the reality is that they nonetheless affect us in real and significant ways.
This gifting of significance to everyday life is to me a key to unlocking the meaning of human existence. Though I was introduced to this lesson at eleven years old, it is not one that should only be learned by children, nor should it only be learned once. This is a philosophy of life that can be learned by anyone at any age and should be remembered as we age; I reread the entire series during college and cried countless times when I felt overwhelmed with the beauty of ordinary life.
The other aspect of this novel that transcends the “intended” age group is the perspective of beauty and joy that we get from Anne. Even as an orphan who never experienced physical comfort or love, Anne has an adoration of life that wells up in every word and description. Not only the style of language but what the meaning instills that same reverence for and joy for life in the readers.
“Don’t you feel as if you just loved the world on a morning like this?” Anne says to Marilla during one of their earliest encounters. Though the language is so simple, it is quietly elegant and speaks volumes about the relationship between humans and life.
This same optimism never wavers in this lovely orphan: “Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” I read this quote and have never forgotten it; it is a sentence by which I want to define my life.
Montgomery’s turns of phrase in describing Anne as “one of the children of light by birthright,” someone who talks “in the language of the violets,” and “has the face of one who listens to fairy music and knows what roses and clovers talk about,” are some of the most stunning and affective lines of literature that I have ever read. These characterizations make me weep and are the reason that I want to be Anne Shirley when I grow up.
I truly believe that everyone should read these books. The accessibility of language makes them available to children but in no way precludes adults from reading them. It is honestly a breath of fresh air to have interesting stories with greater themes about the significance of life rendered in easily comprehensible language.
It is also not known widely enough that Anne of Green Gables has eight books in the series that follow Anne as she grows, as well as the lives of her children, giving the series as a whole a greater application to the entirety of the human experience. Readers get to see Anne undergo tragic loss and watch as the characters wrestle with the horror of World War I, ultimately ending in hope where so many other Modernist authors found despair.
This is the book to read when you feel disillusioned with life or need to remember that it is okay for life to not always be extraordinary and dazzling (or that life is always extraordinary and dazzling in ways we have forgotten).
As Anne says,”[the] future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don’t know what lies around the bend, but I’m going to believe that the best does.”
Read this book and remember to believe the best.
