Anne of Avonlea: Anne Goes Serial.

  How do you do, 

  In the early 20th Century and late 19th, they would often make a series of books that would follow up the original novel as there wasn't any other way of learning more about the hero, or to see another generation sort. In the United States, we saw that after Tom Sawyer had his adventures, we then had Huckleberry Finn. We also had The Wonderful Wizard of Oz lead off a parade of "Oz Books" that continued even after L. Frank Baum passed away. So, L. M. Montgomery did go serial because everyone wanted to hear more about Anne, Diana, Gilbert, Marilla, and the rest. The thing is, when you have a book that is about an orphan girl who is adopted by an elderly couple and she grows up into a hard working woman, that is basically a tough act to follow when writing a sequel. But, Mrs. Montgomery managed to pull it all off. After Anne of Green Gables, we are reunited with Anne of Avonlea.

   In book two, we find Anne is almost grown up and teaching in the Avonlea school house (after the new teacher in the first book moved on). Just look at the picture above and note how the illustration of the cover has her professionally dressed, in contrast to the first. This allows the introductions of the children there: the young Paul Irving from the States, Anthony Pye, St. Clair Donnell (whose mother insists we pronounce as "Donnell"), and a few others. The book also introduces Mr. Harrison, who is almost like George C. Scott in my opinion (I can imagine Scott playing him in my own casting movie -- even add in the line "no more Mr. Nice Guy!") when he first appears and then softens a bit. Then there's Miss Lavendar, the former fiancée of Paul's father who is now over the hill due to problems obstructing their journey to the altar. Basically, all the things that a sequel does, bring back familiar characters and have them interact with new ones coming in and have them deal with new problems.

  Anne of Avonlea is not really the best of the sequels to follow someone, in my humble opinion. It's not the same was with Mark Twain where the sequel is just as good as the first, or even considered of equal worth in the literary canon. With Anne, only the first book is treated a classic literature while the sequels are less so. There is a justifiable reason to that; just as American literature classes wouldn't go beyond Last of the Mohicans in discussing Cooper, most Canadian literature classes probably talk about only Anne of Green Gables when speaking of Montgomery and leave out the sequels because the real work of literature in this sense is book one. It has the flowing English words, bits of poetry in there, and memorable dialogue, along with good characters. Everything after that doesn't do so much as have a uniqueness to the tone or the way the words go along (there's not even a good enough quote in the sequels to really remember, actually), though character development is just about the only good thing to come. It can be a double edged sword; some of the characters will mellow out and some become hardened types and so on. Anne of Avonlea demonstrates this through the flaw of reinventing the wheel in some chapters. Now there are a few differences between book number one and book number two, mostly in the themes. We start to get a little more mature in themes in this book because Anne Shirley is now a young adult (though a teenager, by modern terms) and she is working as a school teacher. Being a teenager means that her story will take on more mature topics and will be less about imagination.
   I wouldn't say there is much of anything new in book two; the real story of Anne is really in book one which is where we see an orphan girl who saw alot of hardships and try to imagine it all away, while feeling very conscious of her red hair, then one day she gets adopted by a brother and sister who sent for a boy and she proves her worth in salt, gets a BFF and becomes a model student in school. All that is in book one. Everything after that is more of Anne being grow up, more practical, and doing things with children more where before we were told of her babysitting routines and rarely saw it in action. Here, she is a teacher and she is handling the twins which gives a kind of new generation feel.

   The first example of it reinventing the wheel is in the first chapter. Anne has herself a new milking cow that likes to escape into the yard of Mr. Harrison and attack his crops, which leads to a stand off between them. Anne protests of the fact the fences are not in good shape on his end, which he tells her it is in good shape and that cow is enough to break through a jail fence. To use the George C. Scott move, he tells her that if he finds the cow on his property again "no more Mr. Nice Guy!" Anne is owning a cow which is only mentioned in the first chapter but never said so in the first book, so it gives her the chance to learn some responsibilities, but she is also having other things on her plate and the man is evidently a bad tempered farmer with too much pride for his own good. That is something to glean from the first chapter. However, in the next chapter, after penning Dolly the cow up, Anne finds the cow in the fields again and has to pull her away with Diana's help, and then she sells the cow away. At first, it's all swell until Anne discovers -- lo and behold! -- Dolly is still in her pen. Anne sold Harrison's cow instead!
    So, Anne has to visit Mr. Harrison and explain what had happened. Anne basically goes up to Harrison with the feelings of a kid who broke an old man's window with his baseball and must own up to his actions. Fortunately, Harrison is understanding and admits he was a little hasty the previous morning. So, the whole thing was done quickly with Harrison being okay about it. Anne had sold someone else's cow and pays up for it with a cake, which seems fair to Anne in money wise, but how does the man get his milk? Maybe he has more than one cows. It's a detail I didn't notice, I do confess. But, after this incident, Mr. Harrison becomes the old man who lives alone, until this Emily shows up, and he talks of how annoying Rachel Lynde.
    One other thing is how show the plot with the cow is: the whole thing is done in three chapters. In three chapters, Harrison goes from irate neighbor to mentor figure in Anne's life. This shows another reinvention of the wheel as Anne still gets into situations that make her learn lessons, all of which results in episodic plot formula in the novel. It's really the introduction of Dora and Davy Keith that changes the format.

    Dora and Davy enter the picture because their mother has died and their uncle is a no show (their father is also dead). They are basically twins, though with differing personalities (like some twins are). Dora is well behaved and gentle natured while Davy is rebellious and mischievous. I can hear how one claiming Montgomery is gender type casting in the two: making the girl good and the boy bad (in fact, Davy even lampoons that right to Marilla's face in the chapter "Marilla Adopts Twins"). For the most part, it allows Davy to develop more while Dora rarely fills the pages with anything.
    With their parents dead Dora and Davy are adopted by Marilla, which allows for a repeat in history. The development both allows for the reinventing of the wheel moment and gives Anne a role reversal. Now she is the adult along side Marilla and these two twins are the orphans who need adoption. Anne is also now the one who has to guide a child into becoming something, with Davy being her subject. Of course, Anne gives her someone to model to: Paul Irving, and I'll get into him more later. One thing with Davy is he keeps up the bad boy stage for most of the book, be it messing up the kitchen or snatching items during dinner, and doesn't do much of a change until Anne becomes his teacher (awkward). Of course, one could say that Montgomery is writing from a woman's point of view. Most men authors might be like Mark Twain, who would have the boy do these actions and chuckle at how he use to be. Both do understand that there is a time when the boy will stop doing those and become a man, however. As we recall in the first book there were plenty of it with Anne's peers. Gilbert, especially. When he first appeared, he was a trickster who called Anne "Carrots", and he changed by the end of the book. The other boys also grew up, setting aside all the hair pulling on girls and tricking people in order to become serious about professions and careers, as well as respectable.
    I guess from this, if one thinks gender roles were made by men in the patriarchal society, women are clearly its enforcers. When the children are being brought up, women take up the mantle of rearing and they teach the boys and girls to be good boys and good girls; telling both what they are suppose to be and what they are not suppose to do. Then women do the same when the boys become men in order to become suitable husbands to girls when the latter become women. Then the wives take up the role of enforcer in arranging rooms or chores while taking up raising the man's children. Kind of does make one wonder if "patriarchal society" might be a misnomer when women do all that enforcing (if not assigning) of gender roles. Even in societies that are not male dominated, the women assign the roles that men are to do and have women take the rest. The plot of Davy, and all the boys in these books, is an illustration of that: Montgomery gives him the role as the playful and mischievous imp who gets into trouble and then Anne and Marilla take it upon themselves to make him good. Because Dora is a girl, there is no problem, which is why I say I can hear critics call that gender type casting.

   The early chapters of Anne of Avonlea deal with Anne as a school teacher, or schoolmarm, as they were called at the time. Anne tries to have a much better way of handling her scholars than the previous teachers would. In fact, she points out that Mr. Philips use to whip students and order was never kept. So, she would go the other way and never whip a student. This is in a time when that was still permissible (read, 19th Century). Most of us today would consider Anne to be forward in thinking, just as they would have thought so in 1910, though some of us now think she was more concerned about being liked by her pupils. In her first chapter as teacher, she experiences the problem of parents where some woman named Mrs. H. Donnell comes in and tells her of how she pronounced the name of St. Clair wrong, along with calling the latter Jacob as the boy gave that name. Of course, the younger sibling of Josie Pye is in the list of students, named Anthony, and Anne wants his approval, yet she doesn't get it from the first.
     Then, in the chapter titled "A Jonah Day", Anne is having a bad enough day and it is hyped up by a few mishaps, climaxing with Anthony bringing some fireworks to school that are disguised as sweets. After being tossed into the fire, they go off and Anne is in a fit enough rage that she whips Anthony and feels she lost him forever. However, after that Anthony is much more respectful of Anne. In fact, in the same chapter, he helps her with some books on the next day in class. This does seem barbaric to the modern reader: you try to win the love of a student with kindness and fail, yet if you administer corporal punishment on him than he will respect you more. I wouldn't advice using this on children, of course, since the action can lead to trouble. Besides, it's not fool proof. Now, I will say Anthony's whipping reminds me of this scene, only on the hand.
    One of the things I liked with Anne's teaching was when she had everyone write to her on something they feel like writing about, which seems a good way to write something. One girl takes the time to write a love letter to Anne, which turns out to be plagiarized. The letter Annetta rips off of was a beau of her mother's before she married, apparently. I noted that her name is a variant of Anne. Annetta is Italian to mean "Little Anne", though she has the non-Italian surname of Bell. No doubt, one would think that Montgomery could have used Annette in naming her, since Canada use to be a French colony, but I guess she thought Annetta sounded like it had plenty of imagination. Well, she repents of plagiarizing, but she does admit to have loved Anne. It seemed more of the admiration of her teacher as opposed to a full blown crush. But, then again, in this time a little girl could have made such thoughts of a female teacher and one would chuckle at it without thinking the girl had homosexual tendencies. If only the same thing would be done with boys.
    For that matter, Anne finds one boy she likes: Paul. Paul writes to her of the rock people, his imaginary friends with the names of Nora, Twin Sailors, and The Golden Lady, in one of the letters he wrote to her in the same chapter. Paul is the one student in Anne's class who develops over the course of the book. He and his father are from the United States and are living in Canada. Because of his imagination, Anne relates to him more and they have conversations a few times. When Anne blows up and whips Anthony, it's Paul's eyes that haunt Anne soon afterwards. Gradually, they reconcile, and Paul lets Anne know of how he and his father were previously unacquainted until his mother died and they gradually became acquainted. It's not a bad sort of thing; Mr. Irving is a nice guy. It's just that he is alone and he lets Paul's grandmother do most of the bringing up.
    Paul's arc leads us to Lavendar Lewis, a woman who has never married; an "old maid" as they called them then. She is over forty and already having white hair. It turns out, she was once a girlfriend of Paul's father and they would have married, but a problem stood in the way. They had a disagreement and the engagement fell apart and Mr. Irving left elsewhere. He eventually married the woman who became Paul's mother while Miss Lavendar became an old maid. This was not unusual in the 19th Century, given the idea that when engagements break apart it decreases chances of marriage among women (it's worse if the man calls it off and the woman is now considered "damaged goods"). I am certain, even I have no proof supporting it, that some of those women, contrary social expectations, kept their virginity in those engagements that failed, and the same with Miss Lavendar. The reason I can't have proof was because people discuss those things then, so most people just assumed and thus the woman is made to be no longer eligible. Even if we don't take much stock in virginity loss today, there are plenty of women who save it for marriage and I am sure they don't want to be considered "damaged goods" when their engagements end either. (Remarkably, even in today's hook up culture they still don't speak of it).  As to Paul's father, he is absent for most of the book and shows up in the chapter "The Prince Comes Back to the Enchanted Palace" (and Montgomery didn't mean the same that the Beast lived in). They are reunited and in the end of the book, they are married, giving Paul a stepmother who was previously his father's fling. Can you ever imagine that today: you and some sweetheart in high school part, move on, one of you marries, has a boy, that boy has a teacher who meets you, befriends you, and then gets you reacquainted with the ex after he or she has been widowed, and then you two marry.

   The last way the book reinvents the wheel is when Rachael Lynde becomes a widow and now has to move in with Marilla, whose eyes have recovered since Anne chose to stay. So now, two elderly women, one an old maid and another a widow, are living together with a pair of twins and a teenage girl. At least it doesn't make Anne's plans get derailed. Instead, this will encourage her to get into that long delayed move into college.
   Once more, the book wraps up with Anne talking to Gilbert. In book one, they reconcile and become friends after having themselves a cold war for most of the novel. Here, they are closer than before and Montgomery hints that love could be blossoming between them. This is sudden, especially since the whole thing wasn't developed in the book and we didn't have anything to lead to such here. For most of the book, Gilbert and Anne keep things professional, and platonic. Gilbert even assists in this organization that Anne helped set up called Avonlea Village Improvement Society (or AVIS). Diana is also involved and we are introduced to Fred Wright, a plain man who, at the end of the book, gets Diana's heart. It is a surprise to Anne who still thinks she and Diana would be married to some Byronic hero type and Fred is the antithesis of such. Still, that doesn't stop some from believing that Gilbert and Anne are seeing one another. The only clue Montgomery gives is in the end where Gilbert believes he is in love with Anne, but he doesn't let her know. It does make for a plot twist where after so much effort to become friends they should fall for each other and Montgomery was willing to leave it in ambiguity (meaning she left it up to the reader to figure it out so that when the next sequel comes along we can see that resolved). So, for all those wanting to ship Gilanne, or Annebert, I will say keep patient.
    Because of the last, I wouldn't say Anne of Avonlea is completely over at the end of the book. It sort of has a little climax, from such a minor build up to follow a mostly episodic plot line, which is enough to make one want to see the next book. Of course, a few other things have tied up: Mr. Harrison has done his arc in going from a crusty old hermit to a friendly neighbor (even getting a wife in the process), Davy reforms from his bad boy days and becomes a nice guy, Paul gets a stepmother, and Miss Lavendar is reunited with a lost love. So, some of the loose ends are tied and now we can continue on to the next book and see Anne go into college and discover if she is ready for love.

Anne of Green Gables: Edwardian Canadian Nostalgia.

  How do you do, 

  Well, here's the first literature review. You saw I made a reference to the character Marilla Cuthbert back in "Dawson's Creek: Review and Commentary Part 1" and now I will write on some thoughts about the book in which she appeared. In L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, she appears as a spinster woman living with her brother, Matthew, in a farm called Green Gables, located in a fictional town of Avonlea in the island of Prince Edward, off the coast of New Brunswick, Canada. She and her brother are getting old and they send for an orphan boy, but wind up getting a girl name Anne Shirley. That's basically the premise of the book, though it only occupies the first third of the novel. The rest then covers the events from after Matthew and Marilla adopted Anne, where she befriends Diana Berry, goes to school, gets into a rough patch with Gilbert, and go into college. In short, it's basically Horatio Alger for girls.

   I started reading this book in high school and I had liked the character of Anne. In fact, I felt like having her as a girlfriend (even though we wouldn't be both fifteen until the later parts of the book, but if there is "scope to the imagination", as she would say, I could imagine being young enough to be the right age at will). Rereading the book frequently has given me all sorts of sensations of hope. There is that hope that you'll always be given a chance after a bad impression, that friendships can be healed, and one can go far and beyond one's origin regardless of what obstacles bar the way. I have even wanted to model my ideal mate to that of Anne and I do hope to meet and marry her. Though a cynic in me would say, to quote Star Wars, I'd wind up "follow[ing] old [Anne Shirley] on some damned fool's idealistic crusade"(Star Wars dir. George Lucas, 20th Century Fox, 1977, film).

   The character of Anne Shirley can be likened and countered by the American variant, being Pollyanna Whittier. Both products of their time and both are girls with idealism about them and reading about them makes one want to sing "thank heaven for little girls". Yet, Pollyanna is always bright and cheerful, which does make her a one dimensional character: a Mary Sue as we would say. Anne is less so. She is moody over the fact her hair is red, considering it something to be ashamed of, and when someone says something about it she gets upset. It's something that women who have certain insecurities of their appearances may deal with, like facial hair or small hips and so on. I am sure Pollyanna would have told Anne that she could be glad about having red hair because she has hair, though Anne would say otherwise. 

    There is a point in the story that Anne decides to dye her hair and it came out green, which she claims is worse. There are girls who dye their hair into many colors (I know one, personally), and they don't seem to mind having green hair. Of course, none of them seem to have the same insecurities as Anne. In an earlier chapter, when we first make our acquaintance with Gilbert Blythe, he calls her "carrots", earning him her scorn. It hurts her enough that she refuses to speak to him. Today, Gilbert would have been hauled to the headmaster for bullying, yet in the book it is Anne who is punished simply for breaking her slate on his head, an act that would equally get Anne in trouble today for assault. No doubt, in the 21st Century, both would have been forced to spend Saturday in detention. However, this is the 19th Century we are talking about. Through Diana, we see that what we today call bullying is innocent teasing (it only becomes bullying if one becomes controlling or harmful to bullied, which makes perfect sense in my opinion). Yet, in connection to this, Anne decides to spend some time out of school for Gilbert's behavior, only to return when Diana and Anne are separated by Diana's mom. So, Anne spends most of the grade school ignoring Gilbert while he discretely tries to win her friendship, placing an apple on her desk to rescuing her from a river. It's always interesting how people considered that more than asking for friendship then as now; yet in the 1900s, most would have sighed and wonder why can't some boy do the same, today's members of the female sex would accuse Gilbert of harassment or stalking. At least, he gives it up when Anne finally says no and they don't talk for awhile.
   Anne's stance with Gilbert is contrast to that of Diana. They declare themselves bosom friends, meaning friends close to the heart, in a time before it was given Lesbian connotations. In modern terms, they are BFFs. As best friends, Anne and Diana share all sorts of secrets and beliefs. Like typical girls, they gossip about every thing around them and they play acting in some favorite story with romance behind it. There is point where they are parted for a while. In the world of fiction, as with real life, the test of friendship either comes from without or within, being either they are separated by circumstances beyond their control or something they don't agree on causes them to be at odds with one another. In Anne and Diana, it's the former. During a visit, Diana gets drunk on "raspberry cordial", which turns out to be current wine though Anne didn't know. Yet, it's enough to make Mrs. Berry pull Diana away from Anne and forbid her from interactions. Since they are children, Anne and Diana have no choice on the matter. However, when Diana's little sister gets ill, Anne is the one who knows what to do in tending to her in a time before 911, medical alert devices, or even "Universal Healthcare", Mrs. Berry reconciles with Anne and permits them to be together again. This shows how doing something nice tend lead to relationships restored, as I believe, and even allow the bridges to be mended. I just wish it can work in this century as well (minus the croup, though). But, there is always hope. As to Anne and Diana, after the croup, they resume their activities.
   One thing that comes of the friendship is Anne meeting Aunt Josephine, a spinster lady who is Diana's aunt. After jumping on the bed with her in it through a race to it, Anne confesses to her for the idea and her wit charms Aunt Josephine to a point that they become good friends. Aunt Josephine then shows the two city life, to which Anne finds attractive but not to her satisfaction. Aunt Josephine is not the only elderly person to befriend Anne, as evidenced by Rachael Lynde, Marilla, and Matthew. Their arcs in the friendships differ with their characteristics. Rachael is opinionated enough to offend Anne, yet learns to be considerate of Anne's feelings after the latter apologizes. Matthew is the shy and reclusive man, which anyone other than a psychologist would claim stems from a fear of women (possibly from a domineering mother), yet enjoys the friendship with a little girl more than with any. Since the Cuthberts are adopting Anne, she and Matthew become an ersatz father-daughter pair. This makes Marilla the mother figure, though not in the traditional sense. No doubt, the background that led to Matthew's gynophobia may have led to Marilla coming out the way she is in the book. Unlike her brother, we see how she handles her psychological scars with hard work and prayer, whereas Matthew is kept in the yard. No doubt, if Anne of Green Gables were written by a man, we might have seen how Matthew handles his emotions.

   A few things came to me upon reading it. For one, it allowed me to see the world of girls from the eyes of the said girls, something I couldn't do in real life. Anne of Green Gables offered an idealistic look into that world, one of sharing treats and braiding hair while gossiping on something (such as romance), as opposed to Stephen King's Carrie presented the girls' world as something like a dystopia where many are like female chimps, doing political movements against one another, using boys for power, and attacking all outsiders with all form of malice and prejudice. So, I got a sense of seeing it as like the God Janus, the two headed god of whom January is named for.
   On characters, it's easy to sum up each character Anne interacts with in one or two words; Marilla is strict and rational, Matthew is silent and stubborn, Rachael is lackadaisical, Diana is gentle, Ruby is fragile, Gilbert is mischievous and contrite, et cetera et cetera et cetera. With kind of set up, it is easy to keep track of all characters and know who is who. It does reflect on a simple society where it was easy to know a person from his character, unlike today where everyone is complex (pronoun preference, orientation, skin color, beliefs, et cetera et cetera et cetera).
   The bulk of Anne of Green Gables is basically a story of a girl becoming a woman, just as David Copperfield focuses on a boy becoming a man. Where Charles Dickens had young David go through life as a young man with college and marriage, plus a family, Montgomery has Anne work for higher learning without any plans of getting married. In short, Anne of Green Gables can be read as a feminist novel as even though Anne and Diana may talk of romance, they never talk of settling down with a beau. It should be noted that the book was published when Suffragettes were marching for the right to vote in the States and the British Isles, so it's no surprise that Montgomery has Rachael Lynde quoted to say things will change when women have the right to vote. It is something to be amused over. Women have the right to vote now, but the same sort of politicians are still being elected and same bureaucracy still prevails. Still, there are plenty of other examples of feminism in Anne of Green Gables.  During Anne's early stay at Green Gables, Marilla tells Matthew that she will bring Anne up and requests he let her do on her own, stating "An old maid may not know much about raising children, but I guess she knows more than an old bachelor" ("Marilla Makes Up Her Mind" pg. 59) Matthew goes along with this, only walking up to give Anne a talking on the apologizing to Rachael Lynde in secret, and only comes in to bring presents for Anne. When it comes to favoritism, however, I can say that through the book Anne loves both Matthew and Marilla in equal measure.
    In the book, Marilla tells Rachael Lynde, and us, that Matthew is getting older and he has heart disease (no doubt from stress from work and his smoking habits). At one point, he is told to not get excited. This while Anne is working to enter college for a higher education. One can debate on rather Anne could give up her dream of higher education and teaching in order to make it easier on the Cuthberts. Of course, fate steps in in the last two chapters. When a note from the bank comes that reports failure, the shock is enough to give Matthew a fatal heart attack. Matthew dies and Marilla is left with Anne while losing her vision. Anne now has to make a fateful decision because Marilla is an old woman who could go blind one day and no one is left to operate the farm. The death of Matthew signals the end of Anne's childhood. Now she has to put aside some of her dreams and help with the farm, especially as Marilla is losing her eyesight. It also signals the reconciliation with Gilbert. Gilbert decides to give up his post at Avonlea and let Anne take it, thus cutting her costs to half. This allows the two to finally see eye to eye and they decide to be friends. Once more, a kind deed mends the bridges between them. I am sure any woman out there reading this, as well as the book, may be wishing some guy would do what Gilbert did; be willing to give up an easy way to a career just to make a woman happy.

   On the whole, the plot structure starts out as one continuous narrative, but the meat of the book is episodic. This is aided with the names of the chapters, which can be treated as episodes in a soap opera. Reading the book has been like trying out something from the country and one can certainly taste the Canadian flavor in the text. There is a bit of nostalgia in the book, which was noticed in the time it was written. When Anne of Green Gables was published in 1908, this was during the Edwardian period, with the Victorian now over, since the Queen died seven years prior. L.M. Montgomery was writing about Anne in a world of the motorcar and the airplane, when the telephone was the method of communication, phonographs played music, nickelodeons had short videos while the silver screen was becoming the rage, and houses had indoor bathrooms with plumping and the fridge in the kitchen to preserve food. No doubt, there were plenty of people who thought the world was "spinning much faster than it did in the old days", to quote Rascal Flatts. Anne of Green Gables offered a glimpse to a simpler time when one could walk down an old dirt road, or ride a buggy, from the station to the farm, passing and beholding all the sights one can see. Today, it can reveal a bygone world just as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer or To Kill a Mockingbird does for the US.
    I am sure Anne would find this world a far cry from the one she grew up in and may think there is such scope to the imagination when it comes to nostalgia. In this world where everything is digital and electronic, maybe we could be like Anne and try to imagine it a different place; one without racism or sexism, one where everything is possible, and strained friendships and relationships can be mended by a simple act of kindness. If we could put such a world into existence, I think it would be a much better world than it is now.


Citation.

Montgomery, L.M. Anne of Green Gables (1908) Scholastic Inc. New York (2001).