Anne of green gables part I door Montgomery

Anne Of Green Gables: I
L. M. Montgomery

Auther:

This book had been written by L. M. Montgomery. Lucy Maud has always loved books. She wrote in her journal that she hoped to grow up having lots of them. She has written twenty-four books between 1908 and 1939. Anne of Green Gables was her first book. Her other works included seven more Anne books, the Avonlea stories, the Emily trilogy, two novels for adults, an autobiography and the novel ‘The Story Girl’.
L. M. Montgomery was born in a literary family on Prince Edward Island in Canada. She had been engaged two times before she got married to a minister. They had tree sons, of wich one died at birth. Lucy has sold over a million books and her books have been translated into seventeen languages. The heroine Anne looks a lot like Montgomery herself. Reading her journals helps understanding the complex personality of Lucy herself as well as the personalities of her characters.
L. M. Montgomery died in 1942 after a long and deep depression, a time when she didn’t even return letters to her penpalls or write in her journals.
After this time her books were also published by Canadian edditors, where woman were egnolaged as being a writer. Anne has also taken to the stage and screen, inspiring a musical and a ballet as well as a numerous films and serveral television miniseries.

Title:

The title is based on the main character of the book. It is the first book in the - eight novels containing- Anne of Green Gables series. Anne’s real name is Anne Shirley. She is an orphan girl who is being adopted by Marilla and Mathew Cutbert. They live at a farm named Green Gables. Anne feels as if she now belongs to Marilla and Mathew and calles herself Anne of Green Gables when she introduced herself to mrs. Barry. The book was first published in London in 1908 and in April 1942 it was firs published in Canada. This copy doesn’t tell when it was printed nore what print it is.

Main Characters:

Anne Shirley: She is an orphan girl; her both parents died of a fever when she was only three months old. She had lived with fosterfamilies and in asylums ever since, mostly to look after the youngens. She has always been a dreamer and she fantasizes emaginary friends in windows and reads romantic books when she should be cooking or housekeeping. When mrs. Hammonds husband dies of a heartattach she is being put in a asylum again. Then Marilla and Mathew adopt her and she will be staying at Green Gables on Prince Edward Island. Anne always uses big words, words that don’t suit a little girl like her. With her red braids and her freckled face she exclaimes she can never be perfectly happy. Anne has a mind of her own, not to mention her tounque. She has a temper she can heardly control in times of trial. And her emagination is sometimes getting the best of her. But she steels the heart of everyone in Avonlea though, even if not everyone is able to admit that!

Mathew Cutbert: He is a shy but lovely man. He has a heart of gold. He never got married, ‘he never could marry a woman without speaking to her’. Anne loves him at first sight, and he loves Anne back with the same passion. He and his sister may not always agree on the way Anne is being brought up by her, he lets her do the raising, and every now and then he spoiles Anne a little bit. There is no evil in that man.

Marilla Cutbert: She is a strict and righious woman. She knows what she want and she knows what she stands for. Dicipline and order are the basis for her life. She loves Anne and Mathew but her role won’t alou her to show them. She is unable to show her love for the people around her. Sometimes, mostly on Mathews behalf, she bends a little and softends. Anne looks a lot more like her then she would admit. She has a little to none emagination but Anne knows to see through that and in the end it wasn’t Anne who needed them, but they needed Anne.

Rachel Lynde: She is the kind of neighbour you wouldn’t want to live nextdoor to. She keeps an eye on everybody and keeps putting her oar in. She mangels into other peoples buisness and she is a woman known for speaking her mind. Anne who has the habbit of getting into trouble, gets into a lot of scrapes with mrs. Lynde. Mrs Lynde is lovable and married to mr. Thomas Lynde, a very kind and gentile man. She can’t be missed in the story.

Diana Barry: She is Anne’s bousemfriend, from the first day she met, till the day her mom won’t ler het speak to her anymore over a misunderstanding. They do everything together and they dramatize their lifes a great deal. Diana might nog be as bright as Anne, she is even more loved by her. She has ravenblack curly hair, she has a beautiful taint and she has more skin on her bones then Anne.

Gilbert Blythe: He loves Anne dearly, but he messed up in one of the first days in school when he called her carrots to get her attention and Anne broke her slate over his head, she wouldn’t speak to him ever since. He is a handsome young man and he can have every girl he wants. He is smart and elegant. But Anne is to humiliated by him to have anything to do with him anymore, still he continues loving her and trying to make up for it.

Other characters: Charlie Sloane, Ruby Gillis, Mrs. Barry, Mr. Barry, Ms Barry, Prissy Andrews, Jane Andrews, Josie Pye and others.

Location and Time:

This book plays in 1908/1910 on Prince Edward Island in Canada. Green Gables is a beautiful farm in a small village called Avonlea. The book describes the events as if they were experienced by Anne although she is the she-figure. The storyteller already knows what is going to happen but he keeps the story in place. It is chronological written with a little number of flashbacks when Anne is being remembered of something that happened in the past.
Avonlea is the perfect little place on earth with a lot of happyness and clichés. Anne fits this town perfectly with her dreams and wild ideas. She rockes the perfectness with her own perfect inperfectness. Avonlea has a beautiful nature with blossomy treas and waters with bridges and farms. With a beautiful lane that runs down to the chruch and the local school, with the red roads and the romance you can create there.

The Story:

The story is about a little orphan girl of eleven years old who has lived asylums and in forsterhomes for her whole life. Her parents died of a fever when she was only three months old. Her life was taking care of children of her fosterparents. When mr. Hammonds died she was being put back in the asylum and after three months she is being adopted by a very nice family on Prince Edward Island, as she was told. Sitting at the trainstation she waits for mr. Cutbert to pick her up.
While Marilla Cutbert, his sister stries to explain to her curious neighbour mrs. Lynde why excactly they are getting a boy from the asylum.
After a very exciting trip back to Green Gables Mathew still didn’t dare to tell the chattery girl that there had been a mixup, he rather left that for Marilla to explain.
When Anne discovered that she was not wanted at Green Gables because she was not a boy, she cried she was in the dept of dispair and her life was a perfect graveyard of burried hopes. She just knew it was to good to be true.
Mathew had already fallen in love with the little, freckled, redbraided, skinnylooking girl and he didn’t want to let her go back. Marilla on the other hand wanted a clear explaination from mrs. Spencer whom she had sent for a boy.
After a while and a good excuse from mrs. Spencer Marilla and Mathew discided that they were going to keep Anne. That was just the beginning of a life which was never going to be the same again.
From brakeing slates over classmates heads to selling cows of your neighbours. From walking richpoles to insulting Marillas best friend. But through the whole novel you get to know her very well and you meet with her great emagination. She names trees, she dramatizes normal experiances and she gets in the most unbeleiveable scrapes.
An episode:
…“Well, they didn’t pick you for the looks, that’s sure and certain,” was mrs. Rachel Lynde’s emphatic comment. Mrs. Rachel was one of those delightful and popular people who pride themselves on speaking their mind without fear or favor. “She is terrible skinny and homely, Marilla. Come here, child, and let me have a look at you. Lawful heart, did any one ever see such freckles? And hair as red as carrots! Come here, child, I say.”
Anne “came there,” but not exactly as mrs. Rachel expected. With one bound she crossed the kichen floor and stood before mrs. Rachel, her face scarlet with anger, her lips quivering, and her whole slender form trembling from head to foot.
“I hate you,” she cried in a choked voice, stamping her foot on the floor. “I hate you – I hate you – I hate you” a louder stamp with each assertion of hatred. “How dare you call me skinny and ugly? How dare you say I’m freckled and redheaded? You are a rude, impolite, unfeeling woman!”
“Anne!” exclaimed Marilla in consternation.
But Anne continued to face mrs. Rachel undauntedly, head up, eyes blazing, hands clenched, passionate indignation exhaling from her like an atmosphere. “How dare you say such things about me?” she repeated vehemently.
“How would you like to have such things said about you? How would you like to be told that you are fat and clumsy and probably hadn’t a spark of emagination in you? I don’t care if I do hurt your feeling by saying so! I hope I hurt them. You have hurt mine worse than they were ever hurt before even by mrs. Thomas’ intoxicated husband. And I’ll never forgive you for it, never, never!”
Stamp! Stamp!
“Did anybody ever see such a temper!” exclaimed the horrified mrs. Rachel…

…Then the radiance vanished. Mournful penitence appeared on evert feature. Before a word was spoken Anne suddenly went down on her knees before the astonished mrs. Rachel and held out her hands beseechingly.
“Oh, mrs. Lynde, I am so extreamely sorry,” she said with a quiver in her voice. “I could never express all my sorrow, no, not if I used up a whole dictionary. You must emagine it. I behaved terribly to you – and I’ve disgraced the dear friends, Mathew and Marilla, who have let me stay at Green Gables although I am not a boy. I’m a dreadfully wicked and ungrateful girl, and I deserve to be punished and cast yout by respectable people for ever. It was very wicked of me to fly into a temper because you called me the truth. It was the truth; every word you said was true. My hair is red andI’m freckled and skinny and ugly. What I said to you was true, too, but I shouldn’t have said it. Oh, mrs. Lynde, please, please, forgive me. If you refuse it will be a lifelong sorrow to me. You wouldn’t like to inflict lifelong sorrow on a poor little orphan girl, would you, even if she had a dreadful temper? Oh I am sure you wouldn’t. Please say you’ll forgive me, mrs. Lynde.”
Anne clasped her hands together, bowed her head, and waited for the word of judgment…

Theme and Literature:

The theme of this book is romance. Not the sort of romance you find in two lovers but the romance of Anne’s life. It is about loving and giving. About friendship and about the things that are inportant in life. Family and friends. It’s a book about values and it also shows a lot of habits of that time. In the way people lived in those days. It is a very descent book, for everyone to read. It is a book that is exhilerating from beginning to end without being vulgar. That says a lot about things that were normal in that time. It is not an easy book to read. It had a lot of dialogues and a lot of words that are not being used in these days. Mostly because she reads dramatic books where she learns this poetical language. But it are those words that makes the book and Anne to who they are. It wouldn’t be the same without. Some examples are: “I am in the depts of dispair, my life is a perfect graveyard of burried hopes.” And “Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it” and she uses words like “bousemfriend” and “scope for the emagination”. She gives roads and waters different names: “Lovers Lane,” “Dryads Bubble,” “The lake of shining waters.” Her playhouse in the woods she called “Idlewild,” she read it in a book once.

Comments:

I’ve read several comments by girls who have read the books and whatched the tapes. They all loved the films and books, everytime they were sad they’d take them from the bookchase and watch or read them again. They are able to place themselves in Anne’s situation and fantacise about Gilbert and Diana.

My Oppinion:

I Loved the book. The film even more because I can just sit and let it be told. But I can see myself being Anne Shirley and braking a slate over Gilbert’s head. Loving and living and thinking you’ve got problems. I love the way she dares to dream out loud and how she believes her dreams one day might come true. It is magic to me how Lucy describes the characters so exactly as they should be. Anne goes from having nothing to having every dream come true. You can feel the warmth in Green Gables, you can almost smell it when Marilla is cooking. I also love the character of Rachel Lynde. It must be great to play that role in the film. To be naging and megaling in other peoples buisness. Doing everything that a descent person is not supposed to do, and then being accepted for it.
I want to grade this book with an eight for excelent. I think it is marvelous that one person can have so much emagination she can think of this book and let Anne have a large emagination. It has not been a nine or ten because some parts of the book are too hard to believe. But when you can see through that it is a great book for your own fantasy. This is based on my oppinion if you can feel and live with the characters and the ‘contact’ you have with the characters. With that I mean how well you get to know the persons in this book.

Fragment:

…Gilbert reached across the aisle, picked up the end of Anne’s long red braid, held it out at arm’s length and said in a piercing whisper,
“Carrots! Carrots!”
Then Anne looked at him with a vengeance!
She did more than look. She sprang to her feet, her bright fancies fallen into cureless ruin. She flashed one indignant glance at Gilbert from eyes whose angry sparkle was swiftly quenched in equally angry tears.
“You mean, hateful boy!” she exclaimed passionately. “How dare you!”
And then – Thwack! Anne had brought her slate down on Gilbert’s head and cracked it – slate, not head – clear across.
Avonlea school always enjoyed a scene. This was an expecially enjoyable one. Everybody said “Oh” in horrified delight. Diana gasped. Ruby Gillis, who was inclined to be hysterical, began to cry. Tommy Sloane let his team of crickets escape him altogether while he stared open-mouthed at the tableau.
Mr. Phillips stalked down the aisle and laid his hand heavily on Anne’s shoulder.
“Anne Shirley, what does this mean?” he said engrily.
Anne returned no answer. It was asking too much of flesh and blood to expect her to tell before the whole school that she had been called “carrots”. Gilbert it was who spoke up stoutly.
“It was my fault, mr. Phillips. I teased her.”
Mr. Phillips paid no heed to Gilbert…
I find this fragment great! Anne did what every one of us would have thought but never done. Her class and the readers get to know her very well in this passage. Although she doesn’t know it, she loves Gilbert with the same passion as in wich she breakes her slate on his head. And you can see that in this fragment. Gilbert also shows his love for her by appologizing to her and trying to make up for it. Her stubborness makes her not forgive him for a very long time. I would grade this passage with a nine. I can read it over and over again. The way it had been put to paper and the way it is so true and real. I would have done the same thing.