Why L.M Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables Remains A Favorite

Let me start with a confession. Writing about classics is daunting. Classics are books that have stayed in print for many years, studied and analyzed and dissected every which way. As a critic, I am nervous about what can I add to the narrative. But as a reader, I simply want to share my personal joy of reading them.

What do you think about classics? Scary or awesome?

So I am going to start with a childhood favorite classic that left a deep impression on my life. I stumbled upon Anne Shirley on a 1985 production of a CBS television show. As a nine-year-old I was taken in by the coming-of-age story of a pre-teen girl orphaned girl who just wants to be loved, be awesome at school and have a good hair day. Sure, she was a girl from a farming village in the idyllic Prince Edward Island across many oceans and at least a century away, but her problems did not seem that different from mine.

When the budding reader in me discovered the show was based on a Canadian book series, it was like Christmas had come early. Anne of Green Gables became my favorite childhood classic, and a story I kept going back to for nostalgia and life lessons.

Do you have one of those books in your life too? You know the ones that you never outgrow and keep going back to?

So, what’s it about?

“But if you call me Anne, please call me Anne with an ‘e’.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

In the fictional village of Avonlea somewhere in Canada, Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert of Green Gables, ask an adoption agency to send them a boy hoping he helps them around the farm. When Mathew reaches the station to pick the boy, he finds a scrawny, redheaded girl with big eager eyes (and even a bigger imagination!) waiting for him. And there begins our tale.

Anne of Green Gables is the story of how this passionate, curious, intelligent eleven-year-old gets adopted and builds her life with Cuthbert’s and finds a home in Avonlea. It’s the story of everyday life and adventures of a young girl, figuring out her place in the world.

Wildly popular when released in 1908, it gave its creator Lucy Maud Montgomery instant fame and recognition. She went on to write more stories about Anne Shirley, the last of the series published posthumously. The Anne books continue to be in print to this day and are well loved.

And here’s are my personal reasons why.

Quietly Feminist

“Matthew Cuthbert, who’s that?” she ejaculated. “Where is the boy?”

“There wasn’t any boy,” said Matthew wretchedly. “There was only her.”

― Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

I don’t believe that Montgomery intended to write a feminist novel. That she ended up creating an interesting, independent, opinionated, ambitious heroine was perhaps a reflection of her personal history, rather than any intentional messaging.

Isn’t it astonishing though, that the entire premise of the story rests on the Cuthberts accidentally being sent a girl instead of a boy? And in the span of an evening, this girl makes such an earnest, deep impression, that against their better judgement and practical needs they decide to keep her.

“For Anne to take things calmly would have been to change her nature. All ‘spirit and fire and dew,’ as she was, the pleasures and pains of life came to her with trebled intensity.

― Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

For me the most feminist thing about Anne is that her strength comes from being herself. Even though she is constantly told to reign in her imagination, or not speak so much or just be like the other girls, she continues to be herself.

She speaks her minds, walks rooftops for a wager, studies hard to beat the teasing boys in her class and is unapologetically ambitious. And when at the end of her school years, most of her friends are dropping out to get married, she decides she wants more and works to get a scholarship to go to college. She does it all with deep determination while fighting constant fears of failing.

Anne of Green Gables is not just feminist because it’s about a girl. It also focuses on healthy relationships between women. Anne’s less ambitious best friend, Diana makes very different choices but there is no judgement there. These girls unconditionally support and lift each other. Montgomery reverses the parenting trope my making Mathew the gentler, kinder parent and portraying Marilla more like the traditional, strict, aloof patriarch. Marilla may be prickly, but her relationship with Anne has the most interesting journey in the book.

And I am here for it. I mean, what’s not to like?

Beautiful Relationships and Engaging Characters

“I’ll try to do and be anything you want me, if you’ll only keep me,” said Anne, returning meekly to her ottoman.

― Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

As an orphaned child, Anne was hungry for love and validation. If there was ever a book for found families, then this is it.

In the Cuthbert siblings, she finds the parents that she never had, a stable home and unconditional support. In Diana, she finds that loyal, female friendship with whom she can share the deepest secrets of heart. With all the concerned and sometimes nosy neighbors, she finds an extended family of aunts and uncles.

And in Gilbert, she finds an intellectual equal willing to both challenge and support her.

Not everyone loves her, though. Avonlea, like any other small town, has its own shares of petty rivalries and fragile egos–often resulting in hilarious results. However, nothing ever gets too dark or dreary.

Timeless Relevance

For a book written in the early twentieth century, an important question to ask is has it aged well? It’s even scarier to reread a book that you once loved and realize that it’s not as good or relevant as you thought it was.

Has that ever happened to you?

I read Anne of Green Gables at twelve, a few years after discovering the show. I instantly knew that in Anne Shirley I had found a kindred spirit.

“Which would you rather be if you had the choice — divinely beautiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically good?”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

I related to her adolescent growing pains about appearances and popularity. Who amongst has not been wished to more fashionable or prettier when growing up? I instinctively understood the deep love for her best friend Diana — can we ever replicate the innocence and love of childhood friendships? I wanted to share in her flights of fancy when she wrote stories or dreamed about her future.

When Anne went to college, so did I. For a girl from another time, her life was much like mine; with studies and revelries, endless ambition, and full of love lost and found.

“..my 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.”
― Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

I have gone back to Anne of Green Gables and other books in the series, for the optimism they provide. Anne’s ambitions of being a teacher and a writer, her wish to return the love and happiness that Marilla & Matthew had given her, and her hopes of finding love.

Anne builds her life by being and believing in herself, surrounding herself with people who love and value her, having hope, and always, always dreaming.

There is a joy in the way she looks at life. For me, that will always be relevant.