Anne of Green Gables

Summary

Anne of Green Gables opens in Avonlea, a farming village on Prince Edward Island, where the elderly brother and sister Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert have arranged to adopt a boy from a Nova Scotia orphan asylum to help on their farm. Through a mistake the child sent is Anne Shirley, an eleven-year-old red-haired girl who talks without stopping, renames everything she loves and has survived a hard childhood by imagination. Shy Matthew is won over on the drive home; Marilla means to send her back but, faced with the alternative of a hard-driving Mrs. Blewett, decides to keep her. The novel then follows five years of Anne's growth under Marilla's plain discipline and Matthew's silent affection. She flies into a rage at the gossip Mrs. Rachel Lynde and then delivers an extravagant apology; she makes a solemn vow of friendship with Diana Barry, her bosom friend; and she suffers a series of scrapes that make the book's comedy: a false confession to losing Marilla's amethyst brooch, Diana made tipsy on currant wine mistaken for raspberry cordial, hair dyed green, a cake flavored with liniment, a broken ankle from walking a roof's ridgepole, and a sinking boat while playing the lily maid. At school Gilbert Blythe calls her Carrots and she breaks her slate over his head; her refusal to forgive him becomes a long rivalry for first place. Anne redeems herself with Mrs. Barry by nursing Diana's little sister through croup, and under the teacher Miss Stacy and the minister's wife Mrs. Allan she grows steadier and more thoughtful. She ties with Gilbert in the entrance examinations, wins honors at Queen's Academy in Charlottetown and the Avery scholarship for university. Then Matthew dies of a heart attack after the failure of the bank that held their savings, and Marilla learns she may go blind. Anne gives up the scholarship to stay with Marilla and teach nearby; Gilbert gives up the Avonlea school so that she can teach there, and they become friends at last. The book ends with Anne content that the path before her, though narrower, still has its bend in the road.

Top Lessons

• Belonging is given and received

  Anne is wanted by mistake and kept by choice. Marilla's decision, Matthew's quiet love and Anne's gratitude show adoption as a family built by commitment, and Anne's question of where she belongs is answered at Green Gables.

• Imagination needs discipline

  Anne's imagination comforts her and fills the world with beauty, but it also produces the Haunted Wood terror, the liniment cake and the sinking boat. Montgomery shows imagination growing wiser rather than being crushed.

• Temper, pride and forgiveness

  Anne forgives Mrs. Lynde quickly but nurses her grudge against Gilbert for years. Her final reconciliation with him shows that pride costs friendship and humility restores it.

• Sacrifice chosen gladly

  Anne gives up the Avery scholarship to stay with Marilla, and does it without bitterness. The narrower path still holds work, friendship and hope.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

The novel touches medicine at several practical points in a rural community with few doctors: Anne's experience of caring for twins makes her able to treat croup with ipecac when the doctor is away, Diana's accidental intoxication shows period attitudes to alcohol, a doctor sets Anne's broken ankle, Matthew has a heart condition and dies suddenly on hearing bad news, and Marilla's failing sight brings an oculist's warning. The orphan asylum is a background institution Anne speaks of only lightly.

• Chapter II and V

  Anne's account of the orphan asylum and her years as unpaid help in two households caring for children.

• Chapter XVI

  Diana drinks three tumblers of what she takes for raspberry cordial but is Marilla's currant wine and goes home intoxicated.

• Chapter XVIII

  With the doctor away, Anne treats Minnie May's croup with ipecac through the night; the doctor later says she saved the child's life.

• Chapter XXIII

  Anne falls from the ridgepole of the Barrys' kitchen roof and breaks her ankle, which the doctor sets.

• Chapter XXXVII

  Matthew, who has had heart trouble, collapses and dies after reading of the Abbey Bank's failure.

• Chapter XXXVIII

  Marilla's headaches and failing eyes lead an oculist to warn of blindness unless she gives up reading and sewing.