63 pages • 2 hours read
Lucy Maud MontgomeryAnne Of Green Gables
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1908A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Green Gables
The “big, rambling, orchard-embowered house” (3), set far back off the road away from society, offers Anne the first chance at the home of her dreams. Surrounded by beautiful trees and a whispering brook, Green Gables makes Anne feel “as if [she] must be in a dream” (25). In fact, a dream is exactly what it is. The perfect home doesn’t exist to her until she sees Green Gables. To her, the mere existence of it means she finally has a place to belong. Likewise, the threat of losing it in the very beginning destroys her.
The home also represents the unity of the Cuthbert siblings, their indomitable fortress that no one—not even romantic suitors—has broken through—not until Anne arrives. She is a real breath of fresh air that breathes life into two older people who thought life's staid and steady pattern was good enough for them. Anne’s transformation of the east gable room, from a boring and sensible space to one imbued with life and vigor, symbolizes Anne's effect on the home’s inhabitants. When she becomes “Anne of Green Gables,” as she calls herself, she becomes part and parcel of the home and all that it represents.
Dress with Puffed Sleeves
The value of a beautiful dress is unimaginable to Anne. Coming from the orphanage, where she dressed in hand-me-down rags and skimpy dresses that barely fit her, the dress with puffed sleeves takes on a dreamlike quality. It is the standard by which Anne measures her success and her beauty. When Marilla gifts her the new dresses that she sews for her, all sensible and plain and boring, it is not that Anne is ungrateful, but rather, being “in” means more to Anne than Marilla understands. This is a girl who has never been a part of anything before. She desperately wants to be part of a societal trend—something that solid and practical Marilla can never understand: “Anne felt that life was really not worth living without puffed sleeves” (95) may seem dramatic. Still, the meaning is clear: Anne wants to be part of something to make her feel beautiful.
Matthew is the only one who notices Anne’s difference from the other girls. To Marilla, a mere difference in clothing seems like vanity. But Matthew understands that Anne does not need to be overshadowed any longer. His purchase of her first dress with puffed sleeves marks the entrance of Anne into the realm of the other young ladies. From that point on, Anne is the height of fashion and respect.
The Value of Names
Anne seems fixated on names throughout most of the novel. All she knows about her parents are their names—Walter and Bertha—but she finds those names beautiful. That is how Anne knew her parents must have loved her before they died: beautiful names equal beautiful people.
Likewise, she is stricken dumb by the beauty of the “Avenue,” the road to Avonlea. She renames it the “White Way of Delight” to better capture its elegance. Anne believes that everything should have a name that only you give it to establish a personal connection to all living things. Therefore, the cherry tree outside her window becomes “Snow White,” the brook through Orchard Grove becomes “The Dryad’s Bubble,” and most of the natural elements of Avonlea are given beautiful names to reflect how much they mean to her.
Her name, as she says, must be spelled with an e at the end to make it look pretty—even though they sound the same. But even that is not enough. She wants to be called Cordelia instead of Anne since Cordelia “is a perfectly elegant name” (30) while Anne is “unromantic.” But the most important addition to her name occurs when she becomes “Anne of Green Gables,” reflecting the importance the home holds for her.
Red Hair
Anne’s hair is the bane of her existence, the quality by which she judges herself against other girls: “People who haven’t red hair don’t know what trouble is” (59), which perhaps explains why she is always getting into scrapes. Her hair is, to Anne, the cause of all the bad luck in her life; she finds it an unattractive quality, and she believes that others judge her for it as well. If she could change that, she could change her future, but she’s stuck with it.
When Mrs. Rachel harps on the color of her hair, it is a personal affront to Anne, but the thought that it could become auburn and beautiful one day gives Anne hope that she, too, could one day be beautiful. Still, her attempt to dye her hair highlights her insecurities, but it also teaches her a valuable lesson—she must be happy with who she is, a truth she finally learns as she ages.
Related Titles
By Lucy Maud Montgomery
