Anne of Avonlea

September 12, 2019 9:05 PM - by L. M. Montgomery

In which Our Heroine has matured into a “tall, slim girl, “half-past sixteen,” with serious gray eyes and hair which her friends called auburn”; LLM introduces 2 more characters, Davy and Paul Irving, in order to keep the supply of disasters and whimsy steady; the Avonlea Village Improvement Society achieves variable success; a romantic subplot is resolved; a number of spinsters are met.

Davy, budding psychopath, body count: platter, conch shell, 2 pies, caterpillar, chickens, grub, jar of plum jam, Dora’s nice clothes, Dora’s composure, everyone's peace of mind.

Heaven - location of; divine preserves, made in

Inhabitants of Crone Island, temporary and permanent: Marilla Cuthbert, Mrs Rachel Lynde, Charlotta the 4th, Mrs. Harrison, Misses Eliza and Catherine Andrews, Marjory White (aspiring widow), Miss Lavender Lewis, Miss Sarah and Martha Copp, Mrs. Morgan.

Racism, against French and First Nations: check

Scrapes, Anne: breaking the Blue Willowware platter; falling through the Duck House roof during a rainstorm; greeting unexpected guests with a face full of down feathers and red dye, etc.

Vocabulary, Surprising: ‘hymeneal altar’

posted by bq (7 comments total)

Let’s talk about Davy, budding psychopath. I was pretty shocked that after the ‘maybe Dora fell down the well’ episode, Anne’s main disappointment in him seems to be that he lied about locking Dora in the shed. The fact that he was deliberately cruel to his sister and that he watched three distraught adults search for her desperately for hours seems not to be a concern. Basically every time he does something naughty, he makes a comment afterwards about how fun it is to see everybody yell and jump around in distress, and this is never corrected, which leads me to suspect that the viewpoint of the book is that it actually is great fun to torment people and animals. So, what’s up with that, is this just a modern sensibilities thing? Also, as a parent who doesn’t use physical discipline, I would have spanked the pants off of any six year old who did that and that would just be the start, although I appreciate that Anne and Marilla aren’t able to restrict screen time.

He is right about Paul Irving being insufferable though.
posted by bq at 9:18 PM on September 12, 2019 [2 favorites]

I tired for a while to find any depiction of the hideous blue that the Hall got painted, and this is the only one I found.
posted by bq at 10:49 AM on September 13, 2019

I remember when I first read this, I had trouble imagining how a blue barn could possibly go so far as to be "hideous." Now I think of it every time I see a building painted a hideous blue (which is far from never).
posted by redfoxtail at 7:25 PM on September 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

Davy's behavioral issues sort of make sense given the lack of parenting in his early years. Dead father, mother with extended illness, etc. Empathy is a learned behavior, not innate, so it's actually sort of interesting that a book from the early twentieth century got this sort of right. I do think there's also a case of old fashioned sensibilities going on; animals back then did not enjoy the same rights and people didn't think of them with the sentiment that we do now. There's also a slight edge of misogyny to Davy's mischief, especially where girls/women are concerned, and sadly, that too would have been less remarked upon then. Future books seem to indicate he turned out ok, fortunately.
posted by katyggls at 10:34 PM on September 15, 2019

LMM also seems to have had a thing about how disciplining boys is completely different from raising girls. In this one, she doesn't get on Anthony Pye's good side until she properly hits him with a switch, and then that seems to earn her respect.

I think there was another short story in which two single women try to raise adopted boy(s) and everything's a disaster until the male love interest uses the switch on him (them). Can't remember which one. I think the big joke was that the protagonist was a single female psychiatrist/psychologist who wrote about how to raise children properly.
posted by toastyk at 2:24 PM on September 16, 2019 [2 favorites]

That's "Penelope Struts Her Theories", which appears in Road to Yesterday/The Blythes Are Quoted.
posted by orange swan at 6:18 PM on November 25, 2019

I've just finished rereading Anne of Avonlea for the first time in years.

The thing that struck me on this reading was how very busy Anne must be. She is teaching school full time, which would involve not only five full days of being in the schoolhouse but also marking tests and assignments, making lesson plans, and parent teacher interviews. She is studying Latin and probably some other college-level academic work with Gilbert Blythe, and also seem to be doing a little writing. She is helping Marilla with the housekeeping and with the care of a pair of young twins, one of whom seems to be possessed by Satan. She would need to do all the sewing and other needlework Marilla can't do because of her issues with her eyesight, which would mean sewing for all four members of their household, and there's no mention at all of there being a sewing machine at Green Gables. On top of all this, Anne seems to somehow have time for a fairly active social life. I'm not sure how realistic that is. Anne does have the summers off, which would help a lot. But LMM did not have to do all that when she was teaching (she boarded which would have meant she didn't have much housekeeping to do or anyone to take care of, sewed for just herself, did her writing, read for enjoyment, had a good social life, and taught), and she was very busy even so.

Davy is such a horrible brat, but even so, I find I prefer him to Paul Irving, who is unrealistically twee and tiresome, so much so that I skimmed all his natterings on about his rock people on this read. And yes, Davy was used to running wild before he came to Green Gables, though strangely Dora hadn't had any bringing up either and she was a model child. She only has one flash of personality in that she tells Minnie May Barry that she intends to marry Paul Irving when she grows up, heh.

I cringed for poor Anne when she found herself face to face with unexpected and distinguished guests in a short, tight old dress, and her hair done up in a polka dot handkerchief, covered in feathers, and with her nose dyed scarlet.

We have another mention of Anne saying she can't wear pink. Pink worn with red hair was not considered to be in good taste in those days, but as a redhead myself, I will just say that I don't wear pink, not because it doesn't go with red hair, but because it doesn't go with the skin that comes with red hair. True pink is a cool colour and it doesn't play well with the golden or yellow-toned skin that redheads have. I will wear an old rose.

Mr. and Mrs. Harrison's subplot was a lot of fun (it's hilarious that Emily Harrison left her husband because she couldn't stand his foul-spoken parrot), and I rather liked the eccentric Miss Lavender and her lovely stone cottage. Mrs. Donnell was crassly pretentious, but then everyone thought so.

I wonder if Gilbert Blythe was based on Will Pritchard, whom I believe to be the man Montgomery would have married had he not died tragically in his early twenties. Their characterizations do seem to match. Like Gilbert, Will was a straightforward sort of boy with a good sense of humour and a cheerful, good-natured temperament, he was tall with curly brown hair and green eyes (Gilbert was tall with brown curly hair and hazel eyes) and Montgomery found Will's companionship to be both a lot of fun and intellectually satisfying, just as Anne and Gilbert's friendship is portrayed.

Montgomery played her cards well when it came to freeing Anne up to go to college, and subsequently to teach in Summerside and get married, all without leaving Marilla high and dry. (This, by the way, was not a freedom that LMM had herself. She was forced to remain with her grandmother until she died, which severely impacted the course of her adult life, as it restricted her social opportunities, limited the pool of suitors in a way that resulted in her marrying the wrong man because he was her only viable option, and forced her to delay even that marriage of convenience until she was 36. Her grandmother was also a rigidly controlling and domineering woman who wasn't at all easy to live with.)

Rachel Lynde's move to Green Gables gave Marilla all the companionship and help she would need until the twins were grown, and then when Davy took over the farm at 16, he in turn became Marilla's retirement plan. He and his wife would have taken care of Marilla and Mrs. Lynde until they died, and then inherited the farm. Marilla was smart to plan to give Rachel ample space of her own within the Green Gables farmhouse in order to reduce possible points of friction between them, not that the two of them had ever had anything to criticize in each other's housekeeping.

"Redheaded snippet", snerk.
posted by orange swan at 2:27 PM on June 14