Anne of Green Gables Summary

Anne of Green Gables Summary

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery

Setting

The novel is set in the fictional town of Avonlea in Prince Edward Island.

Main Characters

Anne Shirley- she is the protagonist and an orphan girl with thick red hair, plentiful freckles, and big, expressive eyes.

Marilla Cuthbert- she is a woman in her 50s who lives with her brother Matthew on the family homestead, Green Gables. Marilla is known for keeping a spotless home and being no-nonsense.

Matthew Cuthbert- is a shy 60 years old man who rarely leaves Green Gables and hates having to talk, especially to women or girls.

Diana Barry- she is an 11-year-old girl who lives at Orchard Slope, next door to Green Gables.

Gilbert Blythe- he is Anne’s main rival at Avonlea School and her nemesis through much of the book.

Mrs. Rachel Lynde- she lives next door to Green Gables. Mrs. Rachel is known for her excellent housewifery, being active in the church, and also for keeping a sharp watch on all of Avonlea’s comings and goings

Mrs. Allan- she is married to the minister Mr. Allan. Mrs. Allan is the most significant person in Anne’s religious upbringing.

Miss Muriel Stacy- she is the Avonlea schoolteacher who takes Mr. Phillips’s place and becomes Anne’s beloved mentor.

Aunt Josephine Barry- she is Diana’s father’s elderly, rich aunt, known to be very prim and proper.

Plot Summary

Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert are siblings who live on their farm in Avonlea, Canada. Matthew is sixty years old and needs help with the work around the farm since he can no longer do it alone. The town gossip, Mrs. Rachel Lynde, thinks that they are unfit to adopt a boy because of their age. Matthew, who is terrified of women and has never had a girlfriend, arrives at the train station. He finds an orphan girl instead of the boy he was expecting to pick up. The orphanage sent Anne Shirley by mistake because she is eleven years old instead of seven as requested. Matthew likes her talkativeness and spirit so much that he agrees to let her stay with him for a trial period.

Anne is a happy and talkative girl despite her poor upbringing. She has an imagination that most kids do not have and she is optimistic. Although she does not fit the mold of what society considers to be proper, Anne tries hard to follow Marilla’s rules but makes many mistakes along the way. Anne never had real friends before living at Green Gables, so she was forced to invent imaginary playmates. In Avonlea, she meets Diana Barry, a neighbor who quickly becomes her bosom friend. One afternoon Anne invites Diana to tea and accidentally gives her red currant wine instead of non-alcoholic raspberry cordial. Diana returns home drunk, causing her mother to forbid the girls from speaking until Anne saves Diana’s sister from croup disease by giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

In school, Anne and Gilbert Blythe are rivals. They are both smart students who compete with each other for grades. When they first meet, he teases her by calling her Carrots and pulling on her red braid. This infuriates Anne because she is sensitive about the color of her hair, so she smashes a slate over his head. As Anne grows up, she becomes more serious about her studies and gives up some of her childish romantic notions. She decides to apply for a scholarship so that she can attend Queen’s Academy. Her relationship with Gilbert Blythe changes from being rivals to becoming friends when they both go to the same school. When she gets accepted into Queen’s Academy, Matthew and Marilla are very proud of her.

Anne is thrilled to learn that her future would be bright. However, when she returns home, Matthew has a heart attack and died. Anne decides to stay at Green Gables so that she could take care of Marilla, who was going blind. Gilbert hears about this decision and gives up his post as the teacher at Avonlea School so that Anne could teach there and be closer to Marilla. After five years of rivalry, Gilbert and Anne became friends because they were neighbors again after all these years apart. Although Anne’s life narrowed considerably since it no longer included higher education or marriage prospects, she remained optimistic about her future instead of being sad about it like everyone else in Avonlea seemed to be doing whenever they talked about her situation with each other behind their backs.

Themes

1. Beauty and Imagination. When she questions Anne about her past, Marilla observes that Anne is reluctant to talk about it. It is evident that she did not like talking about her experiences in a world that had not wanted her. Anne takes refuge in her imagination rather than dwelling on her unhappy childhood, finding comfort in nature’s beauty and thereby being inspired to imagine better circumstances for her.
2. Friendship. Anne Shirley’s favorite phrases include "bosom friends” and "kindred spirits.” Though these terms are somewhat interchangeable for Anne, they refer to best friends and to people who share similar outlooks on life, respectively. When Anne comes to Green Gables, she makes her first "bosom friend” in Diana Barry, finding that friendship can come easily to open-hearted people who are willing to be loyal to one another.
3. God, Prayer, and Church. Anne depicts Christian language, concepts, and morals with which many of its original readers would have been familiar. In Avonlea, community life largely revolves around the local church. When Anne comes to Green Gables, her guardians take for granted that she will become an observant Presbyterian like them and most of their neighbors.