Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Anne of Green Gables, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Home and Family
Beauty and Imagination
Friendship
Mishaps, Milestones, and Growing Up
Boys and Romance
God, Prayer, and Church
Summary
Analysis
After the concert, life seems terribly dull to Anne. Aside from some quarrels and rivalries sparked by the event, however, life in Avonlea school soon returns to normal. Later that winter, Anne turns 13. She and Diana walk to school through the woods, wondering what it will be like to be “really grown up” in two years. Two years after that, the girls will be considered old enough to wear their hair up, in adult style. They continue to chat and gossip about their classmates and hopes for the future. Anne has to remind herself not to make “uncharitable speeches” about the classmates she dislikes, like Josie Pye. Mrs. Allan says people should never speak uncharitably of one another, and Anne wants to be just like Mrs. Allan.
Though it still sounds quite young and not particularly “grown up,” fifteen marked the age at which young people began to date, participate more in social activities, and begin to think about life beyond school—hence Anne’s and Diana’s eager daydreams about it at age 13. Mrs. Allan continues to be Anne’s model for what she wants to be like when she’s grown up—showing that for Anne, being grown up isn’t simply a matter of being able to go courting or wearing one’s hair up, but of aspiring to good character as well.
Themes
The girls take note of their surroundings as they walk—they’re assigned to write a nature-themed composition for Miss Stacy. But Miss Stacy is also requiring them to write an original story soon, and Diana dreads this because she thinks she has no imagination. Anne, on the other hand, has already written her story (“The Jealous Rival; or, In Death Not Divided”) about two maidens named Cordelia and Geraldine. In the story, a handsome young man named Bertram saves Geraldine’s life and proposes to her. (Anne asked her friend Ruby about her older sister’s marriage proposal but decided it was insufficiently romantic, so she made Bertram’s much more flowery.) Meanwhile, Cordelia is secretly in love with Bertram and one day pushes her rival to her death in a river. When Bertram jumps in to save Geraldine, they drown in each other’s arms. Cordelia then goes insane and spends the rest of her life in an asylum.
Under Miss Stacy’s tutelage, Anne’s imagination receives a more suitable channel: story-writing. Though Anne’s hilariously dramatic story of Cordelia and Geraldine isn’t particularly vital to the plot, it’s a good example of how Anne’s imagination works at this point—it’s vivid and detailed, but still overdramatic (and not showing a very mature understanding of romance, to say the least).
Themes
Diana is deeply impressed by Anne’s story and wishes she had such an imagination. Anne encourages her with the hope that she could cultivate one. She decides they should start a story club in order to practice. At first it’s just the two of them, but eventually it expands to include Jane Andrews, Ruby Gillis, and a few others. Each girl writes one story per week, then reads her story aloud for the others to critique. Anne tells Marilla that she usually has to give the others ideas. Ruby’s stories always have too much romance, Jane’s are too sensible, and Diana’s have too many murders, since she doesn’t know what else to do with her characters. Marilla thinks this all sounds like nonsense, but Anne assures her that the stories are always wholesome and that she insists on putting a moral into each one. (The Allans agree, although when Anne read them her story, they laughed at the wrong moments.)
From her own experience as an orphan, Anne cultivated her own imagination. Now she encourages her friends to do the same, showing that she’s able to direct her imagination in useful ways toward others. The girls’ stories are still quite immature and silly (hence the Allans’ inability to withhold laughter).
Themes
The club also sent four of the best stories to Aunt Josephine, who said she’d never read anything so amusing. The girls were confused by this reaction, since they’d been trying to be “pathetic.” Anne says that at least she knows the story club is doing something good for the world, which Mrs. Allan says should be everyone’s goal. Anne tells Marilla that Mrs. Allan got into lots of mischief when she was a little girl, and that knowing this encourages her; maybe someday she, too, will be good like Mrs. Allan. Marilla tells her to stop chattering and finish washing the dishes.
Anne uses “pathetic” in the sense of pathos, or a sad, pitiful quality—one that can be quite funny when overdone, as Aunt Josephine’s reaction suggests. Still, Anne achieves her goal of making others’ lives better through the use of her imagination. She is also encouraged to learn that, although she’s always thought of Mrs. Allan as being “naturally good,” Mrs. Allan also had to make mistakes and grow just like Anne does, which gives Anne hope.
Themes
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