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. Over time, Anne also discovers that while not everyone can be her “bosom friend,” her criteria for being a “kindred spirit” should be expanded, since one can’t always identify such a person at first glance. Through Anne’s journey from loneliness to gathering an array of friends, Montgomery suggests that while a “bosom friend” might be rare, “kindred spirits” can be found more readily than expected, and the key to finding both is keeping an open mind and heart.
Because Anne has grown up mostly caring for younger children and lacking friends her own age, she longs to find a true friend. Anne’s past friends have been imaginary: a girl she called Katie Maurice (her reflection in the glass doors of a bookcase), and, later, an echo of her own voice in the woods that Anne called Violetta. In the past, Anne’s only experiences of friendship have literally been extensions of herself.
Not long after her arrival at Green Gables, Anne asks Marilla, “do you think that I shall ever have a bosom friend in Avonlea? […] a really kindred spirit to whom I can confide my inmost soul. I’ve dreamed of meeting her all my life.” Because Anne has never had friends, she longs for a real friendship marked by mutual devotion and loyalty; she also longs to be truly understood.
When Anne finally meets Diana, the girl who lives next door to Green Gables, friendship comes easily to them both. The first thing Anne says to her friend is, “Oh, Diana […] do you think you can like me a little—enough to be my bosom friend?” Diana cheerfully agrees on the grounds that “It will be jolly to have somebody to play with […] I’ve no sisters big enough.” The girls accordingly swear an oath of loyalty and are soon absorbed in imaginative play together. Anne’s and Diana’s quick bond suggests that sometimes, openness, kindness, and imagination are sufficient grounds for a “bosom friendship.”
In fact, kindred spirits—people who instinctively like and understand one another—aren’t as rare as Anne first believed. When Anne and Diana accidentally frighten Diana’s forbidding, elderly aunt, Josephine Barry, by jumping into her bed in the middle of the night, Anne’s heartfelt plea for forgiveness draws unexpected warmth and humor from the old lady. Anne concludes, “You wouldn’t think so to look at her, but she is [a kindred spirit]. You don’t find it right out at first […] but after a while you come to see it. Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.” As Anne encounters more people, she learns that genuine friendship is more common than her lonely childhood had led her to believe, and furthermore, a person can’t necessarily judge a potential friend right away—a kindred spirit might be found beneath an unlikely exterior.
In a similar way, it takes Anne years to admit that her one-time enemy, Gilbert Blythe, could possibly be a friend, but as she grows up, she looks at him differently: “she had a vague consciousness that masculine friendship might also be a good thing to round out one’s conceptions of companionship […] they might have had many and merry and interesting conversations about the new world that was opening around them.” As Anne’s outlook matures, her criteria for what counts as a “kindred spirit” evolves, too; she considers that a boy—even one who’s been an annoying rival—might understand her better than she’d suspected.
From Anne’s early friendless days to her happier teen years, surrounded by friends young and old, Anne’s openness to other people remains constant. Montgomery suggests that this kind of willingness to trust and see the best in others is the key to finding genuine friends, no matter a person’s circumstances.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Friendship ThemeTracker
Friendship Quotes in Anne of Green Gables
[…] [A] discerning extraordinary observer might have concluded that no commonplace soul inhabited the body of this stray woman-child of whom shy Matthew Cuthbert was so ludicrously afraid.
[…]
“I suppose you are Mr. Matthew Cuthbert of Green Gables?” she said in a peculiarly clear, sweet voice. “I’m very glad to see you. I was beginning to be afraid you weren’t coming for me and I was imagining all the things that might have happened to prevent you. I had made up my mind that if you didn’t come for me tonight I’d go down the track to that big wild cherry tree at the bend, and climb up into it to stay all night.”
“Marilla,” she demanded presently, “do you think that I shall ever have a bosom friend in Avonlea?”
“A—a what kind of a friend?"
“A bosom friend—an intimate friend, you know—a really kindred spirit to whom I can confide my inmost soul. I’ve dreamed of meeting her all my life. I never really supposed I would, but so many of my loveliest dreams have come true all at once that perhaps this one will, too. Do you think it’s possible?”
“Oh, Mrs. Barry, please forgive me. I did not mean to—to intoxicate Diana. How could I? Just imagine if you were a poor little orphan girl that kind people had adopted and you had just one bosom friend in all the world. Do you think you would intoxicate her on purpose? I thought it was only raspberry cordial. I was firmly convinced it was raspberry cordial. Oh, please don’t say that you won’t let Diana play with me any more. If you do you will cover my life with a dark cloud of woe.”
This speech, which would have softened good Mrs. Lynde’s heart in a twinkling, had no effect on Mrs. Barry except to irritate her still more. She was suspicious of Anne’s big words and dramatic gestures and imagined that the child was making fun of her.
“That little redheaded girl they have over at Cuthberts’ is as smart as they make ‘em. I tell you she saved that baby’s life, for it would have been too late by the time I got here. She seems to have a skill and presence of mind perfectly wonderful in a child of her age. I never saw anything like the eyes of her when she was explaining the case to me.”
“Remember, you Anne-girl, when you come to town you’re to visit me and I’ll put you in my very sparest spare room bed to sleep.”
“Miss Barry was a kindred spirit, after all,” Anne confided to Marilla. “You wouldn’t think so to look at her, but she is. You don’t find it right out at first, as in Matthew’s case, but after a while you come to see it. Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.”
For a moment Anne hesitated. She had an odd, newly awakened consciousness under all her outraged dignity that the half-shy, half-eager expression in Gilbert's hazel eyes was something that was very good to see. Her heart gave a quick, unfamiliar little beat. But the bitterness of her old grievance promptly stiffened up her wavering determination. That scene of two years before flashed back into her recollection as vividly as if it had taken place yesterday.
Anne’s horizons had closed in since the night she had sat there after coming home from Queen’s; but if the path set before her feet was to be narrow she knew that flowers of quiet happiness would bloom along it. The joy of sincere work and worthy aspiration and congenial friendship were to be hers. Nothing could rob her of her birthright of fancy or her ideal world of dreams. And there was always the bend in the road!
“God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world,” whispered Anne softly.
