Anne of Green Gables: Presentation Discussions and Feminism

In our group presentations for the novel

Anne of Green Gables, we have discussed many
aspects of coming of age, what it means to
grow from a child to a fully realized adult
both in Annes world and our own.
Who holds the keys to this mysterious
adventure behind the gate? What does it look
like? Will we know it when we arrive or is
adulthood an island that you only know
youve reached once youve lived there for a
time? Weve followed Anne as she navigates
the challenges and frustrations that come with
growing up and fitting into a world that
doesnt always think or act the same way she
does.
Through her experiences and interactions
with adults and her peers, Anne must juggle
who she wants to be, who she needs to be,
and what society is telling her she should be
to ultimately find herself.
Anne faces many hurdles, traversing the
emotional challenges that come with being an
adopted child, societys expectations,
interpersonal relationships, and chasing after
education in a time when the working and
educated woman was only just emerging as
acceptable. Anne of Green Gables is fascinating
for its central focus on the coming of age of a
young girl, a process that is currently shifting
and lacking of a concrete definition of what it
means to be a grown woman. As Anne is
trying to find her place and discover herself,
so is modern feminism searching for what it
means to be a woman beyond equality of the
sexes.

What female adult exemplars does Anne have

to learn from on her journey?
Marilla Cuthbert: Annes example of a
homemaker. Marilla runs her household. She
is in charge of the caring and feeding of both
Anne and Matthew, the upkeep of the home,
and also the raising of Anne.
Mrs. Rachel Lynde: The voice of society and
the social woman. Rachel is there to remind
Anne of the proper woman, with manners,
fashion, and societal rules.
Miss Muriel Stacy: The working woman.
Miss Stacy shows Anne the educated and
working woman, devoted to teaching and
making her own way in the world.
Josephine Barry: The older, independent
woman. Aunt Josephine gives Anne a glimpse
into the future of the independent, self-made
woman.

Anne works hard for her education,

competing heavily to beat Gilbert Blythe and
with the help of Miss Stacy eventually growing
to compete for herself and her own
accomplishment.
Women still face many challenges when it
comes to higher education both in the United
States and worldwide. Though there is a great
disparity in the degree of those challenges,
there are many women, including Nobel
Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai working
hard for that to change. In Annes time,
dedication to education and career was either
a short term ambition or a sentence to life
without a family of ones own.
Annes ambition for learning was, in
general, supported by the adults in her life,
with Miss Stacy in particular working hard to
encourage her. None the less, career options
for Anne were limited mostly to teaching.
That has changed significantly within the US;
however women are often forced to choose
between career and family. Paid maternity
leave, the division of household labor, and
women returning to demanding jobs after
giving birth are topics hotly debated.
European nations have proven more
progressive in these areas than the US.
Even Anne must choose between her duty
to her family and her continued education.
Anne decides to commit to her duty to her
mother figure, returning to care for Marilla as
Marilla has cared for her. She gives up the
opportunity for continued learning in favor of
teaching and devotion to her adoptive family.

Annes coming of age journey is

complicated by her status as an adoptee, and
she and the Cuthberts must learn to grow
together and love one another as family. Anne
struggles with isolation, her own identity, and
her place at Green Gables.

Of course Anne is far from alone. She has

not only her adult role models, but childhood
friend Diana Barry and her cerebral
match/rival Gilbert Blythe. These friends
have profound impacts on Annes life,
whether it is stalwart encouragement and
support or motivation and strengthening of
her will.
Anne of Green Gables only follows Anne into
adulthood. We are left to imagine and
contemplate what the rest of Annes future
will hold. After all, adulthood, despite being
raced toward by children, is really a very long
time. Who will Anne be once she reaches an
age closer to Aunt Josephine, Marilla and Mrs.
Rachel? In literature older ladies tend to fit
into a finite number of stereotypes: The Hen
Pecker, The Hearth Keeper, The Witch, The
Cat Lady, The Super-Traditional, The Wealthy
Widow, and The Extremely Religious. Rarely
do we see self-made, well socialized, and

welcoming women in their twilight years.

Likely, Anne will deviate from traditional
categories as much in her adult life as in her
childhood, aging into something altogether
fitting of her personality and life experience.
The representation of women in literature
in any age bracket is all too frequently lacking,
despite a recent surge in the female
protagonist and hero. However, is lack of
representation due to lack of inclusion or to a
lack of consensus on how those characters
should be conveyed, particularly in childrens
literature? With changing norms in womens
education, career choices, marriage
expectations and acceptable sexuality, the
Bildungsroman path for women is a fluid
category, in contrast to the traditions of
growing up for young men.
What makes a modern, feminist teenager?
Child? What challenges and choices do girls
face and how do they overcome them? In a
culture that seems to demand the strong
woman or the traditional more dependent
with little understand of a space in between,
girls working their way into adulthood
struggle with what they want, and what they
feel they should be as feminist and
progressive thinkers.
We are trying to adapt to the
uncomfortable restrictions we feel,
trying to find a way to live that upholds
our values without compromising our
happiness.
-Rachel Kincaid

Just as Anne in Anne of Green Gables is

working to find herself, so is the modern
feminist. In her article Frustrations of the
Modern Feminist in a 2007 issue of Off Our

Backs, Rachel Kincaid discusses many of the

conflicting duties facing a young feminist
thinker. Struggling, like Anne, to discover and
become the right kind of woman. Kincaid
asserts, however, that the foundation of
feminism is that we deserve to be happy; that
we will continue to struggle until all women
are able to be comfortable with who and what
they are, without fear of recrimination or
shame. Feminism has never been about
becoming the right kind of woman; it makes
the opposite claim, that we are each of us
exactly as we should be (Kincaid, 61).
Feminism in 2014 is strikingly different
from feminism in 1922, or even 1980.
Progress has been made in rights and liberties
for women, such as voting legislation,
education for women, careers for women, and
also an increased exploration of previously
taboo subjects like womens sexuality. There
is a long way to go, particularly in countries
where young girls face violence even for
seeking basic education. As young girls search
for who they are, hopefully there will be
increasing acceptance in the future that there
is no wrong answer. Difficulties and struggles,
certainly, society and culture will always push
back. But whether you are societys darling
like Diana, self-made like Aunt Josephine, a
homemaker like Marilla, a social matriarch like
Mrs. Rachel, or curious and imaginative like
Anne Shirley, you deserve the opportunity to
chase after yourself, wherever you may be
found.
Works Cited:
Kincaid, Rachel. Frustrations of the Modern Feminist. Off Our
Backs 37.4 (2007): 60-61. Web. 5 Nov 2014.
Montgomery, Lucy Maud. "Anne of Green Gables." Classics of
Children's Literature. By John W. Griffith and Charles H. Frey. Sixth
ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2005. 915101074. Print.