ANNE SHIRLEY

Today I am participating in a series of posts a fellow author/blogger is doing as part of the "release party" for her new book: A Stretch of Loyalty by Jack Lewis Baillot. I met said author during the April A-Z challenge and have continued to enjoy perusing her blog (http://missjacklewisbaillot.blogspot.com/) ever since. We have similar tastes in movies and book genres, so obviously we're at least partially "kindred spirits."

Which quite neatly brings me to the character I will be discussing today in order to participate in her online release party: Anne Shirley.

Anne of Green Gables has always been one of my favorite book/movie combos. It is one of those rare occurrences where I simply cannot decide between the book and the movie. I love them both dearly.

Anne Shirley is an orphan. She has been through a series of homes in which she has been less of an "adoptee" than she has been an unpaid drudge, forced to care for the biological children of whomever has been housing her (several of these homes have included colicky twins). When the husband of a home she has been living in dies unexpectedly, Anne is sent back to the orphanage.

Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, brother and sister, have decided they need a boy to help them around their farm. When Anne is sent to them by mistake, Marilla intends to send her back directly. However, she has a change of heart when it becomes clear Anne may end up in yet another home where she will not be cared for properly. She is brought back to the Cuthbert's "on trial" where Anne sincerely hopes to be truly adopted.

Anne's chatter, lively spirit, and whimsical nature seem at first to be tailor-made to clash with the quiet, peaceful, and austere natures of Matthew and Marilla. However, these very traits which, by all rights, should have caused them to be incompatible are the exact pieces missing from each one of the trio's repertoire.

One of my favorite quotes from the movie occurs towards the beginning, when Marilla and Matthew are talking about the mix-up that has just happened (they were sent a girl instead of a boy):

MARILLA: I'm taking her straight over to that Spencer woman in the morning. This girl has to go straight back to the asylum.

MATTHEW: I suppose.

MARILLA: You suppose, don't you know it?

MATTHEW: She's a nice little thing, Marilla. Seems a pity to send her back; she's so set on staying.

MARILLA: Matthew Cuthbert, I believe this child has bewitched you. I can see plain is plain you want to keep her.

MATTHEW: We could hire a boy, and she can be company for you.

MARILLA: I'm not suffering for company, particularly a girl who prattles on without stopping for breath. She's no good for us. She has to go straight back where she came from.

MATTHEW: Well, we might be of some good to her.

Anne is loyal and true. She will defend her friends and their honor to the death if necessary (in fact, she would prefer it that way... it would seem to her a rather romantic way to depart this cruel world).

Anne has her flaws, of course, all truly three-dimensional characters do. She has quite the temper. She has red hair, and freckles, which are her constant trials. She hates being called "carrots" and breaks her slate over a boy's head in school one day for teasing her about her hair. Of course, since this is book-world, she eventually goes on to marry that boy (who was only teasing her because he liked her, in typical schoolboy-fashion). It takes her a long time to forgive him for his teasing, though. They do become friends a few years later, which paves the way for him to confess his undying love for her (a proposal she rejects the first time it is made).

Anne is an imaginative, precocious, curious, dreamer with a flare for the dramatic. She loves to read, and has a large vocabulary. I think we would be best friends, or "kindred spirits" as Anne would put it.I think the number one thing I love about Anne is her imagination. She sums up the beauty of the imagination in one of my other favorite bits of dialogue ever, and it is what I shall leave you with today:

ANNE: What should I call you? May I call you Aunt Marilla?

MARILLA: No. You can call me just plain Marilla. I don't believe in calling people names that are not their own.

ANNE: You could imagine you were my aunt.

MARILLA: No, I could not.

ANNE: Don't you ever imagine things different from they are?

MARILLA: No.

ANNE: Oh, Marilla, how much you miss.