Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
This is probably my favourite line from the book:
It says a lot about Anne, and indeed it exposes the ambiguity of the character: sometimes it is unclear whether Anne is truly upset, or happy, or whatever, or whether she is making the most of the dramatic moment. Sometimes, it seems, that even Anne doesn't really know, as with her ongoing grudge against Gilbert.
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Yes, I agree, and overall I think it’s well done. It’s part of what makes Anne interesting, as opposed to a Pollyanna, say. But I also think the Haunted Wood incident, an explicit example of this, was overdone. Did LMM think the reader wouldn’t get it? Or was it just another vignette to pad out the book? Probably some of both, but I thought it a clunker.
In fairness to Anne, some of her incidents were entirely Marilla’s fault. What was with Marilla’s failure to label things properly and store them in the appropriate place? That accounted for both the cordial incident and the liniment cake incident. If Anne had done either, Marilla would have been quite stern!