Anne Shirley

Episode 24

“I've tried the world-it wears no more/The colouring of romance it wore,” Anne quotes this week. The couplet is from William Cullen Bryant's 1821 poem “The Rivulet,” and like other times Anne has spoken a verse aloud, it says volumes about her mental state and her view of the world. She's refused Royal Gardner's hand in marriage, Diana has moved even further beyond her and entered the realm of motherhood, Gilbert is ill and dying, and even her beloved Snow Queen has fallen in a storm. Romance, in all its various definitions, has worn off her world. Things are changing too fast and too drastically for Anne to process.

It's a place she's been heading towards ever since she first refused Gilbert's proposal two years ago. Between that and Ruby's death, Anne's childhood world has crumbled. While Matthew's passing and Diana's marriage were also signs of change, they were somehow more expected, or maybe more natural. There's nothing of either of those about the horrible death of a friend or the feeling of betrayal by a friend, saying what you're not ready to hear. To have Davy then blurt out that Gilbert is dying of typhoid plunges her right back to Matthew's and Ruby's deaths, but also to a close examination of her own feelings now that she's had time to grow up.

I'm sure some people will be furious with Davy for what he did, but I actually think it was probably for the best. It's the ripping off the band-aid method, and it's what Anne needs right now. If she had been gently told of Gilbert's illness, Anne might not have been forced to reckon with herself. Anne has reached the point where she needs to really think about her own emotions without the distractions of school or other events. She's in a between-time, a place where she's ready to think about her next steps forward. Has the world truly lost its romantic coloring? Or has Anne herself been beaten down by it?

There's plenty of literary precedent for Gilbert's successful second proposal. It reminds me a lot of Mr. Darcy's second to Elizabeth Bennet in Pride & Prejudice, although I'd prefer to liken it to Persuasion's “you pierce my soul” letter to Anne Eliot. But Louisa May Alcott's love scene in An Old-Fashioned Girl also informs it, and given the reach of all three books, it's safe to assume that L. M. Montgomery was familiar with them and putting her own twist on the moment. That's fitting for Anne. Although she's more fond of works like those written by Mrs. Georgie Sheldon and Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth, her own love scene, carrying on the traditions of works by Jane Austen and Alcott, would still appeal to her. It's a moment both literary and grounded in real life, a romantic proposal under a beautiful, blooming tree that still has mundane discussions of waiting until Gilbert finishes medical school. It's Anne's world summed up: the fantasy of romance with the romance of real life, wound together like ribbons on a bouquet.

None of us grows up at the same pace. Anne had to be ready, and Gilbert had to learn to wait for her to get there. Phil needed to figure out that she and Anne didn't necessarily want the same thing. Ruby never got the chance to grow up. But one of the greatest strengths of Montgomery's Anne series is that it allows Anne to follow her own path in her own time. She's never anyone but herself, and that's her truest beauty. Yes, even more than her nose.

Anne Shirley hasn't always been the best series. Its pacing and adaptive choices have been awkward, and it's made some historical blunders. But if we are to remember it as it both began and ended, I think it will hold up just fine. Just like the Snow Queen's child is beginning to grow beside her stump, Montgomery's story will continue to be retold and remembered as something that speaks to us across the centuries. As Bryant says later in “The Rivulet,” “But thou, unchanged from year to year,/Gayly shalt play and glitter here…” He may be talking about a stream, but I think his words apply to books, too.

There are many more novels in the series, and I highly recommend reading them to finish out Anne's journey. Her happily ever after is more than just the closing scenes of this adventure.

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Anne Shirley is currently streaming on Crunchyroll on Saturdays.