Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea

[ailbhe]

Wait - all those maids and hired hands described as French are actually black, aren't they?

I think I preferred the books before I realised that.

Comments

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

A lot of the things she does are played for laughs, and the fact that she grows to have a sense of humour about herself is one of her strongest points as a character; I'm not on some sort of mission to completely discredit and deconstruct the books, they were probably my #1 favourites at one point.

But there is definitley a class trajectory in Anne's personal growth journey, and a lot of the little vignettes (peeling potatoes comes to mind), while showing up her snobbery, are nevertheless emblematic of her aspirations. And, inevitably, class is present in the books in other forms, as well - e.g. the ubiquity of servants. I don't think Avonlea was ever billed as any kind of egalitarian utopia; the moral centre of the community and the books is very much grounded in a Protestand Christian ethic, with emphasys being put on hard work, generosity and learning, which are all good things - but the exclusive, judgemental flip side of that mindset is bound to also be evident.

[sfred]

Yes, to all of this.

It was interesting to read the prequel from this POV, actually, because it's a reminder that until her parents died, Anne was in the class/position that she spends the first couple of books aspiring to: so her social climbing is partly to do with a sense of entitlement to that position. I think this would bother me more if there wasn't so much social mobility for other characters too.

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

The Emily of New Moon books are all about the clash of class privilege with New World social mobility, aren't they? The Murray aristocracy versus Perry's social climb from slums to lawyer's bench. The Murrays selff-mythologise, of course, but I would wonder how aristocratic they really were. Would Presbyterian settlers from Scotland not have been dirt-poor on arrival?