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

[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?