Welcome back to the LMMI's Anne of Green Gables Read-a-long. Today's post, "Chapter XXX: The Queen's Class is Organized," is by Carolin Sandner.
Chapter XXX: The Queen's Class is Organized
By, Carolin Sandner
Later on in this chapter Marilla - not quite innocently - asks Anne about how Gilbert is doing in their Queen’s class. Anne answers: "I don’t happen to know what Gilbert Blythe’s ambition in life is - if he has any,” and I wanna say, "Oh snap!": hitting Gilbert, where Anne sees her own best feature in this contest: ambition. So much for showing us, how Anne feels. The narrator, however, goes deeper than that right afterwards and in fact tells us a little bit about Anne's true feelings towards Gilbert.
When talking about narrative prose, there's a lot being said for preferring showing over telling. My personal - somewhat heretical - view always leans toward telling, though. I find it sometimes tedious to read through pages of what's happening and who's doing what, instead of the author simply using her omnipotence and clearly telling us what's what. What L.M.Montgomery does in this chapter, though, I don't find tedious. She uses a wonderfully balanced mixture of both. Quite a lot of information about Anne and Marilla’s relationship and about Anne’s development as a young adult is stated clearly. The author uses an authoritative voice to offer direct insights into Marilla’s as well as Anne’s mind, but also gives huge junks of the chapter away to Anne's voice. And I like to listen to Anne, because she is just a nice talker. The monologue L.M. Montgomery uses for about half of the chapter, shows Anne's voice as truly unique. She babbles on for pages and Marilla is about to give up to tell her about the Queen’s class!
In her own journals Montgomery writes, "If I could only manage to get a little more education! But that seems impossible" (Nov 7, 1891), and "After dark to-night I set to work to study. I can't quite give up the hope that I may get to college yet and meanwhile I don't want to forget all I've learned. So I have mapped out a course of studies for the winter. To-night I began with English history, Physical Geography, Latin, geometry and English literature" (Nov 19, 1891). Then on Aug. 9, 1892, it is finally time: "I feel happier and more contented to-day than I have felt for a long time. It was decided to-day that I am to go to school here again and study for Prince of Wales and a teacher's license. I am delighted. [...] I mean to study very hard for I must get some more education."
Montgomery's ambition is also fuelled by her want and need to be a determining agent in her own future. Anne’s guardians, Marilla, Matthew and even Mrs. Lynde are in agreement with that. Anne’s education to them is not less important than food and shelter. They seem to find it natural and even their duty to enable an orphan, dependant on others all her life, to become a free and self-sufficient person. A teacher's license is a means to make a living, become economically independent, which is certainly an important thing for a single woman - fictional or real.
Despite Anne’s chatter at the beginning, the chapter over all shows a rather more solemn Anne than the younger one who went from one mishap to the next with wild forays of imagination in between. And that is part of its appeal to me. Anne here is brimming with such positive zeal, such a will to excel. I always found Anne’s dedication and honest joy of being able to "do something for [her]self" inspiring. Through that, I feel, we get to know Anne even better, as a more serious but not less eager young woman.
Thus part of the chapter is filled with the quiet and deep joy that Anne brings to her education and studies. That is, of course, not all. Towards the end of the chapter we’re shown not only a somewhat exhausted Anne, looking forward to her last summer as “a little girl”, but also a foreshadowing of Matthew’s frail health. Anne will have to grow up soon, not only in her academic endeavours.
Quotes from Montgomery’s journals are taken from:
Montgomery, L. M. The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1889-1900. Edited by Mary Henley Rubio and Elizabeth Hillman Waterston. Oxford University Press, 2012.
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Carolin Sandner has been reading Anne of Green Gables backwards and forwards for more than 20 years. Ever since attending the 2016 L.M. Montgomery conference her love for the author grew even deeper. She holds an M.A. in Literature and this April started another M.A. program in European History - just for the fun of it. She only recently got back into book blogging litblogadventure.wordpress.com. Now she's looking forward to the L.M. Montgomery and Reading conference in June!