one thing I love about Anne Shirley is how this poor, starved, abused little orphan girl took a look at the misery and squalor of her surroundings and went, no, I'm going to deliberately and fiercely choose to see the beauty in everything
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“If you had married Roy Gardner, now,” continued Gilbert mercilessly, “you could have been ‘a leader in social and intellectual circles far away from Four Winds.’“
“Gilbert Blythe!”
“You know you were in love with him at one time, Anne.”
“Gilbert, that’s mean— ‘pisen mean, just like all the men,’ as Miss Cornelia says. I never was in love with him. I only imagined I was. You know that. You know I’d rather be your wife in our house of dreams and fulfillment than a queen in a palace.”
Anne’s House of Dreams, Chapter 14 “November Days”
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“Look at that sea, girls - all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen. We couldn't enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds.”
Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
ATONEMENT (2007)
MR. MALCOLM’S LIST (2022)
PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE (2019)
SANDITON (2019 - 2023)
ANNE WITH AN E (2017 - 2019)
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY (1995)
LITTLE WOMEN (2019)
SISSI - THE FATEFUL YEARS OF AN EMPRESS (1957)
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (1995)
ANNE OF GREEN GABLES (1985)
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Watching Anne of Avonlea (through sheer determination and after a series of events that involved unsuccessfully digging through the website's source code, I managed to rent it), and it strikes me how (in this instance, similarly to the book), Anne repeatedly crushes any romantic advancements on Gilbert's part. In the book, Anne avoids being alone with Gilbert and begs him not to propose to her. It makes me wonder: why did Gilbert think proposing to her would work? Is it because he wanted a sense of finality? Because he did genuinely think he had a chance? He does say this:
“There isn’t anything to forgive. There have been times when I thought you did care. I’ve deceived myself, that’s all. Goodbye, Anne.”
This implies that he did think a yes was possible. Yet I find this difficult to believe, because while we all know Anne does in fact care that way for Gilbert and doesn't know it yet, Anne has also been pretty blunt about how she doesn't think she does. Anne of the Island's first chapters are filled with Anne thinking about how awkward walks with Gilbert are now, or with her crushing any overtures he makes. Exhibit:
Gilbert suddenly laid his hand over the slender white one lying on the rail of the bridge. His hazel eyes deepened into darkness, his still boyish lips opened to say something of the dream and hope that thrilled his soul. But Anne snatched her hand away and turned quickly. The spell of the dusk was broken for her.
“I must go home,” she exclaimed, with a rather overdone carelessness. “Marilla had a headache this afternoon, and I’m sure the twins will be in some dreadful mischief by this time. I really shouldn’t have stayed away so long.”
She chattered ceaselessly and inconsequently until they reached the Green Gables lane. Poor Gilbert hardly had a chance to get a word in edgewise.
[Gilbert asks] “And after those four years—what?”
“Oh, there’s another bend in the road at their end,” answered Anne lightly. “I’ve no idea what may be around it—I don’t want to have. It’s nicer not to know.
“I wonder if I can ever make her care for me,” he thought, with a pang of self-distrust.
“If I had my way I’d shut everything out of your life but happiness and pleasure, Anne,” said Gilbert in the tone that meant “danger ahead.”
“Then you would be very unwise,” rejoined Anne hastily. “I’m sure no life can be properly developed and rounded out without some trial and sorrow—though I suppose it is only when we are pretty comfortable that we admit it. Come—the others have got to the pavilion and are beckoning to us.”
Anne was never attended by the crowd of willing victims who hovered around Philippa’s conquering march through her Freshman year; but there was a lanky, brainy Freshie, a jolly, little, round Sophomore, and a tall, learned Junior who all liked to call at Thirty-eight, St. John’s, and talk over ’ologies and ’isms, as well as lighter subjects, with Anne, in the becushioned parlor of that domicile. Gilbert did not love any of them, and he was exceedingly careful to give none of them the advantage over him by any untimely display of his real feelings Anne-ward.
The only set up we get is this:
Gilbert, to be sure, was still faithful, and waded up to Green Gables every possible evening. But Gilbert’s visits were not what they once were. Anne almost dreaded them. It was very disconcerting to look up in the midst of a sudden silence and find Gilbert’s hazel eyes fixed upon her with a quite unmistakable expression in their grave depths; and it was still more disconcerting to find herself blushing hotly and uncomfortably under his gaze, just as if—just as if—well, it was very embarrassing.
My guess is that based on the paragraph above, Gilbert thought he had a chance - that and his line about how "things can't go on like this any longer." It's still odd to me in the context of the larger pattern of behavior though. Not in a bad way, more in a "tumblr, please provide your thoughts because batrachised's brain cell has quit its job without notice" way
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