Anne of Green Gables — Chapter 1

About This Passage

This passage is the social and physical introduction of Mrs. Rachel Lynde — her capability, her quilts, her abundant time at the window, and the geography of Avonlea that funnels every traveler past her sharp eye. Lucy Maud Montgomery uses the language of moral judgment (“well-conducted,” “due regard for decency and decorum”) to describe a brook and a road, slipping Mrs. Rachel’s own opinions into the prose. The vocabulary words abundant, auxiliary, gauntlet, and placidly all sit in or near this passage; copying it slows the reader down enough to catch the free-indirect technique.

Narration Prompt

In five or six sentences, retell the events of Chapter 1: Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s post at the window, her sighting of Matthew Cuthbert in his white collar and best buggy, her walk over to Green Gables, the news Marilla finally gives her about the orphan, and the chapter’s closing turn toward the unnamed child waiting at Bright River station.

Discussion Questions

1. Lucy Maud Montgomery opens the novel with a paragraph about a brook that becomes “quiet and well-conducted” once it reaches Lynde’s Hollow. How does this image function as a moral introduction to Mrs. Rachel Lynde, and what does it teach the reader to expect from her?
2. Mrs. Rachel reads Matthew Cuthbert’s afternoon by means of three details — his white collar, his buggy and the sorrel mare, and the abandoned turnip seed. What does her ability to draw these inferences reveal about her relationship to her neighbors in Avonlea?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide