Anne of Green Gables — Chapter 11

About This Passage

This is the chapter's closing paragraph and one of Montgomery's most penetrating sentences. The free indirect discourse — Marilla's helplessness, the legal vocabulary of 'accusing shape and form,' the noun phrase 'outspoken morsel of neglected humanity' — converts a Sunday School outing into a study of Marilla's moral position in her own household. The paragraph is the chapter's structural verdict: Anne has not been scolded; Marilla has been instructed.

Narration Prompt

Trace the structural arc of Chapter 11: the kitchen scene of the three identical dresses and Anne's plea for puffed sleeves; Marilla's exposition of plain-and-sensible as a moral identity; Anne's solo walk to the church with the wreath of buttercups and wild roses; the porch tribunal of Avonlea girls primed by Mrs. Lynde and Jerry Buote; Miss Rogerson's quarterly pedagogy and Anne's window-prayer; the homecoming exchange that closes with Marilla recognizing her buried critique of Avonlea piety in Anne's outspoken voice.

Discussion Questions

1. Anne's church-window prayer — 'Thank you for it, God, two or three times' — is offered through a row of white birches and the sunshine 'deep into the water,' while Mr. Bell's long opening prayer is delivered into the church Anne cannot bear to listen to. Read this contrast against the Western tradition's long debate about prayer: Augustine's restless heart, Pascal's God of the philosophers versus the God of Abraham, Hopkins's terrible sonnets, Kierkegaard's distinction between knight of faith and knight of infinite resignation. What is Anne's prayer claiming about divine presence and immanence that Mr. Bell's no longer claims? Is Montgomery offering a Romantic devotional theology, a Wordsworthian natural piety, a domesticated transcendentalism — or something more local than any of these?
2. Marilla's principle — 'I don't believe in pampering vanity' — is stated as a moral position but applied as a sumptuary policy on a friendless newcomer about to enter a Sunday School where every other girl wears the village's marker of belonging. Argue the moral question with full attention to context: is Marilla's enforcement of her principle in this instance virtue (refusing to indulge a wish she believes will harm Anne's character), incompetent application of an otherwise sound principle (failing to read what puffed sleeves mean in this specific social setting), or a smaller, more ungenerous thing — defense of her own austerity at the cost of Anne's social survival? Use the chapter's evidence on each side.

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide