Anne of Green Gables — Chapter 11

About This Passage

Montgomery introduces Anne's first solo Sunday in a single dense sentence. The narrative voice is faintly ironic — 'irreproachably' and 'arrayed' lift Anne's sailor-and-sateen outfit toward the language of formal procession, while 'contrived to emphasize every corner and angle of her thin figure' lets Marilla's serviceable economy backfire visibly on the child wearing it. The sentence is the chapter's stylistic key: Montgomery dressing Anne up with one hand and undressing the dress with the other.

Narration Prompt

Summarize Chapter 11 in three movements: the kitchen scene over the three new dresses and Anne's request for puffed sleeves; Anne's solo walk to Avonlea church with the wreath of buttercups and wild roses; the arrival, Sunday School class with Miss Rogerson, the prayer at the window, and the homecoming conversation that closes with Marilla's silent recognition of her own buried thoughts in Anne's outspokenness.

Discussion Questions

1. Marilla's three dresses are deliberately uniform — 'all made alike — plain skirts fulled tightly to plain waists, with sleeves as plain as waist and skirt and tight as sleeves could be.' Analyze the rhetorical effect of Montgomery's repetition of 'plain' four times in a single sentence. What is the sentence doing to Marilla's economy of plainness, and what is it preparing the reader to feel when Anne pleads for 'just one' with puffed sleeves?
2. Marilla forbids 'pampering vanity'; Anne longs for puffed sleeves. The chapter does not adjudicate this disagreement openly, but it dramatizes a Sunday School room where 'every other little girl in the class had puffed sleeves' and Anne 'felt that life was really not worth living without' them. Is Marilla's principle correct in theory and wrong in practice, correct in practice for an Avonlea farm but unjust to a friendless newcomer, or something else? Argue the moral question with the chapter's evidence in front of you.

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide