Anne of Green Gables — Chapter 2

Narration Prompt

Summarize the chapter's argument or narrative arc, then identify the central tension and evaluate whether Montgomery handles it honestly.

Discussion Questions

1. Anne encounters the Avenue and declares it 'the first thing I ever saw that couldn't be improved upon by imagination.' For a novelist who has spent this chapter demonstrating the transformative power of imagination, what does it mean to posit a beauty that exceeds imaginative capacity — and is Montgomery making a claim about aesthetics, epistemology, or theology?
2. Montgomery introduces Anne through a constructed 'ordinary observer' and 'extraordinary observer,' making perception itself the chapter's subject. What are the implications of a narrator who not only describes a character but prescribes how to see her — and does this technique position the novel as democratic pedagogy or authorial control?

+ 2 more questions in the complete study guide