Anne of Green Gables — Chapter 7

About This Passage

Montgomery's narrator parses the moral logic by which Marilla refuses to condemn Anne: ignorance, not defiance. The sentence's careful subordination — 'not irreverence, but simply spiritual ignorance' — models how careful prose can rescue a character from misjudgment, and the verb 'preserved' frames Marilla herself as the one in danger of breaking.

Narration Prompt

Narrate Chapter 7 of Anne of Green Gables in three or four paragraphs, attending to the shift between Marilla's instruction, Anne's improvised prayer at Marilla's knee, Marilla's interior recognition that the standard prayer is unsuited to Anne, and the kitchen scene with Matthew that closes the chapter.

Discussion Questions

1. Marilla decides Anne's 'religious training must begun at once' and yet, at the moment of teaching, abandons 'Now I lay me down to sleep' because she senses it is 'entirely unsuited to this freckled witch of a girl.' What does this contradiction — urgent training paired with abandonment of the standard prayer — reveal about how Marilla weighs received religious form against the particular soul before her?
2. The narrator claims that Anne 'knew and cared nothing about God's love since she had never had it translated to her through the medium of human love.' Examine this theological claim. Is Montgomery arguing that human love is a prerequisite for divine love, or merely its translator — and what is the difference?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide