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Copywork
About This Passage
We chose this sentence because it lets you watch Lucy Maud Montgomery's free indirect style at work — the second clause uses Mrs. Rachel's own diction ('she asserted,' 'special visitations of Providence') without quotation marks, so the narrator's voice and Mrs. Rachel's voice momentarily fuse. The sentence shows you, in passing, the narrative trick the whole chapter depends on: letting a character's self-justifications appear in third person, and trusting the reader to hear them as quotation.
Mrs. Rachel was not often sick and had a well-defined contempt for people who were; but grippe, she asserted, was like no other illness on earth and could only be interpreted as one of the special vis...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
In one paragraph, retell the chapter's three movements: the fortnight of Anne's exploration, Mrs. Rachel's visit and Anne's outburst, and Marilla's interview with Anne in the east gable.
Discussion Questions
- Lucy Maud Montgomery introduces Mrs. Rachel by calling her one of those 'delightful and popular people who pride themselves on speaking their mind without fear or favour.' Where in this chapter does the narrator's adjective 'delightful' tilt into something closer to satire, and what is Montgomery doing by giving us the village's praise of Mrs. Rachel just before showing us her cruelty to Anne?
- Marilla's earliest defense of Anne — 'You shouldn't have twitted her about her looks, Rachel' — is delivered, the text says, as 'a surprise to herself then and ever afterwards.' Why is the moment significant in Marilla's character arc, and what does the surprise itself reveal about how Marilla thought she felt about Anne up to this point?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
the protective care of God or fate, viewed as guiding human affairs (often capitalized when referring to divine guidance)
Item 2
a settled feeling that someone or something is worthless or beneath consideration
Item 3
stated firmly and confidently, often without offering proof
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Critical Thinking
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