Critical Essay on Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Anne of Green Gables is the first novel in Anne Series, the main work of a Canadian writer Lucy Maud Montgomery, which is devoted to the description of life of Anne Shirley, a young orphan living somewhere in Canadian countryside beginning with her childhood and adoption. At the first glance these texts may seem extremely plain and commonplace – a bildungsroman, difficult, but interesting childhood, what the person understood, what the person learnt, etc., etc. But after a while you start to notice something unusual about the book, something rather appealing, although it is hard to say what it is exactly.

It may be the never ending optimism of the series, although it doesn’t always seem as if it has any basis. Montgomery sincerely believes all people to be inherently good and well-disposed – even if this or that character is at first shown as harsh, cruel and highly unpleasant, it is always simply because he wasn’t understood right, or because no one cared to talk to him, or because of something else. But once Anne takes charge, it is always clear that she will soon make this man open up and accept his own goodness.

However, it is not all sugar and honey as it may seem from this description. People often suffer on the pages of these books, and death is not a rare guest here as well; but still, it is always perceived as a natural thing and people are really strong about their problems and hardships, meeting them face-to-face, with humor and always winning in the end. Maybe it is this realism added to optimism what makes Montgomery’s books so appealing.