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Chapter 12: A Solemn Vow and Promise
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Anne of Green Gables, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Home and Family
Beauty and Imagination
Friendship
Mishaps, Milestones, and Growing Up
Boys and Romance
God, Prayer, and Church
Summary
Analysis
One August afternoon Marilla sternly summons Anne inside—she played with Diana too long, and now she’s chatting with Matthew instead of doing her sewing. Anne bursts indoors with the news that there’s going to be a Sunday school picnic next week, including ice cream—can she go? Marilla scolds Anne for coming in 45 minutes late, she but agrees that Anne can go. Anne joyfully kisses Marilla’s cheek, and Marilla covers up her delight by ordering Anne to do her patchwork.
Life is filled with exciting new experiences for Anne, for whom Sunday school social events—and delights like ice cream—have previously been subjects for imagination, not reality. These exciting experiences often distract Anne from paying attention to the duties of the moment, which frustrates Marilla as she tries to teach Anne responsibility. Yet Marilla isn’t untouched by Anne’s warmth, either.
Themes
As Anne reluctantly tackles her sewing, she talks to Marilla about Diana. Diana doesn’t have as much imagination as Anne, but she’s perfect otherwise. The two have made a playhouse in a circle of birch trees on Mr. William Bell’s land. They have mossy stones for chairs, boards for shelves, and broken dishes, and they’ve called the spot Idlewild.
Anne’s friendship with Diana continues to grow—Anne has plenty of imagination for both of them. Anne has a way of enchanting her environment, as she sees imaginative potential in nature and even in discarded objects.
Themes
Over the next week, Anne thinks and talks constantly of the Sunday school picnic. On the way home from church, Marilla warns Anne that she sets her heart on things too much and will suffer many disappointments in life. That day Marilla is wearing her amethyst brooch to church as usual, an inheritance from her mother. Anne loves the brooch and asks to hold it for a minute—she thinks amethysts might be “the souls of good violets.”
Marilla mostly sees the downside of Anne’s active imagination and worries that it sets Anne up for heartbreak in her life. A brooch is a piece of jewelry, much like a pin, that is often worn just beneath the throat. Anne’s fascination with the brooch, combined with her anticipation of the picnic, sets up the coming conflict.
Themes
