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Chapter 3: Marilla Cuthbert Is Surprised
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
Anne wakes up the next morning and remembers the awful truth of what happened last night. But the cherry tree blooming outside is so beautiful that she kneels by the window, admiring the orchard, brook, and hills of Green Gables, and imagining that she’ll get to stay here. She has seen many “unlovely places” in her life, and she can’t stop drinking in the beauty around her—until Marilla enters the room and startles her with a hand on her shoulder.
Even in the midst of disappointment and heartache, Anne’s heart is open to the beauty around her, and she uses her imagination to comfort herself. Though Anne has not typically gotten to enjoy loveliness in her life, her imagination and her awareness of beauty have remained sharp, suggesting that she has a rare capacity for such things.
Themes
Literary Devices
Marilla interrupts Anne’s chatter about the beauties of Green Gables and orders her downstairs for breakfast. Anne has a better appetite, saying that the sunny morning is helping her endure “affliction” cheerfully. Marilla tells her she talks too much, so she eats breakfast silently, gazing at the sky out the window. She offers to wash the dishes and accomplishes the task well enough, but then refuses to go outside when Marilla lets her; there’s no use in loving Green Gables, she says, if she isn’t going to live here.
Anne is resilient, finding reasons for happiness and hope in the face of her likely return to the orphanage. Marilla’s scolding, though it sounds cruel, also seems to be a way of distancing herself from Anne so as not to become attached to her and make her reconsider her decision to send Anne back. Similarly, fearing the grief of leaving Green Gables behind, Anne refrains from becoming too attached to its beauty.
Themes
Anne names the geranium on the windowsill “Bonny” and the cherry tree at her window “Snow Queen,” explaining that she likes for the things she loves to seem like people. Marilla has to admit to herself that Anne is interesting, as Matthew says—she seems to be “casting a spell” over them both.
Despite her distaste for anything she considers nonsense, Marilla enjoys hearing what Anne has to say. When Anne names familiar objects, it’s as if she is bringing fresh life to Green Gables.
Themes
That afternoon Matthew hitches the mare into the buggy so that Marilla can see Mrs. Spencer at White Sands and settle the matter of Anne. As she and Anne set off in the buggy, he quietly tells them that he’s planning to hire a little boy, Jerry Buote, to work for him for the summer. He lingers at the gate, watching the two wistfully as they go.
Matthew, in his quiet way, takes initiative to circumvent Marilla’s plans by hiring a farmhand—that way, Marilla has one less excuse to send Anne back to the orphanage. Matthew has clearly made up his mind that Anne belongs at Green Gables.
Themes
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