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Chapter 6: Marilla Makes Up Her Mind
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
That night in the east gable room, Marilla tells Anne to say her prayers before going to sleep. When Anne explains that she never says her prayers, Marilla is horrified—doesn’t Anne know who God is? Anne replies that “God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable,” as she learned in the asylum Sunday school. Somewhat relieved, Marilla says it’s nevertheless “wicked” to neglect one’s nightly prayers. Anne says it’s easier to be wicked with red hair—and besides, she was once told that God gave her red hair on purpose, so she doesn’t think she should be expected to pray.
Anne quotes the Westminster Shorter Catechism, a document listing important Christian doctrines in question and answer format. Presbyterian children were often taught to memorize the Catechism. In Anne’s case, the Catechism answers are all she knows of religion; she doesn’t have a concept of relating to God more directly and personally. This is partly because she doesn’t believe a God who gave her red hair could be worth talking to.
Themes
Marilla rejects this excuse, though teaching Anne to pray feels awkward. She tells Anne she must kneel down to pray, and Anne complies, though she doesn’t see the point—she’d rather go into a big field or the deep woods and simply “feel a prayer.” Marilla realizes that Anne hasn’t experienced human love, so she can’t be expected to understand God’s love. She finally tells Anne to just thank God for her blessings and ask for the things she wants. Anne obediently thanks God for things like the White Way of Delight and the Lake of Shining Waters. She also prays that she’ll be allowed to stay at Green Gables—and that God will make her good-looking someday. She closes the prayer, “Yours respectfully, Anne Shirley.” As Marilla leaves the room, Anne remembers that perhaps she should have said “Amen” instead.
Lacking conventional religious training, Anne doesn’t understand the point of traditions like kneeling to pray—it makes more sense to her that prayer is instinctively “felt” in a place where she experiences beauty and delight. Marilla realizes that Anne can’t be blamed for these beliefs; her human relationships have been so lacking that developing a relationship with God doesn’t make sense to her. Anne’s humorous prayer, sounding more like a polite letter than a devout prayer, is a good example of where she is in her religious development.
Themes
Literary Devices
Downstairs, Marilla staunchly informs Matthew that it’s time Anne was taught something—she’s practically a “heathen.” Tomorrow, she’s sending Anne to the minister for the Peep of Day series, and she’s getting Anne enrolled in Sunday school as soon as possible. It will be a lot of work, but Marilla figures life has been easy for her up to now, and she’ll just have to make the best of this new challenge.
The Peep of Day series was a highly popular series of religious education books by Favell Lee Mortimer, meant to prepare children to read the Bible for themselves. At 11, Anne would be considered too old for the simple lessons, showing how little religious teaching she’s received in her life.
Themes
