Anne of Green Gables



A Canadian series of novels written by Lucy Maud (L.M.) Montgomery, in the early years of the 20th-century, revolving around Anne (make sure you spell that with an 'e'!) Shirley, an impulsive, starry-eyed, and lonely orphan girl who is accidentally sent to live with a bachelor brother and sister in the tiny village of Avonlea, Prince Edward Island.

Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert had made the entirely sensible and practical decision to request a boy from the local orphanage to help the aging Matthew around their farm, Green Gables. Instead, they found themselves confronting a very redheaded little girl, fantasizing about having 'raven black' hair 'rippling back from an alabaster brow' and being dressed in blue satin with puffed sleeves. Oh, and would they mind calling her 'Cordelia'?

What follows would probably be hundreds of pages' worth of nauseating, and largely forgotten, sentimentality - except that Montgomery had what so many children's authors of the time lacked: a sense of humor. Thus, the series instead charts Anne's ongoing struggle between romantic idealism and practical reality.

The compromises she reaches tend to be uneasy at best. Anne's impulsiveness and daydreaming gets her into trouble as often as her boundless creativity wins her friends and accolades; her sensitive appreciation of the natural beauty around her is relentlessly tempered by the down-to-earth sense of the people that inhabit it. Her eventual emergence as a beloved wife and mother is marred by personal tragedy, and her involvement in the tragedies of others.

The first book starts off with the heroine at age 11 and she is in her 50s in the last novel, which follows her youngest daughter through World War I.

All the settings in the original book are based around real places on the Island, and the many stories and characters woven into Anne's were often inspired by older family and traditional tales. The 'real' Green Gables and surroundings are today a veritable pilgrimage site for tourists from all over the world, and Lucy Maud Montgomery has found herself a place beside Lewis Carroll and L. Frank Baum in the canon of timeless children's literature.

The books are:
 * Anne of Green Gables - Chronicling Anne's initially reluctant acceptance by the Cuthberts and her subsequent conquest of the rest of Avonlea -- save impertinent new boy Gilbert Blythe, who gets the most famous slate in literature smashed over his head when he calls her 'Carrots'. Also contains the famous scenes in which Anne dyes her hair green (going for that 'raven black' again) and gets best friend Diana 'dead drunk' on what they think is raspberry cordial.
 * Anne of Avonlea - Still living at home -- and now 'good friends' with Gilbert, who has given up the local school so that she can teach there for a couple of terms. Between times she has a lot of uncharacteristically frothy, girlish adventures. Written under duress mostly to satisfy clamor for a sequel, and generally considered the weakest of the series.
 * Anne of the Island - Anne finally leaves for college, meets and explores adulthood with a lively set of new room-mates, and receives a proposal from Gilbert. But what to do with her long-cherished dreams of Prince Charming?
 * Anne of Windy Poplars - Actually the last sequel written, filling in Anne's life between college and marriage (while Gilbert is away at med school). She takes a three-year contract as principal of Summerside High School, and shortly becomes her usual persuasive, pervasive force for good in the local community, facing professional rivalries and helping untangle personal dilemmas. Used as the basis for most of the second TV miniseries. The UK edition is known as Anne of Windy Willows but is otherwise unaltered.
 * Anne's House of Dreams - Now 'Mrs. Dr. Blythe', Anne moves to a tiny house across the Island and near the sea. The strange, wild, darkly comic setting inspires some of Montgomery's best and most adult writing. We meet kindly Captain Jim and the man-hating Miss Cornelia, and probe the grotesque tragedy of the Moores, a beautiful but tormented woman and her imbecile husband.
 * Anne of Ingleside - Anne's six precocious children, aged from seven to infancy (and spanning five or six years), have various small coming-of-age adventures. Meanwhile, Anne faces what appears to be Gilbert's mid-life crisis on the eve of their anniversary. Has he fallen out of love with her at last?
 * Rainbow Valley - The specter of innocence about to be lost, and the idealism that eventually led to disaster, hovers over these further adventures of the Blythe kids and their friends in the years immediately preceding WWI. In the moment, the major concern is the Rev. Meredith's motherless children, who appear to be young hellions but in reality are simply trying to do the best they can with no help from their abstracted father.
 * Rilla of Ingleside - The spotlight shifts to Anne's beautiful but willful youngest daughter, Rilla, as she goes through her teen years and becomes a young woman against the backdrop of WWI and her stalwart homefront community.
 * The Blythes Are Quoted - A combination of short stories, poetry, and vignettes narrated by the Blythes, divided into two parts according to chronology: pre-World War I and post-World War I up until World War II. Originally, most of the short stories were published as a collection without the Blythe-centric framing (and with some minor abridging) as The Road to Yesterday, making it another short story collection outside the series. However The Blythes Are Quoted was apparently intended all along as the ninth book in the series and has recently been re-established as such.

In addition, there are two (three if you count The Road to Yesterday) books that tell stories of the surrounding community: Chronicles of Avonlea and More Chronicles of Avonlea. Anne is referred to and makes a few cameos here and there, but she's never the focus. A few of these stories were turned into episodes of the spinoff television series Road to Avonlea, usually with the main characters of the show replacing the disparate protagonists of the stories.

All the novels are now in public domain and have been adapted into several movies and television series. For instance, there is an anime (Akage No An, later made into a manga as well) directed by Isao Takahata and storyboarded by Hayao Miyazaki as part of the World Masterpiece Theater series which recently also featured an adaption of the authorized prequel Before Green Gables.

A series of Hollywood movies in the 1930s were produced, starring an actress who subsequently legally changed her name to Anne Shirley.

Arguably the most famous and popular adaptation is the franchise established by Canadian producer Kevin Sullivan in the mid 1980s, primarily involving a trilogy of two-part movies starring Megan Follows as Anne. Only the first, Anne of Green Gables, is actually a close adaptation of a Montgomery book. The second, Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel (aired in some countries as Anne of Avonlea) was as noted above constructed from various elements of the later Anne novels. The third, Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story, which followed more than a decade after the second chapter, was a completely original story set during World War I.

At this point, Sullivan was also deep into production on a long-running and hugely popular TV series. Road to Avonlea transposed characters from one of Montgomery's non-Anne books, The Story Girl, into the Avonlea setting and mentioned Anne herself in passing. The Continuing Story sparked fandom wrath against Sullivan not only for his decision to create an original story, but because that story actually contradicted major continuity points in Road to Avonlea (specifically involving Anne and Gilbert's marriage).

In 2008, Sullivan produced a fourth film, Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning, which is a combination prequel and sequel to the trilogy of films, featuring Barbara Hershey as a middle-aged Anne during World War II looking back at her life before the events of the first film (with young Anne played by Hannah Endicott-Douglas). Sullivan has made a cottage industry out of the Anne franchise, as in 2002, he produced an animated series for PBS, which led to the release of an animated retelling of the original story, Anne: Journey to Green Gables.

"Marilla: "Since when did you ever hear of me starving people into good behavior?!""
 * Abusive Parents:
 * Anne's guardians prior to Matthew and Marilla used Anne to look after their own children, neglected her education, and did not always provide her (and possibly their own children) with enough to eat. One of these guardians, Mr. Thomas, was frequently intoxicated and Anne was exposed to his violent behavior.
 * Further examples include the emotional abuse inflicted upon Elizabeth Grayson by her grandmother and grandmother's maid (in Anne of Windy Willows), and the physical abuse experienced by Mary Vance in the care of Mrs Wiley (Rainbow Valley).
 * A friend of Di Blythe's claims to be abused by her stepmother in Anne of Ingleside, and Di is very moved by the girl's plight, until it turns out to be untrue.
 * There are some references made throughout the Montgomery's work to the plight of children who were adopted from asylums and used by their new guardians solely to work on the farm or in the house, without receiving affection, good clothing, and a proper education.
 * Actual Pacifist: Walter, who gets physically ill at the sight of blood. He can't understand why Jem actually likes to get into physical fights with the boys at school. He gets into one himself in Rainbow Valley over an insult to his mother and his friend, Faith, and feels all the more horrible when he wins. Naturally, this is all a foreshadowing of his crisis of conscience when WWI hits and he must decide whether to enlist or not.
 * Affectionate Nickname: Several.
 * Gilbert takes to calling Anne "Anne-girl" after their marriage; Anne calls him "Gil" in return. Gilbert may have gotten the "Anne-girl" nickname from Diana's Aunt Josephine Barry, who originated it upon befriending Anne in the first book.
 * Rilla, the youngest Blythe child, has many nicknames. "Roly-poly" was a common one when she was young, having been a cherubic child. Her older brother, Jem, called her "Spider" when she hit her teens, thanks to her gangly appearance. Walter calls her Rilla-My-Rilla, a play on her name (Rilla, naturally, is short for Marilla, though it's actually her middle name). Ken Ford adopts this nickname for her when he starts seeing her in a romantic light.
 * Jem was called "Little Jem" by his mother and the family's housekeeper, Susan Baker, for years. He hates it, and tries valiantly to eradicate it. Finally, they promise not to call him "Little Jem"... when he's within ear-shot.
 * Shirley, the second youngest, is nicknamed 'little brown boy' by Susan, owing to his dark coloring.
 * Susan takes to calling Rilla's war-baby, Jims, "Little Kitchener", as she claims "Jims" is not a good Christian name for a child.
 * Age Lift: In at least one of the many adaptations.
 * Alpha Bitch: Josie Pye, especially in the movieverse of the books.
 * Altar the Speed: In Rilla of Ingleside, Rilla's friend Miranda and her sweetheart Joe have a rushed wedding because Joe is about to ship out for World War I and Miranda's father doesn't approve of the marriage.
 * This happens hilariously in "Anne of Windy Poplars." Anne facilitates a hasty elopement for two young people, Dovie and Jarvis, who had been engaged for over a year but were unable to get married because Dovie's father did not approve. So, they elope and Anne is left with the task of telling Dovie's father. She goes to break the news ...only to have her father say that he already knew and is relieved. He'd picked out Jarvis for his daughter when they were children and had only pretended to not like the relationship so Jarvis would hang around more!
 * Inverted with Anne and Gilbert's wedding; they wait three years to get married so Gilbert can attend medical school.
 * Always Identical Twins: Averted with Di and Nan Blythe. The fact that they're fraternal girl twins is always seen as somewhat of a mystery to their friends, who are convinced that twins always look alike. One mean-spirited little girl convinces Nan that another little girl is the real Nan Blythe, having red hair like her twin, Di. Nan does the honorable thing and tries to switch back, only to find that the supposed "real Nan Blythe" is nearly a year older than she is, and that she takes after her paternal grandmother.
 * Also, averted (for obvious reasons) with Davy and Dora Keith from earlier books.
 * Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Though not a parent, Susan accidentally becomes this when Ken Ford visits Rilla before going overseas to fight in World War I. She starts recounting a story from when Ken was four, when she spanked him for teasing Nan, and then goes into another story about the time his mother spanked Ken for fighting over a kitten with Walter. Rilla is mortified.
 * Anyone Can Die: The novels cover a period of several decades, so the death of the older adult characters from the earlier books are not surprising. A few deaths are entirely unanticipated, though, and played for all appropriate drama, notably.
 * Arcadia
 * Astonishingly Appropriate Interruption: In the first book when Matthew first drives Anne to Green Gables. At one point they pass through an area of great natural beauty that startles Anne in mid-speech; as the narrator snarks, Mrs. Spencer did not say: "Oh Mr. Cuthbert! Oh Mr. Cuthbert! Oh Mr. Cuthbert!"
 * Author Vocabulary Calendar: Punctuation example. Montgomery apparently discovered the ellipsis sometime between Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea and just couldn't get enough of it. You'd think she was being paid to crowbar a dozen into every page.
 * Baby Talk: Prior to their birth, Anne is adamant that baby talk not be spoken to her children, having been 'solemnly' impressed by a parenting book on the subject. She and Gilbert agree--no baby talk. This of course goes completely out the window the minute Jem is born, much to Gilbert's amusement. When he calls her on it, she airily dismisses the author of the book as a fraud, given that no-one could be expected to be that stern with a cute little baby.
 * Beetle Maniac: Carl Meredith really enjoys catching and examining insects.
 * Belligerent Sexual Tension: Anna and Gilbert's initial relationship involves a lot of this, though Gilbert gets over being a jerk to her a lot sooner than she forgives him for it.
 * Berserk Button: Anne is initially very sensitive about her red hair, and retains a certain grudge against fate for giving it to her well into adulthood.
 * The Bet: Plays a role in the musical "Anne and Gilbert". After Gilbert gives up the Avonlea school to Anne so she can stay at Green Gables to care for Marilla, Anne decides to return the kindness by making a wager with him. Gilbert may propose on the day of his choosing, but if she refuses, he can never ask her again. He proposes to her following Diana and Fred's wedding, but she turns him down. He vows never to propose again.
 * Betty and Veronica: Gilbert Blythe and Roy Gardner, with Anne as the Archie.
 * Beware the Quiet Ones and Beware the Nice Ones: As noted, Walter is usually a pacifist. He'd rather write poetry. Insult him about this, that's fine, sticks and stones. Insult his female friends...well, that's worse, but he'll let it go. Insult his mother... and you've gone too far. As noted above there's a scene in Rainbow Valley in which Walter, the laughing-stock of the town boys, bloodies their ringleader's nose after he says Walter's mother writes lies.
 * Bookworm: Anne, most definitely. Her son, Walter, is also the bookworm among his siblings and peers, which leads to many of the boys in town to bully and pick on him for being a "sissy."
 * Brother-Sister Team: Matthew and Marilla.
 * Blithe Spirit: Anne in every single book, which makes her marital name very meaningful, which is lampshaded on a few occasions.
 * One of her twin daughters, Nan, is also portrayed as being this way. It's mentioned in Rainbow Valley that she is "Blythe by name and blithe by nature".
 * Bumbling Dad / Parental Obliviousness: Reverend Meredith is a very nice man, and a wonderful minister, but has little or no idea what his own children are up to. Matthew also is at first befuddled by Marilla's tactics for raising Anne, and often is glad that she's the one who has to deal with the various scrapes and antics.
 * The Cameo: Anne Shirley, in Chronicles of Avonlea and Further Chronicles of Avonlea. She will appear exactly once in every story, either in person or as a piece of relayed gossip.
 * The Captain: 'Captain Jim' Boyd, who is technically no longer captain of anything but still manages to fulfill the trope decently well.
 * Carrying a Cake: In Anne of Ingleside, five-year-old Rilla is asked to take a cake to a church function for a fundraiser. She is under the impression that it is disgraceful to be seen carrying a cake, and dumps it in the river the first chance she gets. She then feels very foolish when she sees her beloved Sunday School teacher carrying her own cake to the church fundraiser.
 * Catch Phrase: Rebecca Dew says, "This is the last straw!" nearly every time something goes wrong. Cornelia Bryant often tells unflattering stories about men that end with, "Wasn't that like a man?" or a similar phrase. Mrs Rachel Lynde seems to end every other sentence with "That's what!" and Davy Keith is always "wanting to know."
 * Childhood Friend Romance: So many -- fairly typical of the turn of the century small-town milieu.
 * Anne and Gilbert
 * Miss Lavendar and Stephen Irving
 * Rilla and Ken Ford
 * Faith and Jem
 * Nan and Jerry
 * Una and Walter
 * Childhood Marriage Promise: Miss Lavendar and Stephen Irving, though the latter ended up marrying someone else and having a son. It's a giant series of coincidences that bring them back together again, and they eventually fulfill their marriage promise.
 * Children Raise You: Rilla, after she ends up taking care of orphan baby Jims for the duration of the war.
 * Christmas Cake
 * Close-Knit Community: Avonlea, and all the other places where she lives.
 * Clueless Chick Magnet: Oddly, gender flipped with Anne. She idealizes romance and love so much she can't see that there are about five men waiting in line to marry her.
 * The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: Gilbert, being a doctor, is very solicitous about Anne's health, explicitly wishing to refute the proverb "Cobblers' wives go barefoot and doctors' wives die young."
 * Coming of Age Story: Anne of Green Gables and Rilla of Ingleside
 * The Confidant: Diana Barry knows loads of juicy secrets about Anne -- including the truth behind Anne's shaved head post-botched dye job (there's a bit of deeper subtext here, as dyeing one's hair was seen as borderline immoral at this point). The author makes it clear that Diana, dutiful best friend that she is, never breathes a word about any of this.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Young Anne has overtones of this, usually as a result of letting her imagination run away with her.
 * Composite Character: Mrs. Lynde took on many of the characteristics of another irascible neighbor, Mr. Harrison, in Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel, partially as a result of Pragmatic Adaptation. Other plot functions of Mr. Harrison's were given to Gilbert (for example, he is the one who gives Anne advice on her writing now). Emmaline Harris in the same movie is a combination of 'Little Elizabeth' Grayson and Sophy Sinclair, with a touch of Paul Irving.
 * Cosplay: Downplayed when Charlotte E. Morgan visits. Anne and Diana don't cosplay as particular characters, but instead dress in white muslin which her heroines are known to wear.
 * Daddy's Girl: Anne almost instantly develops a special relationship with Matthew, which leads directly to his convincing Marilla to keep the girl.
 * Anne and Gilbert's daughter Diana is noted several times as being her father's favorite. It's speculated in-story that it's because she looks just like Anne but shares Gilbert's temperament.
 * Dance of Romance: Gilbert and Anne share one in the 1987 film adaptation of Anne of Avonlea. It's one of the first signs that Anne may have feelings for Gilbert; they dance for a few moments before she gets flustered and pulls away, apologizing and blaming it on her "two left feet".
 * Darker and Edgier: The Blythes Are Quoted in terms of tone and topic. In re: adaptations, also applies to the ''Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story" miniseries.
 * Darkest Hour: Anne of the Island, when Gilbert is dying of typhoid.
 * Daydream Surprise: There is a hilarious one near the end of Anne of Avonlea. While Anne and Diana are discussing Diana's engagement to Fred, Diana is worried that she won't know enough about running a home to be a good wife. Anne reassures her that she'll be fine and that she has three years to plan for her "house o' dreams." Being Anne, the phrase strikes some romantic chord and she began to daydream about her own "house o' dreams" complete with a dark, brooding, handsome master. However, right in the middle, Gilbert keeps popping up helping to do mundane things like arrange pictures and lay out gardens which "a proud and melancholy hero evidently considered beneath his dignity." Anne is quite disturbed by this and trys to shoo him away, but he stays. She quickly mentally changes the subject to avoid dealing with it.
 * Dead Guy, Junior: Most of Anne's kids are named after dead people or family/friends. Ditto Leslie's kids, and most of the other Islanders'. This was a fairly standard naming convention in that place & time.
 * Dead Little Brother: Leslie's little brother Kenneth, whose death is the first step toward breaking her heart. Her son is named after him.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Marilla would be horrified to actually be considered one, but Montgomery does make great play of her emerging 'sense of humor'. Katherine Brooke also qualifies, albeit tinged with overt bitterness until Anne manages to soften her a little.
 * Dead Person Impersonation: It turns out that Leslie's husband
 * Death by Childbirth: Anne comes very close to it, twice. Once with her oldest child, and with her sixth child and youngest son, Shirley.
 * Defrosting Ice Queen: Leslie, whose pride and shame at her situation make her aloof until Anne's own tragedy creates a common bond between them.
 * Also Marilla, who is a very stern and strict woman, but finally comes to love Anne as her own daughter.
 * This is also the basis of Anne and Gilbert's relationship from the time she smashes her slate over his head until their engagement.
 * Delivery Stork: A stork looking for a good home for a baby is used as a euphemism for Jem's birth in "Anne's House of Dreams". A bit oddly placed, since, and while it wasn't gory, it was plainly written.
 * Denied Food as Punishment: Averted, Marilla refuses to do this to Anne in the first book:

"Jerry Thornton: (to Susette King) "Well, he has a good start on me but a fast worker can do wonders in an afternoon.""
 * Subverted in Rainbow Valley: Una Meredith does this to herself for some misdeed and faints in church. Her absent-minded father is now forced to see that his kids have... issues.
 * This is such a common punishment for Davy that he hardly reacts to it after awhile.
 * Deus Angst Machina: Leslie's backstory is full of horrible deaths, suicide, forced Arranged Marriage, Domestic Abuse... and then she's forced to become The Caretaker to her now-imbecilic husband.
 * The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: Or even mentioned. Spanish Flu, which raged throughout the last year of World War I and killed enough people to depress global life expectancy by a decade--approximately five percent of the world population at the time--is never once brought up in Rilla of Ingleside. Weirdly, the same can be said of a lot of literature of the time, despite the fact that it significantly impacted civilian as well as military life and made people die like flies. Especially notable is everyone's complete lack of concern when the Blythes' youngest son is shipped overseas in 1918, a time when troopships could lose a quarter of their population to flu along the way. They worry about his boat getting torpedoed, but not at all about the far more likely chance he'd have of dying of the flu.
 * Oddly enough, while Spanish Flu is never mentioned, it is noted that Walter had suffered from typhoid fever, the reason he had not been attending college the year "Rilla of Ingleside" starts.
 * Does Not Like Men: Miss Cornelia, who likes to tell unflattering stories about men and has the catchphrase of "Isn't that just like a man?" She then shocks everyone by announcing with equal calm that she's getting married to a long-time beau.
 * Dogged Nice Guy: Gilbert is the epitome of the "Patient Friend" variation.
 * Double Entendre: Mild -- and definitely more racy to modern readers -- but still amusing, in The Blythes Are Quoted:

"Phil Gordon:I must marry a rich man, Aunt Jamesina. That -- and good looks -- is an indispensable qualification. I'd marry Gilbert Blythe, if only he were rich. Anne: Oh, would you? Phil (teasingly): We don't like that idea one little bit, although we don't want Gilbert ourselves, oh, no...."
 * Drama Queen: Anne herself.
 * Dreaming of Things to Come: Gertrude Oliver has frequent prophetic dreams, including several to do with the war.
 * Dunce Cap: Though minus the actual dunce cap, as punishment for smashing her slate over Gilbert's head Anne is made to stand in front of the class with "Ann Shirley has a very bad temper. Ann Shirley must learn to control her temper." written behind her on the blackboard.
 * Epistolary Novel: Quite large portions of Anne of Windy Poplars/Willows are narrated via Anne's letters to Gilbert.
 * Mr. Fanservice: Walter Blythe in Rilla of Ingleside- a dark-haired, grey-eyed, tormented poet who goes to war in spite of his fear of pain and the horrors of it. Delicious. His dad Gilbert can also come across this way, largely thanks to his patiently devoted courtship of Anne.
 * Expanded Universe: Three -- count 'em, three -- short story collections dedicated exclusively to stories that fill out minor characters and incidents in Anne's universe. The final one, Road to Yesterday, was originally intended as more of a direct sequel, but Montgomery died before she could complete the Blythe-centric framing material for each story, and it was eventually published without. However, Road to Yesterday has now been republished as The Blythes are Quoted the way that Montgomery intended.
 * Everyone Can See It: Anne/Gilbert, so much. To the point that Anne gets called out on it at least twice in Anne of the Island. Also Lampshaded in The Musical Anne & Gilbert with the song "Gilbert Loves Anne of Green Gables" where the Chorus sings about the two and how Anne will gradually understand that Gilbert loves her and return his love.
 * Fiery Redhead: Need I explain?
 * First Love: Anne Shirley is Gilbert Blythe's from that moment she cracks a slate over his head, and he faithfully waits for years for her even to acknowledge him as a friend.
 * Forbidden Friendship: For a time, Anne and Diana -- short-lived, in the chapters after Diana's accidental drunkenness and her mother's blaming Anne.
 * Foreshadowing: Walter foreshadows  a few times in Anne of Ingleside and Rainbow Valley (which latter book itself heavily foreshadows the WWI generation's experience at many points).
 * Four-Temperament Ensemble: In Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea, it was Anne, Diana, Jane Andrews, and Ruby Gillis. In Anne of the Island, it was Anne, Philippa Gordon, Priscilla Grant, and Stella Maynard.
 * Franchise Zombie: Could be said to apply to Montgomery, who continued to write novels and stories set in Anne Shirley's universe up to the day she died. It definitely applies to the Kevin Sullivan TV franchise, which to date has included four made-for-TV movies-cum-miniseries, an animated TV show, an animated film, and a long-running TV series set in Avonlea.
 * Free-Range Children: The Blythe and Meredith children.
 * Friendly War: Anne and Gilbert's academic rivalry, at least on Gilbert's side. To Anne, after her 'humiliation' at Gilbert's hands, it's almost a matter of life and death.
 * From the Mouths of Babes: A cute one happens in Anne of Ingleside. Anne comes back from a trip to Avonlea to find the two china dogs that grace the hearth, Gog and Magog, are gone. Susan explains that she removed them from sight after an embarrassing incident in which Walter introduced them to a guest as "God" and "My God".
 * Friendless Background: Anne had one prior to coming to Green Gables, leading her to create two imaginary friends.
 * Full-Name Basis: Anne and a number of other characters in Windy Poplars find it impossible to refer to Rebecca Dew by anything but her full name.
 * Genki Girl: Anne is the epitome of this trope. She's described as increasingly and significantly quieter and calmer growing up, however.
 * Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The books -- under the name Red-Haired Anne -- have an astounding popularity in Japan, where they are practically a cultural phenomenon.  Prince Edward Island in Canada is subject to a remarkable number of Japanese tourists who come to see their setting, and there's a "Canadian World" theme park in Hokkaido which has a full-size reconstruction of the Green Gables house.  Japanese dramatizations include anime, musicals and live-action productions, and there's even a nursing school called the "School of Green Gables" which has an architecture that is frankly Canadian.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: Approximated in-universe with Anne's apology to Rachel Lynde: "What I said to you was true, too - but I shouldn't have said it." While Marilla does take issue with her seeming to enjoy her apology so much, she seems to not notice that particular remark.
 * Girl Next Door: Diana.
 * Girlish Pigtails: Anne, for most of the first book--until she dyes them and they have to be cut off.
 * Good Parents: One major subplot in the first book is Marilla becoming this. In fact, when Anne nearly gets herself killed late in the first book, it's made clear that Marilla has truly come to love the girl.
 * Anne and Gilbert are also portrayed as extremely good parents, though it is at least partially justified since Anne spent much of her own childhood caring for other people's children.
 * Though Gilbert acts as a pretty terrible parent when he wants to encourage his youngest daughter, Rilla to take on responsibility for a war baby. He does so by telling her that no one else cares for the baby, that it will be left to die and that she can't expect any help or encouragement from her family if she does decide to take on the baby. It works in the sense that Rilla is inspired to do a good job to spite her fathers expectations, it doesn't work in that there was no need to be so horrible.
 * Anne and Gilbert are concerned at the beginning of the book that Rilla lacks ambition, and tends to abandon projects as soon as she starts them. Unlike the rest of their children, she's flighty and a little spoiled. Gilbert was probably trying impress heavily upon her the seriousness of the situation and adding a dose of realism--if the baby was sent to an orphanage, he probably wouldn't do well. Sort of a being cruel to be kind. Gilbert is a doctor; he wouldn't have let the baby die, but he wanted Rilla to take responsibility for the child she'd found.
 * Gossipy Hens: Montgomery loves this trope. Entire chapters are often dedicated to teatimes -- and at least one quilting bee -- wherein characters regale each other with fascinating story of their neighbors.
 * Grand Romantic Gesture: Gilbert switching schools with Anne so she can stay with Marilla, even though it means he'll have to pay for his room and board and wait to go to college.
 * Grande Dame: Mrs. Rachel Lynde would certainly like to think she's one.
 * Green-Eyed Monster: Anne, though she has no idea she's doing it. She gets very cold to anyone who gets too close to Gilbert or mentions they would like to. It leads to one of the funniest comments of the book (Anne of the Island):

"Jerry: (as Dick) Susette, you are beyond any question the most exquisite creature I have ever seen. Susette: Do you say that to every girl half an hour after you've met her?"
 * Half-Identical Twins: Heavily averted with Davy and Dora Keith, who despite superficial similarities of coloring are absolute opposites in ever way possible.
 * Happily Adopted: It goes both ways: Anne Shirley is very grateful for her upbringing by the Cuthberts, and both Marilla and Matthew are very proud of Anne.
 * Happily Married: Anne and Gilbert, for the most part.
 * Have a Gay Old Time:
 * As preteens, Anne and her friends form a story-writing club. Anne comments that one girl "puts too much love-making in her stories" and that "too much is worse than too little".
 * On meeting Anne, Diana pronounces her a "queer girl" (which doesn't discourage gay fans who see their relationship as laden with homoerotic subtext).
 * In a similar way, L. M. Montgomery probably didn't mean to inspire chuckles when she named the domineering clan of Windy Poplars the 'Pringles.'
 * Heartwarming Orphan: Anne, obviously.
 * Heel Face Turn: Subverted in "The Road to Yesterday" of The Blythes Are Quoted. It turns out that the person believed to be braggart and bully Dick is actually his second cousin who looks just like him, Nice Guy Jerry Thornton.
 * He Is All Grown Up: Anne realizes this about Gilbert in the concluding chapters of Anne of Avonlea, and it causes her to ponder some things....
 * Held Gaze:
 * Gilbert and Anne share a Passionate Look when the two reconnect in a gazebo in the second TV miniseries. After having held each other's gaze at least twice in the first miniseries, during important tests at school.
 * Heroes Want Redheads: Not quite played straight. Gilbert Blythe, however, sure doesn't seem to mind her red hair as much as Anne does...
 * Heroic BSOD: Anne has one, after being told Gilbert is dying from typhoid fever.
 * Later Rilla when she finds out about.
 * Home, Sweet Home: After the war is over in Rilla of Ingleside.
 * Honorary Uncle: Marilla will not allow Anne to call her "Aunt Marilla," but allows Anne's children to do so.
 * Hopeless Suitor: Charlie Sloane. Anne is far too busy making sure she beats the pants off Gilbert in school that she never notices that Charlie has a crush on her. Then again, she doesn't even realize Gilbert is in love with her, and he's not exactly subtle about it.
 * Hot for Preacher: Phil Gordon, with Jonas Blake a.k.a. "Reverend Jo".
 * Hot for Teacher: Anne receives a rather verbose love letter form one her students Annetta Bell. Although, the letter is revealed to be plagiarized from several love letters Annetta's mother's former beau wrote. Annetta insists she really does love Anne with all her heart.
 * Howl of Sorrow: Little Dog Monday does this at his train station post the night
 * I Am Not Pretty: Anne. In the first book she's justified in thinking so, since she really is homely by the standards of her day. Her later belief that she's still not pretty, even when she's grown more attractive with age, mostly stems from how teased she was as a child.
 * I Ate What?: More like "I cooked with what?" Anne has such a terrible cold that she can't tell vanilla flavoring from anodyne liniment, a medicine that is rubbed into the skin to relieve stiff muscles. Hilarity Ensues when her cake is served for tea--at least Mrs. Allan (Marilla's guest) thinks it was hilarious. Anne is humiliated.
 * I Don'tWantToRuinOurFriendship: Anne's reason for rejecting Gilbert's first proposal.
 * I Will Wait for You: In Rilla of Ingleside, during the war, Jem's dog greets every train at the station in hopes of Jem being in one of them until Jem eventually does come home from the war. It's a Tear Jerker.
 * Also from Rilla of Ingleside: Rilla receives her first kiss from childhood friend/crush Ken Ford, who begs her not to kiss another boy until he returns from war. She keeps her promise, and the book ends with their engagement.
 * Imaginary Friend: Anne had two growing up, much to Marilla's disapproval.
 * In Harmony with Nature: Anne has elements of this -- she asserts she would never be happy in a place without trees. Her children Diana and Walter especially follow in her footsteps.
 * A number of the short stories explicitly tie their protagonists' happiness to a similarly fundamental appreciation of natural beauty.
 * In the Blood: A realistic feature of the small-town setting, wherein everybody knows everyone else down through the generations. Somewhat subverted, however, with the Pringles.
 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Mr. Harrison and Norman Douglas.
 * Just Friends: Anne and Gilbert have this type of relationship after they grow beyond the one-sided Slap Slap Kiss of their younger days, the two tropes succeeding each other in Anne and Gilbert's love story.
 * Keep the Home Fires Burning: It drives the plot behind Rilla of Ingleside.
 * Kill'Em All: This is what Diana does to her characters in the girls' story-writing club, because she can't think of anything else to do with them. The club also copy out their "best" stories, in which "nearly everyone" dies, to send to Diana's aunt Josephine, who finds them hilarious.
 * Kill the Cutie:
 * Kindhearted Cat Lover: Captain Jim has a big orange cat called the First Mate that he rescued after it had been abandoned and starved as a kitten. He makes Anne promise to give the cat "a bite and a corner" after he dies.
 * Ladykiller in Love: Kenneth Ford, apparently.
 * Gilbert is arguably a younger version. Diana tells Anne how he spends his time teasing all of the girls, but after Anne breaks her slate over his head, he seems to focus his attention on her.
 * Large Ham: As a child, Anne seems to have a knack for doing and saying everything in the most melodramatic way possible.
 * Laser-Guided Karma: At that time, dyeing one's hair would be seen as extremely vain, and so Anne gets her just desserts for trying to dye her red hair black.
 * Letting Her Hair Down: Marilla does this toward the end of the first book.
 * Lies to Children: Anne often explains things to Davy in a lyrically philosophical way, only to have him accuse her of telling him lies. This leads Anne to lament at one point why Davy "can't tell the difference between a fairy tale and a falsehood".
 * Like an Old Married Couple: Nan and Jerry. Their "preferred method of sweethearting" is to go about their "ceaseless wrangles and arguments on profound subjects."
 * Also, Susette King and Jerry Thornton in "The Blythes Are Quoted''. They bicker and banter throughout the story, snarkier on Susette's part when she thinks he's Dick and more light-heartedly--with serious undertones--flirty on Jerry's. Example:

""As a preparatory initiation ordeal he had to parade the principal business streets of Kingsport for a whole day wearing a sunbonnet and a voluminous kitchen apron of gaudily flowered calico. This he did cheerfully, doffing his sunbonnet with courtly grace when he met ladies of his acquaintance. Charlie Sloane, who had not been asked to join the Lambs, told Anne he did not see how Blythe could do it, and HE, for his part, could never humiliate himself so. "Fancy Charlie Sloane in a `caliker' apron and a `sunbunnit,' " giggled Priscilla. "He'd look exactly like his old Grandmother Sloane. Gilbert, now, looked as much like a man in them as in his own proper habiliments.""
 * Like Father, Like Son: Career-wise, Jem takes after his father, attending medical school to become a surgeon. Personality-wise, it's gender flipped--Walter is almost exactly like Anne in personality. Di's personality is exactly like her father's, while Nan takes after Anne, though not nearly as much as Walter. Rilla, Shirley, and Jem do not specifically take after one parent or the other.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: and loads, and loads, and loads...
 * It backfires, however. Since Anne of Windy Poplars was written after Anne's House of Dreams, absolutely nobody from Summerside attends her wedding or even sends a present. And just about every B- and C-list character in the previous books was at least Name Dropped, if they didn't outright attend.
 * Long-Distance Relationship: Anne and Gilbert's engagement is entirely long distance; he is at Redmond for medical school while she is teaching high school miles away.
 * Jem and Faith, too, who are engaged before he leaves for World War I.
 * Longing Look: Gilbert does this a lot in Kevin Sullivan's Anne of Green Gables (1985). One scene in particular has Anne and Diana wistfully gazing at each other, and then Gilbert in the background casts a Longing Look in Anne's direction. Naturally, she doesn't notice.
 * Love Epiphany: Anne has a jarring one in Anne of the Island when she learns Gilbert is dying of typhoid fever.
 * Love At First Punch: Gilbert confesses to Anne that he first fell in love with her after she had cracked the slate over his head.
 * Love Hurts: Poor Gilbert. In some cases, this is literal for him.
 * Maiden Aunt: Marilla, despite not being Anne's aunt, certainly acts like one. There is also Aunt Josephine Barry, but she is more of a subversion.
 * Aunt Jamesina in Anne of the Island certainly counts.
 * Susan Baker acts as this to the Ingleside children.
 * Mary Sue: In-universe example. Anne openly wants to be one... right down to the 'velvety purple eyes.'
 * Every single heroine in her Story Club stories. Later LampshadedTrope in Anne of the Island when Anne rediscovers the old Story Club stories and finds them killingly hilarious because of their unrealistic heroines. Montgomery satirizes all Mary Sues through this incident.
 * Massive-Numbered Siblings: The Blythe children. It's Hilarious in Hindsight, since Anne had sworn never to forgive Gilbert for the slight against her hair. Well, not only does she forgive him, but they marry and have seven children (six living).
 * It really stands out, too, since none of the other main characters who have children have nearly that many. The only family to come close is the Meredith family, with four children. Also, large families are seen as something bad; in "Anne's House of Dreams", Miss Cornelia is noted for sewing a dress for an eighth baby as "if it were really wanted."
 * The Matchmaker: Anne, though it doesn't always work out.
 * Missing Mom: The Meredith kids's mom, Jims' mom.
 * The Missus and the Ex: In Anne of Ingleside, Anne and Gilbert are invited to dinner at a socialite's house (on their anniversary, no less), only to find that Gilbert's college girlfriend Christine Stuart had also been invited. Since Anne has become convinced Gilbert has fallen out of love with her, this doesn't help. It also doesn't help when Gilbert compliments and converses with Christine all night. Anne alternates between snarking silently about this and doubting herself. Gilbert confesses later that he spent the evening tuning out everything Christine had said and that she had not aged well. The reason he had been so distant with Anne was because he was worried over a patient, for whom he had prescribed radical treatment his colleagues did not approve of. It worked, after several weeks.
 * Mood Whiplash: Used in Anne of the Island (the book) and Anne of Avonlea (the miniseries) very well, especially because it is so sudden how the atmosphere changes to happy to being at home again (for Anne) to unspeakable grief at how abruptly she is informed that Gilbert Blythe is dying, and she may well be too late to let him know that she loves him.
 * Also in Anne's House of Dreams, when Gilbert and Anne's sunny life at Four Winds is abruptly changed after
 * Moral Guardian: Marilla Cuthbert initially does this for Anne in-universe, after discovering the girl has never been taught to say even a simple prayer.
 * More Hero Than Thou
 * Motor Mouth: Anne, who famously introduces herself with a 5-page long monologue. This lessens as she grows up, however.
 * Mouthy Kid: Mary Vance
 * Mr.Imagination: Young Anne. Her children, as well, have Rainbow Valley, in which they act out all sorts of vivid imaginary play.
 * The Musical: There is one, in fact. It is called Anne & Gilbert: the Island Love Story, and it premiered in 2005. Since, it has become internationally acclaimed.
 * That would be, at best, the second such musical. The first has been running on P.E.I. and elsewhere since 1965.
 * My Hair Came Out Green: Anne thinks there's nothing worse than having red hair. She learns how wrong she is when she tries to dye it black: even being shaved bald is preferable to the hideous green hair that is the result of Anne's vanity.
 * Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Anne finds this after she rejects Gilbert's proposal in Anne of the Island, and their close friendship is irrevocably changed. It really hits home after she has her Love Epiphany and finds that friendship is no longer enough for her but she thinks she may have ruined everything.
 * No Sparks: Anne and Roy Gardner's relationship in Anne of the Island.
 * Oblivious to Love: Anne, naturally, to Gilbert's love for her. However, she takes it one step further; not only is she oblivious to Gilbert's feelings for her, she's also oblivious to her feelings for him. The fact that she's in love with him blindsides her, while even casual friends can see it.
 * Obvious Pregnancy: Highly averted -- another case of Values Dissonance between the mores of Montgomery's day and modern readers, who are used to discussing the concept much more frankly. With only a few mentions of preparations, like making baby clothes or discussing if they should tell their other children or wait, it's hard to even tell when Anne and Gilbert are expecting a baby. There was no preamble to Jem's arrival...just his birth!
 * One Steve Limit: Averted. Several characters share the same name, one notable instance being the two Josephines in the stories - Josie Pye and Diana's Aunt Josephine, and also Davy Keith and Dr. David Blythe, Gilbert's uncle, and of course Jem Blythe and Captain Jim, and also Anne Blythe and Nan Blythe, and Diana Barry Wright and Di Blythe.
 * Especially averted in The Blythes are Quoted, which partially explains why its earlier edited version changed the setting of short story "The Road to Yesterday" from WWII to post-WWI 1920s. Gilbert Ford, named after his grandfather, and Walter Blythe, named after his uncle, were already known examples. But there's also Jem Blythe, named after his father; Di Meredith, named after her aunt; Rilla Ford, named after her mother; and an Anne who is specifically differentiated from Mrs. Dr. Blythe.
 * The One That Got Away: Near the end of Anne of Green Gables, we find out that John Blythe is this for Marilla. She and he had a fight, and she wouldn't forgive him when he asked her to. And when she finally made up her mind to forgive him, it was too late. It's mentioned a few more times as Anne and Gilbert get closer; she even has a passing thought that had only she forgiven John Blythe, Gilbert would have been her son.
 * Ordered Apology: When she is rude to Mrs. Lynde on first meeting her.
 * Parent with New Paramour: Reverend Meredith and Rosemary West.
 * Parental Abandonment: In Windy Willows, little Elizabeth's mother dies when she is a baby, and then her father leaves her in the care of an unloving grandmother and forgets about her for the next ten years.
 * Peaceful in Death
 * Plagiarism in Fiction Anne has her fourth class write and send letters to her. One of which turns out to be plagiarized.
 * Plucky Girl: Montgomery's default female model, to the point where very fragile and 'ethereal' females are generally held in mild contempt. Major examples include Anne, Philippa Gordon, Faith Meredith, and Persis Ford -- from what we've seen in Anne of Ingleside.
 * Polar Opposite Twins: Twins Nan and Di Blythe.
 * Even more so, twins Davy and Dora Keith.
 * The Power of Love: It saves Gilbert from death by typhoid fever. While heartbroken over Anne's rejection of his proposal (twice) and very sick, he receives a letter from Anne's friend Phil, who tells him that Anne is not getting married to Roy Gardner and advises him to "try again". Gilbert remarks to Anne later that the doctors were amazed at his speedy recovery after that.
 * Power Trio: Anne, Gilbert, and Diana.
 * Anne, Marilla and Matthew also form a rare inter-generational trio.
 * Pragmatic Adaptation: In the first Megan Follows film, the producers didn't want Anne to give up her academic dreams at the end, so a throwaway comment of Anne's in the book that she's planning to keep up her studies turns into a full-blown correspondence course.
 * Preacher's Kid: The Merediths, whose earnest efforts to live up to what the community requires of them only sink them deeper and deeper into trouble with it.
 * Prim and Proper Bun: Katherine Brooke, the Stern Principal in Anne of Avonlea, in contrast to Anne's looser, less severe bun.
 * Product Placement: After Anne's short story is rejected by a literary magazine, Diana sends it to a baking powder company's advertisement competition, after rewriting the ending so that all hardships are conquered by love and loving uses of baking powder. The story is published as an advertising flyer for the company and--to Anne's eternal horror--becomes roaringly popular.
 * Proper Lady: Diana, in contrast to Anne.
 * The Promise
 * Anne and Diana solemnly vow to be "bosom friends" forever. Though they begin to grow apart after Anne leaves to attend college while Diana stays home and marries, their friendship remains special to both of them throughout the books.
 * Ellen and Rosemary West are Christmas Cake spinsters, and years ago they promised to never marry and leave each other. Ellen holds Rosemary to it, implacably, when Mr. Meredith proposes. When Ellen reunites with her New Old Flame, she doesn't even ask, but she does tell him why, and he asks; Rosemary agrees to free her -- and refuses to tell Mr. Meredith that yes, she can marry him after all. So Ellen can't accept it and is quite certain they will be miserable together.
 * A sillier example of this is Rilla's acquiring a Nice Hat at the start of the war. After being chastised for shopping during a war, she promises to wear it for three years or until the war ends, whichever is longer. "I hate that hat already." She also gleefully destroys it as soon as the war's over. And it wasn't so much for shopping--she'd been sent to buy a new hat--as it was for spending so very much on an ostentatious hat. Frugality during wartime is a running theme throughout the book, with disapproval being heaped on others who seem too materialistic.
 * Public Domain Character: And oh, doesn't Prince Edward Island love it that way.
 * The Quiet One: Una Meredith and Shirley Blythe, for each respective family.
 * Real Men Wear Pink: When Gilbert pledges a fraternity in Anne of the Island.


 * Redheaded Hero
 * Replacement Sibling: Marilla suggests, when Jem is born, that he will take the place of Joy. Anne replies that Joy has her own place in her parents' hearts, as will Jem.
 * Revision: Anne of Windy Poplars and Anne of Ingleside were written after the rest of the series had been concluded to appease the rabid fans.
 * Rich Suitor, Poor Suitor: middle-class rural doctor Gilbert vs. wealthy urban Roy Gardener, poor minister Jonas Blake vs. blue-bloods Alec and Alonzo, etc.
 * Gilbert even lampshades it after he and Anne get married. Anne tells Gilbert that Leslie's life was wasted by staying in Four Winds taking care of her mentally disabled husband, that she was born for leadership in social and intellectual circles. Gilbert makes the point that some people might consider Anne's B.A. from Redmond wasted by being married to a poor country doctor. He goes on to say that if she had married Roy Gardner, she could have been a leader in social and intellectual circles. Anne is not amused.
 * Romantic Two-Girl Friendship: Anne and Diana. Not quite as sentimental as the traditional model, though.
 * Schoolmarm: And schoolmasters. There are so many in the series, as all of the schools on the Island minus colleges are one-room schoolhouses. Anne has a few, then eventually becomes one, as do many of her classmates. Gilbert becomes a schoolmaster, and it becomes a plot point that he gives up his Avonlea school post so Anne can remain closer to Green Gables and assist an ailing Marilla.
 * Secret Identity: There's a bit of this in The Road to Yesterday/The Blythes Are Quoted. George Fraser assumes a made-up identity Don Glynne when courting Christine in "The Pot and the Kettle'' to see if she would love him even if he wasn't rich. Jerry Thornton is mistaken for his second cousin, Dick, by Susette King but decides to go along with the charade for a pragmatic reason -- until she figures it out towards the end.
 * Scenery Porn: One of the reasons for reading the books. Montgomery limns the beauty of the Island so gorgeously it makes you want to go there for that sake alone to see the Scenery Porn.
 * Shipper on Deck: By Anne of the Island, the Anne/Gilbert UST has become so prominent that everyone close to Anne ships her with Gilbert. Mrs. Lynde and Marilla are overt supporters of the two, and then Davey innocuously asks if Gilbert will marry Anne soon, which is then followed by Mrs. Irving nee Lavender scolding Anne about her stubbornness of her denials of not loving Gilbert. Philippa Blake is aghast when Anne refuses him, and if you hold to the Fanon view that Diana has feelings for Gilbert but selflessly hid them because she knew her "bosom friend" was in love with Gilbert, that counts too.
 * Sibling Rivalry: Surprisingly absent, considering there are six Blythe children.
 * So Beautiful, It's A Curse: Leslie, Leslie, Leslie. Railroaded into marriage with a Jerkass who's implied to be a drunk and unfaithful, and who only went after her because she's incredibly pretty. At one point in Anne's House of Dreams she says she wishes she had been "as brown and plain as the brownest and plainest shore girl" so her unwanted husband would never have taken notice of her. This being L.M. Montgomery, she does get a happy ending.
 * Strong Family Resemblance: Even Dick's wife couldn't distinguish between his cousin and him!
 * Slap Slap Kiss: Anne and Gilbert started out this way. Only it was more like Taunt Taunt Crack Slate Over Head. Eventually, they matured beyond it and landed in Just Friends territory.
 * Slice of Life: pretty much the whole series is this.
 * Speech Impediment: Rilla has a pronounced lisp as a child. She outgrows it by Rilla of Ingleside, but it still crops up when she's nervous. Much to her embarrassment, because she apparently works very hard to get rid of it. When, she answers with "Yesth".
 * Spell My Name with an E: Anne famously insists that her name to be spelled with an "e", regardless of the fact that it's silent anyway. In her mind's eye it looks far more dignified than just plain Ann.
 * Spirited Young Lady: Anne.
 * Strange Girl: Anne.
 * Sweetie Graffiti: Avonlea school children chalk up "Take Notice" comments about who likes so-and-so on the schoolhouse wall.
 * Tall, Dark and Handsome: Younger Anne's only requirements for her future husband.
 * The Thing That Would Not Leave: Gilbert's cousin comes to visit in Anne of Ingleside and sticks around a good two months longer than she meant to, making everyone's lives miserable in the process, but Gilbert is "clannish" and won't even hint that she ought to go home already. She only does leave because Anne, feeling somewhat guilty for disliking her so much,
 * Thinks Like a Romance Novel: Younger Anne, to the extreme. Besides lending itself to some rather funny escapades, including the formation of a writing club specifically for writing their own sappy romance stories and the recreation of Tennyson's "The Lady of Shallot" that ended with a sunken dory in the middle of a pond, it's also part of the reason why Anne is oblivious to Gilbert's feelings for her. Her view of what love is and what it's supposed to feel like is so skewed by her overly romantic mind that she can't see that Gilbert is in love with her and that she has feelings for him. She thinks her ideal man should be like the men of her novels--tall, dark, and handsome--and thinks she found it in Roy Gardner. It's a rather big reality check when Anne realizes that romance novels are not anything like every day life, along with the sickening sensation that she may have lost true love in her pursuit of her "ideal."
 * Tomboy and Girly Girl: Anne and Diana.
 * Too Good for This Sinful Earth:
 * Train Station Goodbye: Jem and Faith before he leaves for the war front. Also, Nan and Jerry but without the kiss.
 * In the third movie adaptation (okay, not so much adaptation as total re-write...in the wrong time period), Anne and Gilbert share one as he goes off to war.
 * Traumatic Haircut: Inverted; it's an improvement over Anne's hideous green hair.
 * Unsuspectingly Soused: Diana drinks "three tumblerfulls" of what she thinks is raspberry cordial, but is actually currant wine. Marilla is quite disgusted by Diana's gluttony and her mother's blaming everything on Anne regardless of this.
 * Victorian Novel Disease:, one of Anne's childhood friends, in Island. It's explicitly consumption
 * Victorious Childhood Friend: So much of this. Anne and Gilbert, Diana and Fred, Jem and Faith, Nan and Jerry...
 * Wartime Wedding: Anne and Gilbert's wedding in the film Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story.
 * What Happened to the Mouse??: Marilla vanishes in the later books, especially Anne of Windy Poplars, Anne of Ingleside, and in Rilla of Ingleside, it's mentioned in passing that she has died.
 * When She Smiles: She wouldn't be a Genki Girl without being able to light up a room doing this. It's even lampshaded at a few points in the later stories, this being a point at which authors could still get away with it un-ironically.
 * Wicked Stepmother: Invoked in Rainbow Valley
 * Sort of. The Meredith children are afraid Rosemary will turn out to be this thanks to the warnings of Mary Vance, and are very relieved when it turns out to not be the case.
 * Wide-Eyed Idealist: Anne, in the earlier books. She eventually outgrows it a little, but not entirely.
 * Wife Husbandry: Doubly-sbverted in the short story "The Education of Betty." The narrator and main character has been helping to raise Betty, the daughter of the woman he was in love with as a young man.
 * World War One: Rilla of Ingleside, as seen from the home front.
 * Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story throws book continuity out the window by having Anne actually go to Europe and the fields of battle.
 * World War Two: Mentioned or alluded to in The Blythes Are Quoted. Ken and Rilla Ford's son Gilbert and Jerry Thornton serve as RCAF pilots -- with the latter specifically mentioned to be in the ferry bomber service -- during the war.
 * Youthful Freckles: Anne.