Anne of Green Gables/Tear Jerker

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Matthew's death. Though there's plenty of foreshadowing, it's still shocking.
  • Also, Gilbert almost dying in Anne of the Island. Anne's anguish can be palpably felt.
  • The death of Joyce, Anne's first child who lived for less than a day.
  • Walter's death.
    • Even more so, his last letter. And before that his anguish over how he was afraid to enlist and thought himself a coward for it. His and Rilla's final conversation before he goes overseas is at once beautiful and tragic.
  • Anne's childhood before she came Marilla and Matthew.
  • In Anne's House of Dreams, the entire back story of Leslie Moore, including seeing her brother crushed to death under a wagon, her father's suicide, marrying a horrible man so he wouldn't evict her mother, her mother's subsequent death, etc.
  • In Anne of the Island, in which Gilbert professes his love for Anne and asks her to marry him and she tells him she can never love him.
  • Anne's childhood friend Ruby Gillis admitting that she is aware of the fact that she is dying, followed by her death in "Anne of the Island"
  • Little loveable Bruce Meredith drowning his own kitten in hopes it will bring the missing in action Jem back safely. A horrifying moment by anyone's standard, when one considers this is a young child willing to kill his very favourite pet and actually believing it will make Jem return.
  • Teddy Armstrong's death in Anne of Windy Poplars. Especially, what his father says after he's given a photo of him
    • "Oh, you don't know what this means to me," he said brokenly at last. "I hadn't any picture of him. And I'm not like other folks . . . I can't recall a face . . . I can't see faces as most folks can in their mind. It's been awful since the Little Fellow died. . . . I couldn't even remember what he looked like. And now you've brought me this . . . after I was so rude to you. Sit down . . . sit down. I wish I could express my thanks in some way. I guess you've saved my reason . . . maybe my life. Oh, miss, isn't it like him? You'd think he was going to speak. My dear Little Fellow! How am I going to live without him? I've nothing to live for now. First his mother . . . now him."