Review: Anne with an E Brings Green Gables into the 21st Century
This nostalgic drama tells the coming of age story of the flame-haired Anne of Green Gables (played by Amybeth McNulty), an orphan embraced by a small farming community living on Prince Edward Island off the coast of Canada. Based on the novels by Lucy Maud Montgomery, the series is set in the 1890’s, when attitudes to a range of social issues were beginning to change. Despite her traumatic start in a nightmarish orphanage, Anne is a bright, incessantly talkative and adventurous child who breathes life into the home of her elderly adopted parents and the wider community. It certainly won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but the series has a lot to offer, including the beautiful scenery of Prince Edward Island, its appreciation of nature inherent in the source material, and some deeply emotional story lines. Thanks to the brilliant writing, Anne with an E is much more than just cosy nostalgia, taking on some weighty social and cultural issues.
Anne with an E has PTSD
In the first season, Anne is taken in by Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, elderly siblings who are buttoned up, starched and set in their ways. After experiencing many previous rejections, Anne is rejected yet again by Marilla who had requested a boy to help out on the farm. Eventually the Cuthberts reconsider and bring Anne back to Green Gables, but by this time she has experienced so much harsh treatment and bullying during her time in the orphanage it is unsurprising that she has PTSD. Her experience of the condition is treated sensitively and realistically. Many seemingly insignificant situations give rise to painful flashbacks of her time in the orphanage. As the Cuthberts and the wider community begin to accept Anne as their own, these flashbacks begin to subside. At the same time, Anne’s passion and joie de vivre help to soften the hearts of Matthew and Marilla.
Gender Inequality, Gay Rights and Freedom of Expression
Anne proclaims that her destiny is to be the ‘Bride of Adventure,’ while her best friend Diana is destined to simply learn how to be a good wife. Despite this, one of the most gripping aspects of the show is Anne’s rocky road to romance with her love interest Gilbert. She keeps him at arms-length throughout however, rather than romanticising about their love and possible marriage. Through Anne’s influence, Diana also rejects what is expected of her as a young woman in high society and opts to go to the local university rather than the finishing school in Paris her parents had planned for.
Anne rejects the cultural norm in many ways and speaks out against the injustices she sees. One of her close friends, Cole, confides in Anne that he is gay after being severely bullied at school. Anne is fiercely protective of Cole and eventually arranges for him to live with Diana’s rich aunt, who holds fabulous parties and is revealed to be a lesbian herself. While this is a satisfying conclusion for Cole’s character, most gay people in that era wouldn’t have been so lucky.
Racism and the Dark History of Native American Residential Schools
New characters have been added that weren’t in the original material, but bring so much to the story. Gilbert goes away to work on a ship after his father’s death. There he meets his eventual best friend and business partner Bash, a warm-hearted Trinidadian. Gilbert takes Bash home to his farm in Avonlea, where he starts a family. While they face severe prejudice at first, Bash and his family become a key part of the community. I can’t say how realistic this portrayal would have been for this time, but Prince Edward Island did have a history of slavery, and was the only place in Canada (then British North America) to ever enact its own law enforcing the institution of slavery. It also went on to repeal that law and abolish slavery nearly a full decade before Britain’s Imperial Act of 1833, which did the same throughout the Empire. Reverend James MacGregor, a key figure in Canada’s abolition movement, was influential in bringing this about. For anyone interested in the history of PEI, I would recommend the PEI History Guy.
Another new character introduced is Ka’kwet, a Native American girl from the Mi’kmaq tribe who Anne befriends. At first this story seems unlikely, but it goes on to uncover an important point in history that many will be unaware of. Ka’kwet’s parents are told of a nearby missionary boarding school, where she can learn to read and write in English. The grim reality of the school is later shown – Ka’kwet has been forced to cut her beautiful long hair short, she is given an English name (Hannah) and all of the children are treated cruelly. Reading into this further, it turns out these schools did the same to hundreds of children. Known as Indian Residential Schools, they aimed to ‘assimilate’ children into ‘Euro-American’ ways. The Government paid religious orders to run them and the last schools closed as late as 1973. Very young children were forcibly removed from their families, and forced to abandon their native identity and culture. Investigations have since revealed that there were many cases of mistreatment and abuse. Unfortunately, we never learn Ka’kwet’s fate and whether she is able to escape this prison.
After three seasons, Anne with an E was cancelled but you can still catch it on Netflix now. While it might not be entirely faithful to the original work, Anne with an E tells important stories that still need to be told today.
