The Cast of Avonlea
I have read the whole book, and this guide is light on spoilers. I will tell you who everyone is and what they are like when you meet them. I will not tell you how the book ends, and I will say nothing about what happens to Matthew. The full summary is a separate video. We’ll go through the Cuthberts, Anne’s friends and rival, the village, and the school, and then I’ll answer the two questions people search the most: who is Anne Shirley, and does Anne end up with Gilbert.
Anne Shirley
Anne Shirley is eleven when the book begins. She has thin freckled cheeks, a pointed chin, big eyes that look green in some lights and gray in others, and two braids of thick red hair. She arrives with a carpet bag and a dress that is much too short.
She talks, and she talks beautifully. Everything in the world gets a name: the cherry tree outside her window becomes the Snow Queen, and a pond becomes the Lake of Shining Waters. She loves big words, poetry and drama, and she is happiest when she can imagine a scene better than it really is.
She is also touchy, proud and quick to lose her temper, especially about her hair. She is hard on herself, and she is honest enough to say that she never makes the same mistake twice, which Marilla points out is not much use when she is always making new ones.
Her parents, Walter and Bertha Shirley, were both teachers, and both died. She does not remember being wanted before she gets to Green Gables, and the book keeps that wound in the background while it is being funny. That is why the first chapters, where she is nearly sent back, hit harder than you expect.
Matthew Cuthbert
Matthew is sixty, ungainly, with stooping shoulders, long iron gray hair and a soft brown beard. He is the shyest man in Avonlea. He dreads every woman except his sister and Mrs. Rachel, and he is too nervous to tell Anne she was not the child they ordered.
He is the first one to take Anne’s side. He listens to her talk for hours, and it never tires him. He does not argue with Marilla about how to raise her, he just quietly makes sure Anne gets what she needs. Watch for the chapter where he insists on a particular kind of sleeves.
Matthew’s heart troubles him, and the book mentions it early. I will say only that it is worth noticing what he does with the little time and money he has.
Marilla Cuthbert
Marilla is Matthew’s sister, sharp, practical and strict. She wanted a boy to help with the farm, and she is not a woman who changes plans lightly. She is not unkind. She just does not know how to talk to a child, and her talking comes out curt.
She decides to keep Anne in chapter six, and spends the rest of the book trying to raise a girl she has no manual for. She believes in plain dresses, regular prayers and learning to work first and talk afterward. She punishes Anne, and then goes to the kitchen and has to hide a laugh.
Marilla is the character who changes the most. She is not good at saying what she feels, so pay attention to the small things she does instead.
Diana Barry
Diana is Anne’s bosom friend. She is the daughter of the Barrys, who live at Orchard Slope, with black hair and black eyes and a warm, practical heart. She is a good listener and has a mother with firm opinions.
Anne meets Diana in chapter twelve, and they swear a vow of friendship together. Diana is less imaginative than Anne, and she tends to say what is sensible. She is the person Anne shares secrets with, signals to with candle flashes at night, and takes risks beside. Her little sister is Minnie May.
Their friendship is the warmest in the book. It is also tested more than once, usually by something Anne did with the best intentions.
Gilbert Blythe
Gilbert is a schoolboy in Avonlea, with hazel eyes, good humor and a tendency to tease. He is clever. In chapter fifteen he calls Anne carrots, and that single word is the wound that Anne carries for years.
He is not a villain. He is quick, good natured, and the one person who can match Anne in a classroom. Their rivalry, the sulking, and the question of whether either will give in, is the book’s longest running thread.
So, does Anne end up with Gilbert? In this book, the answer is only that something shifts between them. The novel ends on friendship, not a wedding. If you are asking about the romance, the book is quiet about it.
Mrs. Rachel Lynde
Mrs. Rachel Lynde is the village’s chief observer. She sits at her kitchen window on the main road and watches everything that goes by. She has knitted sixteen quilts and runs the Sewing Circle. Her husband Thomas is known as Rachel Lynde’s husband.
She says exactly what she thinks, and her first remark about Anne is not kind. Anne answers her back in the most memorable scene of the early chapters. But she is not a villain either. Mrs. Rachel is observant, competent and, in the end, fair. By the end of the book she is one of the people who has changed her mind about Anne.
The School and the Village
Several smaller people matter. Miss Stacy is the lady teacher who arrives in chapter twenty-four, and teaches her class to write their essays as simply as possible. Her predecessor, Mr. Phillips, is a teacher Anne finds easy to dislike.
Mrs. Allan is the minister’s wife, young and gentle, and Anne decides at once that she is a kindred spirit. Miss Josephine Barry is Diana’s aunt, prim and proper, who ends up finding Anne amusing.
Among Anne’s classmates, Ruby Gillis is showy and golden haired, and Jane Andrews is practical, the sort of girl nothing rattles. Josie Pye is the girl who delights in daring Anne to do things, and Charlie Sloane and Moody Spurgeon MacPherson fill out the class. Mrs. Spencer is the woman who brought Anne to Avonlea, and made the mistake that started everything.
Quick Answers
How old is Anne? She is eleven when she arrives, and by the last chapters she says she is sixteen and a half. Where does the story happen? In Avonlea, a village on Prince Edward Island, on a farm called Green Gables, and the title is also how Anne finally thinks of herself.
Who is the best friend? Diana, and the book uses the words bosom friend. Who is the rival? Gilbert Blythe, who is also the person most like her. Who are the Cuthberts to Anne? They are Matthew and Marilla, a brother and sister who adopt her, not her blood relatives.
How They Fit Together
Think of the book as a circle. Matthew and Marilla are at the center, and Anne changes them. Diana is the person who stands beside Anne, Gilbert is the person who stands across from her, and Mrs. Rachel is the voice of the village that must be won over.
The book is quite short on villains. Almost everyone in it is decent, a little stubborn, and capable of surprise.
If you want the plot, the full summary is next on the channel and on book explained dot com. Subscribe, tap like, and tell me in the comments which of these people is your favorite.
