I don't know if other readers will agree with me, but I never felt Anne was as good a writer as she was a friend/daughter/mother/lover (the last, maybe not so much). Her imagination was more important to her than the "real world" around her, but she is at her best, I think, when focusing away from her dreams and on real people. I don't think this focus denigrates her imagination at all; instead, it shows how her art was living, more than creating.

I do agree. Anne was not Montgomery's great writer. That was Emily Byrd Starr. In fact, one of the things I appreciate about Anne is that she is tremendously imaginative, but ultimately recognizes that she is a good writer, but not a great one. And she not only recognizes it, but accepts it. Many people want to be great writers, but few actually are. Anne comes to terms with this reality with a level of maturity and grace which sets her up as a role model for more than imaginative 10-year-olds.

Very true--doesn't Gilbert tell her she should write about what she knows rather than all the things she imagines? I don't think that's a capitulation to banality, but rather elevating her real surroundings.

I think Anne was or could have been a great writer. Yes, she needed to reign in her imagination somehwat it put it to use in a more directed way - but age would have given her this.

No, I think the Real reason Anne does not become a brilliant writer - yet she sees the makings of one in her young student, Paul Irving - and later on, in the character Owen Ford - is that Anne must first and foremost be made to be a good wife and a good mother.

That is how the series evolved; Anne got married and gave birth to 7 children. 100 years ago, a woman could not be devoted to family life AND devoted to her art. Even today, it would be challenging, save for those with alot of money.

Montgomery herself was a mother of two and a very prolific author. It was a difficult life choice, but it was possible. I think the poster above was on target - Montgomery's heroines are great role models because they choose their priorities and succeed at what they set out to do. Anne's great dream is to create a loving family and home for herself (makes sense, as a former foster child) and she achieves that dream. When she discovers her talent lies in 'little stories for children' and she's never going to write the great Canadian novel, she's not upset. Emily Starr (of the Emily trilogy), on the other hand, dreams of being a successful, self-supporting novelist and that's what she achieves.

Valancy, I agree.

I overlooked earlier that a huge part of Anne's talent is as a teacher. She is very fulfilled professionally and personally by teaching, though she attends Redmond after teaching in Avonlea for several years to further challenge herself. Even after earning her B.A., she seems happiest when she's teaching (and, honestly, matchmaking).

LMM emphasizes Anne's nurturing personality very early on: she is essentially a babysitter for hire in her orphan's life before Green Gables, though that wasn't her choice. She saves Minnie Mae's life because of her experience caring for children. She persuades Marilla to adopt twins Dora and Davy, and acts as a mother/big sister surrogate to them until they're grown. Though they have a chaperone, she's very much the mother hen to her housemates in Patty's Place in college.

There's also the matchmaking. She convinces a young couple with disapproving family to run away together, and a middle-aged couple who've lived under the thumb of the suitor's mother for 20 years to marry when the mother dies.