Anne of Green Gables and Emotion Construction

Anne Shirley illustrates emotion as construct in her apology to Rachel Lynde

The most openly emotional literary character I’ve read is Anne Shirley. The Anne books by Lucy Maud Montgomery have been my companions since childhood. Looking back at them through the lens of the theory of constructed emotions, I see many places where Anne’s thinking changes her emotions.

This is beautiful literary evidence for emotions as a construct.

A tragicomic scene in the first book is one example. Eleven-year-old orphan Anne has endured extensive trauma and uses her imagination to cope with the world. She despises her red hair and homely face, so when neighborhood gossip Rachel Lynde twits her about her looks, Anne erupts at the old lady. This embarrasses Anne’s guardian, Marilla, who demands Anne apologize to Rachel and sends her to her room till she is willing to comply. Anne refuses for a night and a day, then Marilla’s brother Matthew slips upstairs to reason with Anne.

Anne examines her emotions on the matter with clear granularity and honest self reflection: “I am sorry now. I wasn’t a bit sorry last night. I was mad clear through, and I stayed mad all night. I know I did because I woke up three times and I was just furious every time. But this morning…I wasn’t in a temper anymore—and it left a dreadful sort of goneness, too.” She finally decides to apologize to Mrs. Lynde to oblige Matthew, since she cares for him very much.

Marilla marches Anne down the lane to Rachael’s house, Anne’s posture drooping. Then Marilla notices a physical change in Anne and perceives that her dejection is replaced with exhilaration. Marilla realizes “This was no meek penitent,” and asks her sharply what she is thinking.

Photo of Prince Edward Island by John Loach via Wikimedia Commons

Anne unknowingly reveals the secret to altering her emotions: “I’m imagining out what I must say.” Anne actively alters her view and, as she turns the punishment into a performance, her emotions change to fit her changed goal. Rather than resisting humility out of pride, she embraces the drama of her degradation and savors it. Anne throws herself on her knees before Mrs. Lynde and pours out an extensive apology. “‘Oh, Mrs. Lynde, I am so extremely sorry,’ she said with a quiver in her voice. ‘I could never express all my sorrow, no, not if I used up a whole dictionary…’”

Her extravagant apology goes on for a long paragraph. Both women mark her clear sincerity, but Marilla sees deeper, knowing Anne well enough to perceive her emotions clearly: not sorrow but delight. “Anne was actually enjoying her valley of humiliation—was reveling in the thoroughness of her abasement…Anne had turned it into a species of positive pleasure.”

Rachel sees only the surface sweetness: “Good Mrs. Lynde, not being overburdened with perception…only perceived that Anne had made a very thorough apology and all resentment vanished from her kindly, if somewhat officious, heart.”

On the walk back home, Anne reflects on her affective change from her fury the day before to her sense of calm in the moment. “It gives you a lovely, comfortable feeling to apologize and be forgiven, doesn’t it?” she says to Marilla.

Though Anne bursts with effusive emotions throughout the books, she isn’t at their mercy. She shifts herself from experiencing humiliation and anger to experiencing delight and glee. This reminds me of a line Lisa Feldman Barrett uses in her book How Emotions are Made and many of her lectures: “Human beings are not at the mercy of mythical emotion circuits buried deep within animalistic parts of our highly evolved brain: we are the architects of our own experience.” Barrett’s shortest definition of “emotion” is this: “your brain’s best guesses for what your body’s sensations mean, based on your situation.”

Did you ever read the Anne books or watch the TV adaptation on Netflix? What do you think of Anne and her emotions?

Quotations are from LM Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, Hardcover (New York: Sterling, 2004), pages 71-74.