I’ve really enjoyed reading other people’s thoughts on Anne the homemaker/mother/wife vs Anne the writer, and yes, actually, it is consistent writing that Anne’s focus was on her family, and that writing was never the passion that it was for, say, Emily or Jo March. She did love people. I think I still find it disappointing to hear her say (of Captain Jim’s life book) that she couldn’t do it, when she’d been such a go-getter and was so sensitive and intuitive. Perhaps she was content with her family, but the ambitious part of her seemed to die. Perhaps I should be grateful she didn’t become the pushy parent, lumbering her kids with weighty expectations. Gilbert says at one point (can you tell I’ve relistened to the series recently…?) that a lot of people might think Anne the BA was wasted as the wife of a country doctor – which I suppose is a bit of a wink to the audience who wanted things other than motherhood for her.
I remember reading House of Dreams as a teenager, and being slightly alarmed by the way the power had shifted. Gilbert had hankered after Anne for so long, and then suddenly he was deciding where they were going to live, and he had chosen the house they would live in (she just had to hope that he’d chosen one she liked), and he also decided that they needed to leave it for a bigger one at the end. Her marriage to him is even described as “sweet surrender”, I think.
I have to agree, I loved the ending of the Little Women movie – though (just to lower the tone) I can really see why Jo chose the professor over Laurie based on those actors. Phew.
Re. Gilbert being a Conservative, he definitely is by HoD, but in Green Gables, Annes says he’s a Grit and she’s glad that she’s a Conservative like Matthew.
Need to do some actual work now!