What Child Doesn't Want to Feel at Home?
Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne, the titular character of Anne of Green Gables(1908) and its successive novels, is introduced as a precocious and talkative girl with a remarkable imagination perhaps only matched by her extensive vocabulary. J. K. Rowling presents in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone(1997) Hermione Granger, a classmate and fellow protagonist of Harry Potter, as a highly intelligent, hardworking, rule-following girl whose prowess with magic defies the expectations of those who know her non-magical familial origins.
Montgomery wrote the first book about Anne well before the first World War, and in her work, we can see the nostalgia and focus on images afforded those who lived before the two World Wars. Ever present in Montgomery’s novel is Anne’s attachment to nature and her tendency towards flights of fancy. These are identified as both threats and benefits to Anne’s well-being, and that of society’s as well. Anne’s nature provides an agonist for society that relegates her further as a member of the Other, a class she already fit in due to her orphandom.
In Rowling’s novel, Hermione’s tendency to outperform everyone else becomes a source of contention between her and the society she strives to join. As Hermione is Muggleborni, and thus a member of the Other to witches and wizardsii, the Norm of Rowling’s Harry Potter series, her deftness with wizardry further excludes her from the Norm. We see, then, in Rowling’s work, the battle between society and the self that appears as the focus of many works written after the two World Wars.
And though the authors themselves come from different countries and cultural backgrounds, Montgomery being from Canada, and Rowling from England, their cultures are in themselves similar enough to stem from a near-identical literary background. As will be discussed later, their zeitgeists were different, which yields implications regarding orphandom and Otherness that this essay aims, in part, to unfurl.
Anne exhibits the characteristics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century rendition of the orphan. Nina Auerbach notes that, from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century, the orphan changes from being “a rogue with un-roguish dreams of gentility” to, in the 1800s, a “spiritually energized” orphan whose liberation from “a past he still… carries within him” makes him a transformative force (Auerbach 396). From this mystic of sorts, the orphan mutates again to one who is “cast out altogether… this time with no dreams of gentility to shape his… life,” which Auerbach claims leads to the orphan being “more estranged and brutalized than he has ever been” (396).
Anne, who our world encounters in 1908, is a literal orphan; both her parents have died, and she, after being passed from one household to another, lives in an orphanage until she is taken to the Cuthberts (Montgomery 85-89). Anne best fits the role of the second incarnation, the spiritually energized orphan. She is highly imaginative, even to the point of detriment. In episode after episode, Anne struggles to firmly control her fleeting mind. She does, however, through much of her youth, experience the anxiety of an unreachable gentility. She apologizes to her adoptive mother, Marilla, and to those she offends, pleading often that they forgive her for being nothing more than “a poor little orphan girl” with a “dreadful temper” (Montgomery 123). Because her rationality is based more on her passions than the logic of Green Gables’ society, Anne may be identified as a spiritual and emotional orphan.
Still, Anne carries the roguish nature of the orphan which appears a literary generation before her. She defies the perceptions of the Cuthberts, who expected to have adopted a boy rather than a girl (Montgomery 47). In fact, Marilla remarks “as if poisoning wells were a purely feminine accomplishment and not to be dreaded in the case of a boy” that she and her brother Matthew were “not getting a girl,” as if Marilla found raising girls to be a ludicrous and wasteful business (Montgomery 47). The Cuthberts sought to adopt a boy not so that they may have the experience of raising a child, nor because they wanted a child, but because they wished to raise a boy to work in the way they needed him to. They sought a source of labor, not a source of joy.
Additionally, Anne’s personal history carries the lack of family ties afforded the rogues of the preceding orphan incarnation. She is sent from the house of her deceased parents to the Thomas’ house, although “[Mrs. Thomas] was poor and had a drunken husband” (Montgomery 87). From thence she was sent to the Hammonds, who had many children and expected Anne to take care of them; after Mr. Hammond died and none of Mrs. Hammond’s relatives would “take [Anne],” she was sent to an orphanage, where she was unwanted because “they were overcrowded as it was” (Montgomery 87).
By the time Anne reached the Cuthberts, she was eleven years old, and had experienced four different households. She had experienced one household whose rules were enforced with corporal punishment and two in which her value was determined solely by the work she could supply (Montgomery 87). Anne had no sense of family except that which she had read about, no sense of love except that which she had imagined; her only true friendships up to the Cuthberts and, later, Diana, were with imaginary people (Montgomery 106-107). We first see Anne’s strong desire for a family when she pleads with Marilla to keep her, promising that she’ll “try to do and be anything” Marilla wants her to be. This statement embodies the roguish orphan’s ability to become that which was necessary to gain a family.
Because Anne is both a spiritual force and, albeit more innocently, a rogue, she carries the intensity necessary to upset the Avonlea Norm. Anne is, as Auerbach describes, “a dangerously unknown quantity because [she] is a being without precedent or visible sanction” (Auerbach 409-410). She is the Other, interfering with the Norm. Anne is, in her youth, a highly explosive girl. When Mrs. Rachel Lynde comes to visit and offends Anne, the youth retorts angrily, “I hate you,” before demanding respect by inquiring how Mrs. Lynde “would like to have such things said about” her, before adding on such denouncements of Mrs. Lynde’s character as “fat,” “clumsy,” and without imagination (Montgomery 114-115).
There is no sign of remorse in Anne then; only the threat of isolation can make Anne apologize (Montgomery 118). However, societal change has already occurred by the time Anne is threatened with entrapment. In a move twice bold, Marilla states, “You shouldn’t have twitted about [Anne’s] looks, Rachel” (Montgomery 115). Not only does Marilla demand reform from a social authority, but she refers to the authority by her first name, rather than in the formal manner with which even the narrator herself refers to the one who maintained the traditions and social order of Avonlea.iii
It is not solely through outburst and temper that Anne changes Avonlea society. In fact, it is largely through building a community of her own that Anne’s revolution occurs. First, Anne wins the hearts of the Cuthberts. Marilla and Matthew are already anomalies by the time Anne gets to them. Mrs. Lynde, when thinking of the Cuthberts, proclaims them outsiders. They dwell at Green Gables, which Mrs. Lynde remarks is “as far away from his fellow men without actually retreating into the woods” as Mr. Cuthbert – Marilla’s and Matthew’s father – could get. Green Gables is placed so that it is “barely visible from the main road” where “the other Avonlea houses were so sociably situated” (Montgomery 41). Mrs. Lynde thinks that the Cuthberts are “both a little odd,” which she attributes to them living so far from Avonlea society (Montgomery 42).
Being the spokeswoman for Avonlea society, Mrs. Lynde’s description of the Cuthberts would be socially sanctioned, which renders the Cuthberts on the fringe of Norm and Other. However, that Mrs. Lynde so readily speaks to and observes them keeps the Cuthberts tethered to Norm, rather than subjugating them solely to the role of Other. The Cuthberts, and Green Gables, then, are the threshold through which Anne enters Avonlea society, and thus may perform her revolution.
Second, Anne garners a friend in the Norm community. Diana Barry, though her family lives closer to Avonlea than to Green Gables, is almost immediately identified as a member of the fringe-Norm when Matthew states that her name, which Anne finds “perfectly lovely,” has “something dreadful heathenish about it” (Montgomery 62). Diana carries the name of a Roman goddess, whose main attributes are virginity, the hunt, and the moon; Diana, then, carried for both Anne and Matthew a sense of Other. Where Matthew, being a member of the Norm, found anxiety and potential conflict, Anne, as Other, found something with which she could identify. Anne fiercely clings to Diana and the Otherness Diana carries, as exemplified when Anne breaks down after Mrs. Barry forbids Anne and Diana from seeing each other. “My last hope is gone,” Anne proclaims to Marilla, having returned “to Green Gables calm with despair” (Montgomery 189). However, after saving Mrs. Barry’s infant, Anne is alleviated of her despair, and brought nearer to the breast of the Norm. Anne’s love of Diana is not without reciprocation, which strengthens the bond between them and thus the bond between Anne and the Norm.iv
What allows for Anne’s full infiltration of the Norm is the love and mentoring of the replacement teacher, Miss Stacy. Anne finds a role model in Miss Stacy, someone who is smart and malleable and willing to do what is necessary for success. Miss Stacy pushes Anne to shine by putting her in an advanced class, so that Anne may reach her full potential (Montgomery 318-319). Anne’s academics become a vehicle through which Anne earns the love of Avonlea, for her studies allow her to participate in the recitation during which even those foreign to Avonlea were enthralled with the orphan (Montgomery 353-354).
Anne builds for herself, with the Cuthberts, Diana, and Miss Stacy, a new kind of society, a combination of Other and Norm: an Other-Norm. By the end of Anne of Green Gables, no longer are boys held as superior to girls (Montgomery 378), nor is it vital to sacrifice one’s life for the family’s greater good (Montgomery 391). Although Avonlea’s arbiter, Mrs. Lynde, believes that it would be better for Anne to forgo college for the sake of staying with Marilla at Green Gables, “[m]ost of the good folks” of Avonlea believed that Anne’s decision to do so “was foolish” (Montgomery 391). Mrs. Lynde, however, describes best the societal change that has occurred due to Anne’s presence in Avonlea. Marilla Cuthbert, and Avonlea itself, in merging with the community Anne constructed for herself, “got mellow” (Montgomery 393).
The roguish, spiritually energized orphan we see in Anne Shirley is largely absent in the societal orphan we see in Hermione Granger. Whilst there are similarities between Anne and Hermione – a vast knowledge of language, a greatness that lies beneath the surface, a teacher one seeks to impress – there are vast disparities as well. Anne only takes school seriously when she is in competition or wants to garner notoriety. Hermione takes school seriously as soon as she enters it, and there is evidence that she has studied magic beforehand, despite her Muggle upbringing (Rowling 105).
Hermione does not wish to excel in her studies because she is competing with other students in the class; she does so because she cannot stand the notion of being in any way inferior. When she mentions receiving her letter of invitation to Hogwarts, Hermione proudly states that she has heard that Hogwarts is “the very best school of witchcraft there is” (Rowling 105). Additionally, she wishes to get into Gryffindor because “it sounds by far the best;” she could, too, settle for Ravenclaw (Rowling 105). Ravenclaw is the Hogwarts House known for its intelligence, “where those of wit and learning, / will always find their kind;” there is no implied societal expectation of greatness here, unlike Gryffindor, in which “the brave of heart” are set apart for “their daring, nerve, and chivalry” (Rowling 116-117).
Hermione would rather be seen as great than intelligent, although it is obvious that she is of the latter category. Perhaps because she takes her intelligence for granted, Hermione strives for something more than what she is.vOn the website Pottermore, a reader’s liaison with both Rowling’s mind and the Wizarding World that exists within it, we can find key insight into Hermione’s character. On the page dedicated to Hermione Jean Granger, we learn that her wand is comprised of a dragon heartstring core and vine wood.
Rowling offers lore regarding wands, specifically their cores, lengths, and woods. A dragon heartstring core offers the user the most power of the three cores, and ensures that their user is capable of producing the “most flamboyant spells.” They are strongly bonded with their wielders, are the most accident prone cores, and are the easiest to turn to the Dark Arts, though they are not inclined to Dark Arts in themselves (Cores). Wands made from vine wood are a less common type of wand, and their owners are “nearly always those… who seek a greater purpose, who have a vision beyond the ordinary and… frequently astound those who think they know [vine wand wielders] best” (Woods). Hermione, then, has a loyal, powerful, and dangerous core encased in a form dedicated to an extraordinary purpose. And, as may be noted by the wandmaker Ollivander himself, “the wand chooses the wizard” (Rowling 84). The wand, albeit a conduit through which a witch may focus their magic, is a reflection of the user. Hermione, too, is loyal, powerful, and dangerous, and is dedicated to an extraordinary purpose.
Hermione, then, may be identified as Auerbach’s third incarnation of the orphan, the orphan who “embraces [their] own roots by resuming [their] artistry… but [their] art is no longer a siren song exorcizing his culture of its past… it is a device with which to create himself” (Auerbach 416). Hermione knows that she is different from everyone else. She expects and desires to be. She does not share the same anxiety expressed by earlier incarnations of the orphan Other; she revels in it. No longer does the orphan “fear [her] own non-being;” she embraces it (Auerbach 418). However, there is a moment in which Hermione’s strong, self-assured nature seems nullified.
The incident with the troll, in which Hermione is saved by Ron and Harry, ends with Hermione lying to Professor McGonagall about why she was in the bathroom rather than where she was supposed to be, in the House Commons. When the professor asks why Hermione was in the bathroom, Hermione says claims that she went after the troll “because I… thought I could deal with it on my own” (Rowling 177). Having seen Hermione storm off just moments previous “in tears,” Harry and Ron know that her statement is false (Rowling 171). Because Hermione, despite being hurt enough by Ron’s comment that she skips her later class because she is “crying in the girls’ bathroom and wants to be left alone” (Rowling 171) covers for Harry and Ron, and because the chapter ends explaining that “from that moment on, Hermione Granger became their friend,” as if the three hadto become friends because of the episode, it appears that Rowling strips the societal orphan of her agency (178).
An alternate interpretation of the scene remedies this discordance. Considering more information about Ms. Granger gathered from the Pottermore site, her lie could be seen as a means of protecting her image. It is noted that Hermione’s greatest fear was failure, as evidenced when she – later in the Potter series – sees Professor McGonagall, telling Hermione that she had “failed everything” (Things).viThat it is Professor McGonagall who, in Hermione’s vision of her greatest fear, tells Hermione the statement Ms. Granger never wishes to hear implies that Hermione has a great and deep respect for the professor. Professor McGonagall is, too, the professor who asks Hermione why she is in the bathroom. Hermione shows her hubris rather than her hurt to the professor, knowing that pride will get her chastised rather than pitied.
To be pitied is something Hermione, as the “high achiever” she is, cannot stand for (Things). Additionally, because Harry and Ron were present when the professor asked why Hermione was in the bathroom, Hermione, proud in her Otherness, did not wish to show them her emotional state. Hermione, because of the lie she tells, can maintain the pedestal upon which she places herself; she indebts Harry and Ron to her, and thus garners their friendship. Her agency, then, is only solidified by this moment. She chooses how she will be represented in the minds of those around her, and, through her power, is able to construct a community around her.vii
Hermione possesses and fully utilizes the transformative power of the orphan that was but a mere ember earlier in the century, as observed with Anne. Anne ultimately makes a space for herself in the Norm through infiltration. Anne works her way into the hearts of those around her. Her relationships with members of the Norm coalesce into an Other-Norm; with her grace and purity of self, she pulls members of the Norm into her society. Hermione, on the other hand, exudes an atmospheric pressure that Anne does not. If Anne attracts people into her Other-Norm, Hermione molds people into hers. This difference is not due solely a difference of author, but also to a variance of zeitgeist. Anne Shirley, and her author, Montgomery, were born before both of the World Wars.
Neither had experienced yet the sense of a fractured self that Hermione and Rowling had. The community was something to aspire towards for Anne; for Hermione, it was both something to be wary and to revolutionize. And whilst Anne fought against some of the strains women had to encounter in her time, she was able to assume a position with which she was content. Hermione, however, had an entire institution into which she had to blaze a place for herself. It is no coincidence that Hermione was referenced many times as the “brightest witch of her age.”viiiAnne may have earned her position, but Hermione created her own.
The shift from the role of Montgomery’s literal, second incarnation orphan to Rowling’s societal, third incarnation orphan reveals a change in ideas about childhood that has taken place over the last century. No longer is childhood a thing to grow out of; childhood itself has agency. Childhood is, to the Harry Potter generation, revolutionary. Children are agents of good; they are forces of revolutionary change. Children can create their own paths, and forge their own destinies. No longer must they capitulate to societal expectations. They have the freedom to grow and flourish and become what they will. And, unlike Montgomery’s orphan, Rowling’s orphan has an agency regardless of one’s emotional state. Anne’s passion may get her into trouble, but Hermione’s helps her thrive. In her piece on the socialization and education of girls in children’s literature, Gertrud Lehnert points out that, in traditional literature, “talent and ability… were seen as troublesome and embarrassing and as something… to be denied” in young girls. Girls were made to conform to societal norms and expectations (111). Though there is evidence of “feminine autonomy and individuality,” Anne ultimately follows this trend, whereas Hermione openly and consistently defies them (Lehnert 115).
Hermione breaks into the magical world despite her heritage and, rather than fall into the category of “women who will find their place in life by making others happy,” She retains her scholarly atmosphere, heartily dedicating herself not to others, but to herself (Lehnert 112-113). Hermione’s agency is maintained and strengthened by the knowledge she amasses. She is not encumbered by the literature she studies, but, in knowing the most words, becomes the most powerful. Seth Lerer posits that, of the characters from Rowling’s series, Harry is the epitome of the great reader (640).
However, Harry is not the one who commits books to memory, nor who collects sources as if he were a bibliographer. That analogy belongs exclusively to Hermione, who can quote from sources she has read and then cite them. Of the characters from the Harry Potter books, Hermione is the one who comes up with solutions from things she has read. And whilst Harry may sneakily read magical books, Hermione implements what she learns as often as she can, and masters the knowledge gained from her studies. If “the real wizardry of Harry Potterlies in literacy,” then Hermione is a more authentic and talented witch than any other character of the books (Lerer 641). Hermione not only uses her scholarly nature to defy societal expectations; she creates a new standard of wizardly studies, and a new set of expectations regarding Muggleborn students of magic.
Anne, despite her tempestuousness and the fervor with which she threw herself into her studies, could never have reached the level of scholarly voracity Hermione did. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, as a product of its time, revealing the creation of an Other-Norm to be primarily founded by the Norm’s acceptance of the Other, and the changes afforded malleable societies. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, also a product of its time, reveals the creation of a sustainable Other-Norm to be crafted from the obliteration of societal expectations.
The common thread between the two works – the creation of an Other-Norm – also provides insight into the marketability of both series. In the cases of both Anne and Hermione, an orphan finds a home in the society which previously had the means and reason to reject them. Anne could have been (and almost was) sent away, as the Cuthberts wanted a boy to help cultivate the land. Hermione constantly expresses anxiety about the looming threat of expulsion from Hogwarts; Harry, the titular protagonist of the novel, often fears not being good enough a wizard to remain at Hogwarts. However, in both cases, the orphans were accepted by Norm society. That the struggle to find a home was in both cases a significant part of the allure of the novel points to the commodificationof a significant variation of the orphan’s tale: the orphan-finds-a-home story.
Montgomery’s orphan-finds-a-home story befits the zeitgeist of her literary period. In it we witness the growth of a (albeit innocently so) socially antagonistic orphan girl into a socially appropriate and cultured young woman. This transformation does not happen steadily over the course of a novel, however; like the stages of a caterpillar’s growth, Anne’s follows an episodic plot. Almost every one of the early chapters has a different mishap caused by Anne, whether due to her imagination or temper, and ends with Marilla pressuring Anne to face the consequences of her errant behavior.
Towards the later parts of the novel, however, we witness society changing to fit Anne as much as Anne changes to fit society. The catharsis offered by such a union as that which is beheld at the end of the novel is arguably what makes the novel so attractive to audiences even today. Like most works of idealized realism, Montgomery’s holds a nostalgia that Rowling’s post-World Wars novel does not.
Rowling’s rendition of the orphan-finds-a-home tale follows a more progressive plot, culminating in a climax that loomed throughout the novel. And whilst Anne may face the threat of belonging to society, it is a vestige of society itself that threatens the orphans of Rowling’s book. Voldemort, the detrimentally revolutionary force who slaughtered Harry Potter’s parents and, as we learn later in the series, threatened and/or led to the demise of the parents of every orphan in the series. Neville Longbottom’s parents, we learn later in the series, was tortured and killed by Voldemort’s most devout follower. She willingly protects her fellow societal orphans, such as Hagrid, the house-elves, and even someone she previously believed to be a coldblooded murderer (Gallardo-C & Smith 201). Hermione’s parents, being Muggles, were constantly threatened by Voldemort and his Death Eaters.
Hermione defies the pressures of society to found her own community. She “befriends the underdogs at all costs,” helping Neville find his toad and Harry make his way to the dungeon in which he faces Voldemort himself (Gallardo-C. & Smith 201). The coming together of those society excludes, and the overpowering of a monster by a group comprised of Others, is in part what makes her novel so charming and desirable. The orphan-finds-a-home story has blossomed into a successful market venture because it gives every child, regardless of situation, a place to call their own, the promise of a family despite any condition one might fear. After all, what child does not want a place to belong, a home of their own?
Works Cited
“Hermione Granger.” Pottermore, J.K Rowling’s Wizarding World, www.pottermore.com/explore-the-story/hermione-granger.
“Things You May Not Have Noticed about Hermione.” Pottermore, J. K. Rowling's Wizarding World, www.pottermore.com/features/things-you-may-not-have-noticed-about-hermione.
“Wand Cores.” Pottermore, J. K. Rowling's Wizarding World, www.pottermore.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/wand-cores.
“Wand Woods.” Pottermore, J.K Rowling’s Wizarding World, www.pottermore.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/wand-woods.
Auerbach, Nina. “Incarnations of the Orphan.” Elh, vol. 42, no. 3, 1975, pp. 395–419., doi:10.2307/2872711.
Barry, Wendy E., et al. Annotated Anne of Green Gables. Oxford University Press, 1997.
Gallardo-C., Ximena, and C. Jason Smith. “Cinderfella: J. K. Rowling's Wily Web of Gender.” Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays, Praeger, 2003, pp. 191–203.
Lehnert, Gertrud. “The Training of the Shrew: The Socialization and Education of Young Women in Children's Literature.” Poetics Today, vol. 13, no. 1, 1992, p. 109., doi:10.2307/1772792.
Lerer, Seth. “‘Thy Life to Mend, This Book Attend’: Reading and Healing in the Arc of Children's Literature.” New Literary History, vol. 37, no. 3, 2006, pp. 631–642., doi:10.1353/nlh.2006.0047.
Rowling, J. K., and Mary GrandPré. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Pottermore, 2015.
Endnotes
i Muggleborn: Muggles are those in Rowling’s world who are non-magical humans. They cannot perform magic, and, often, neither can their children. In the case of those like Hermione, then, it is assumed that there has been some interbreeding between Muggles and wizards/witches. Since both Hermione’s parents are Muggles, it is understood that she is the children of two whose lines at some point contained a magical-Muggle liaison.
ii Witches and wizards will, for the purposes of this essay, collectively be referred to as magical, in contrast with Muggle, the non-magical.
iii Mrs. Rachel Lynde seems to inspire fear of reproach in even the narrator, who never shortens her title to anything beyond Mrs. Rachel. She is identified by Montgomery as someone “who can manage [her] own concerns and those of other folks,” who “’ran’ the Sewing Circle, helped run the Sunday School, and was the strongest prop of the Church Aid Society and Foreign Missions Auxiliary” (39-40). Avonlea even referred to Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s husband as her husband, rather than referring to her as Mr. Lynde’s wife (Montgomery 40).
iv Both Diana and Anne suffer during their forced separation; they have, after all, promised to each other to remain friends forever (Montgomery 191, 140).
v Ms. Granger has committed various books to memory (Rowling 105, 115). She often cites her sources, too, as if both validating the information she shares and herself.
vi The quote itself is actually from the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I am merely citing the Pottermore page from whence I gathered the quote.
vii It may be noted that Hermione’s sway is so strong that she, even in Sorcerer’s Stone, impresses herself so firmly into Ron Weasley’s mind that he uses the spell she taught him to pronounce correctly in order to knock out the troll. Later in the series, despite his earlier apathy and general displeasure towards Hermione, he realizes that he cannot live without her, and loves her deeply, both as a friend and romantically.
viii Sirius Black, Albus Dumbledore, and various others at some point or another use this moniker to refer to Hermione. It should be noted, too, that Hermione is derived from Hermes, the Greek messenger god “known his sharp wit and ability to transition between worlds. Quite fittingly, Hermione transitions between the Muggle and wizarding worlds, delivers information… and is pretty sharp-witted herself (Things).