La Trobe

Anne of Green Gables: the transformation from Bildungsroman to romantic comedy

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posted on 2025-06-30, 04:56 authored by LaurenBeth Signore
Anne of Green Gables tells a story of an adolescent and her gradual maturation into a young woman. In effect, Montgomery writes a Bildungsroman: a novel of maturation. Montgomery's Anne develops into a young woman who identifies with not only Matthew and Marilla, but also with all the other kindred spirits of Avonlea. As the novel progresses, Anne becomes part of the very same community that at one time did not want to embrace a little orphan girl. In Kevin Sullivan's Anne of Green Gables, a 1985 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBS) miniseries, the focus is not strictly on the formation of Anne from girl to young woman, but rather Anne's overly romantic notions on her vision of love. Sullivan's commentary adaptation exaggerates the roles of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poetic works and Gilbert Blythe's role of suitor to fulfill Anne's desire to have romance in her life. As a result, Montgomery's story of Anne as a Bildungsroman transforms to the screen as Sullivan's romantic comedy.

History

Journal

The Looking Glass : New Perspectives on Children's Literature

ISSN

1551-5680

Volume

11

Issue

2

Publisher

La Trobe University

Section Title

Emerging Voices

Author Biography

LaurenBeth Signore is a graduate student in the Children's Literature program at Hollins University. Her scholarly interests in children's literature include the portrayal of war and oppression specifically within the context of the Holocaust. She also enjoys reading and studying Arthurian influenced young adult literature. Ms. Signore resides in Washington, D.C. and is a seventh grade English teacher at Forest Oak Middle School in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Date Created

2007-12-04

Rights Statement

Essays and articles published in The Looking Glass may be reproduced for non-profit use by any educational or public institution; letters to the editor and on-site comments made by our readers may not be used without the expressed permission of that individual. Any commercial use of this journal, in whole or in part, by any means, is prohibited. Authors of accepted articles assign to The Looking Glass the right to publish and distribute their text electronically and to archive and make it permanently available electronically. They retain the copyright and, 90 days after initial publication, may republish it in any form they wish as long as The Looking Glass is acknowledged as the original source.

Data source

OJS data migration 2025: https://ojs.latrobe.edu.au/ojs/index.php/tlg/article/view/17

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