anne of abyssal gables
anne of abyssal gables
drawing a comparison between anne of green gables and bsd's lucy maud montgomery – along with daydreaming and escapism
“…the worst of imagining things is that the time comes when you have to stop and that hurts.” — Anne, Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery, 1908.
mild spoilers for both anne of green gables and the bsd manga (no real plot points, only character analysis)
Anne was an orphan mistreated at her orphanage, just like bsd’s Lucy. Anne turned to reading books and losing herself in daydreams to escape her sorrows. Lucy’s escapism is symbolized by ‘Anne’s room,’ a metaphysical place she can choose to enter to escape the physical world.
Anne tried to tune out the voices of hate and dismissal toward her by spending more time with imaginary friends and personifications of places and objects. She also let in people she trusted not to hurt her — like Matthew and Diana. In her imagination, no one could hurt her because she was in control. Nothing in the physical world belonged to her (at least not until later,) so she lived her life where she could choose the rules.
Similarly, Lucy decides who can enter and leave ‘Anne’s room,’ as well as what they can do while inside. No one can hurt her here, while she can harm or trap anyone. It’s a perfect place to escape to when no other in the world feels safe.
‘Anne’s room’ also has a lot of childish decor, which one can presume to be due to its formation during her childhood years. Anne’s (green gables) escapist fantasies began during childhood as well.
However, although ‘Anne’s room’ protects Lucy, she does not understand it fully herself. Lucy can be trapped inside it herself. The room could consume her forever.
This is no different to daydreaming; Anne of green gables also ends up hurting herself and others due to her excessive fantasizing, struggling to understand how to be social. She is empathetic, but sometimes does not see how empathy can mean different things to different people. She gains a sort of tunnel-view of the world due to her primary interactions being with creations of her own mind. Anne read books, but they can only teach you so much about the thoughts of real humans around you.
Your own mind is a wonderful place that can protect you from all that is in this world, but be careless and it could eat you whole. Being someone who daydreams way too much to the point of neglecting the real world, these two characters look almost like mirrors to me.
