Ginger

Ginger, the parrot kept by James A. Harrison, is both a comic disruption and the focus of a serious domestic conflict. His swearing and stubbornly independent behavior provoke neighbors and visitors, but his deeper importance comes from his place in James’s life: he was sent by James’s dying brother, and James will not give him up. That attachment contributes to the Harrisons’ separation, while Ginger’s eventual death removes the obstacle around which their estrangement had hardened.

Identity and Reputation

Ginger is an unusual presence in Avonlea, where no one else has kept a parrot. The novelty of the bird is enough to make his keeping seem barely respectable to some neighbors; his vocabulary makes the reputation worse. John Henry Carter’s account presents Ginger as a dangerous nuisance as well as a noisy one: when John Henry bent too close to the cage, Ginger bit a piece from the back of his neck. Mrs. Carter showed the mark when her son came home on Sundays.

The bird’s swearing is repeatedly treated as his defining fault. James acknowledges that people object to it and that he and others have tried, without success, to break the habit. Yet he distinguishes Ginger’s mimicry from deliberate human profanity: the parrot repeats what it has heard without understanding it. The distinction does not quiet community disapproval, but it explains why James considers Ginger’s speech a forgivable failing rather than a reason to part with him.

Ginger’s name, like his language, carries a possible joke about temperament. Anne Shirley considers the name a poor match for the bird’s gorgeous green-and-gold plumage. James explains that his sailor brother named him and suggests that the name may have referred to Ginger’s temper, though he does not claim certainty. The bird’s brilliant appearance and disagreeable habits thus sit side by side from the first: he is striking to look at, but no tame ornament.

James A. Harrison’s Attachment

James’s defense of Ginger is rooted in family memory, not simply amusement or habit. His brother, whom James had loved since they were small, sent the parrot to him while dying. James keeps Ginger in remembrance of that bond. Although the bird has cost him a good deal and has faults that he openly recognizes, he insists that nothing could induce him to give Ginger up. The strength of this attachment explains why what others regard as a practical household problem becomes, to James, a demand that he betray a cherished connection.

Ginger also provides James with companionship. When Anne visits, James says that the parrot is a great deal of company to him. After returning Ginger, he explains that he brought him back because the bird would be lonely. The bird’s moods are presented as legible to his keeper: after Anne offers him a walnut as a gesture of reconciliation, Ginger rejects it, sits moodily on his perch, and ruffles himself into a green-and-gold ball. James’s care for him is visible in the decision to bring him home, even when Ginger remains unwilling to make peace with Anne.

Domestic Conflict and Public Disturbance

Ginger’s habits become a flashpoint in James’s marriage to Emily Harrison. Emily dislikes parrots and cannot tolerate Ginger’s profanity; James, attached to the bird through his brother, refuses to see the speech as a sufficient reason to give him up. Their disagreement takes place amid wider friction over the household: Emily’s cleaning, her efforts to change James’s manners, and his resistance to her corrections have already made their life together contentious. The parrot is not the only source of conflict, but he becomes the point on which their incompatible expectations finally break.

The decisive incident occurs when Emily invites two ministers and their wives to tea. James has promised to put Ginger somewhere safe so that the visitors will not hear him, but the promise slips his mind. During grace, Ginger is outside the dining-room window on the veranda; seeing a gobbler in the yard, a sight that has an especially bad effect on him, he launches into an unusually emphatic outburst. James carries him to the barn, mortified by the scene and concerned that the ministers may think the parrot learned his vocabulary from him. Afterwards, he considers Emily’s feelings and decides Ginger will have to be disposed of—but by then Emily has already left a letter saying she will stay away until James gets rid of the bird.

James refuses the demand in anger, packs Emily’s belongings, and sends them after her. The couple’s separation follows, and James moves to Prince Edward Island, partly out of contrariness because Emily had said she would not live there. Ginger is therefore both a beloved companion and the center of a dispute whose consequences extend far beyond his cage. His presence gives an intimate, concrete form to the couple’s inability to accommodate one another.

Encounters and Ending

Ginger’s behavior continues to reach beyond the marriage. When Anne first comes to James’s house, the parrot peers through the bars of his cage and insults her as a redheaded stranger. The remark embarrasses both Anne and James, making the bird’s unruliness an immediate feature of their acquaintance. On a later visit, James has brought Ginger back because he fears the parrot will be lonely, but Anne’s offered walnut is rejected. Their exchange shows that Ginger is not merely an anecdote James tells: his moods and actions remain part of the household’s present life.

Davy also provokes Ginger. James tells Anne that the child pulled six feathers from the parrot’s tail before James could come in from the barn, leaving Ginger moping ever since. Anne, who has been coping with Davy’s mischief, privately resolves to forgive his next offense because, in this instance, he has avenged her on the bird. The episode gives Ginger a small but distinctive part in Anne’s relations with both men: his misbehavior embarrasses her, while his injury becomes comic grounds for solidarity with Davy.

By the time James explains the Harrisons’ history to Anne, Ginger is dead. Emily has returned to James’s home, where she has begun cleaning and prepared a proper dinner; the couple resumes their life together. Ginger’s death is not described as a scene, and the account does not specify when or how it happened. Its consequence is nevertheless clear: the parrot who had stood between the spouses can no longer reignite their old quarrel. Ginger remains a comic figure in the recollections of others, but his absence marks the changed circumstances that let James and Emily reconcile.