St. Clair Donnell

St. Clair Donnell is a schoolboy in Avonlea and the son of Mrs. H. B. Donnell. His appearances are brief, but they establish a distinctive contrast: his mother insists on his formal, saintly-sounding name and imagines a university career for him, while he favors a more ordinary name among his classmates and hopes to become a carpenter. At school, he is also characterized by concise, practical writing that Anne Shirley regards as lacking tact and imagination.

Identity and First Appearance

Anne Shirley first notices a cheerful-looking boy sitting with Arty Sloane. He has a freckled face and a snub nose, and Anne suspects that he is the Donnell boy. Later references to Mrs. H. B. Donnell’s son identify him as St. Clair. His introduction places him among the newcomers whose possibilities Anne finds intriguing, though his own schoolwork will prove more matter-of-fact than imaginative.

Name and Family Expectations

Mrs. H. B. Donnell insists that Anne use the name St. Clair. The boy initially does not respond when Anne calls him that, because he is accustomed to being called Jake by the other boys. Anne keeps him after school and explains that his mother wants her to use his formal name. Once he understands, he agrees that Anne may call him St. Clair, while maintaining that the other boys should call him Jake. Anne accepts this arrangement, and the difference in names becomes a practical compromise between his mother’s preference and the familiar usage among his peers. She also rebukes him for threatening language as he explains the boundary.

The disagreement over his name anticipates a larger difference between mother and son about his future. St. Clair says he intends to become a carpenter, whereas Mrs. H. B. Donnell wants Anne to make a college professor of him. The contrast gives his brief characterization a clear point of tension: the adult ambition imposed on him does not match the trade he has chosen for himself.

Schoolwork and Characterization

In a composition about something strange he has seen, St. Clair describes Avonlea Hall through a compact inventory: it has two doors, six windows, a chimney, two ends, and two sides, and it is painted blue. He adds that it stands on the lower Carmody road, ranks third among Avonlea’s important buildings after the church and blacksmith shop, and hosts debates, lectures, and concerts. The account favors observable details and civic uses over imaginative elaboration.

Anne calls his composition, as usual, short and to the point. She does not believe that he chose the subject or added its postscript with deliberate malice; rather, she judges that he has little tact or imagination. His writing thus serves as a small, comic counterpoint to Anne’s imaginative outlook, while his stated ambition to become a carpenter further marks him as a child with concrete preferences of his own.