Ideals and aspirations

In Anne of Avonlea, ideals and aspirations matter less as plans perfectly fulfilled than as standards that direct effort, conduct, and care. Anne worries that her teaching has fallen short of what she intended, yet Mrs. Allan urges her to keep aiming high; later, Anne’s choices show that ambition can coexist with responsibility, and that a person’s influence may rest in the ideals she lives rather than announces.

High Aims and Imperfect Achievement

At the end of a demanding year of teaching, Mrs. Allan tells Anne Shirley that she has worked hard and succeeded. Anne cannot accept success as the whole account: she feels she has fallen short in many things and has not lived up to her ideals. Their exchange distinguishes having a worthy aim from attaining it without failure. Mrs. Allan invokes Lowell’s maxim that the real fault lies not in failure but in aiming low, and argues that ideals make life larger even when people never quite reach them.

Anne accepts the encouragement, but she also admits that her beautiful set of theories about being a schoolteacher has failed her at one pinch or another. The distinction is important: commitment to ideals does not require treating every early theory as inviolable. Mrs. Allan teases her about her principle against corporal punishment, and Anne blushes. The moment makes the conversation concrete without turning it into a claim that Anne has stopped caring about her principles. Instead, the ideal is shown under pressure, where experience may expose the limits of a theory and force its holder to reckon with the gap between intention and action.

Ideals as Everyday Conduct

The narrative presents Anne’s character as an influence on Gilbert Blythe even before she understands the depth of his regard. As they meet by Dryad’s Bubble, he measures his own conduct against the possibility of being worthy of her friendship and, perhaps someday, her love. Though popular among the young people at White Sands, he is resolved to watch his words, thoughts, and deeds. His aspiration is personal, but it takes ethical form: admiration gives him a reason to choose the kind of person he wants to become.

What he admires is not Anne’s conformity to a romantic ideal of appearance. His imagined ideal woman resembles Anne even down to the seven freckles she dislikes. More decisive to him is her transparent nature and her distance from the petty jealousies, small deceits, rivalries, and bids for favor he sees among some girls in Avonlea. The narration links her influence to the integrity of her behavior: Gilbert’s respect depends on her remaining faithful to the high and pure ideals that shape it. In this relationship, ideals are neither an abstract creed nor a public performance; they are recognizable in the conduct that others trust.

Ambition, Care, and the Possibility of College

Anne’s hopes for education are shaped by obligations at home. She wonders whether she will ever reach college, but Marilla Cuthbert’s impaired eyesight and the care the twins need make the prospect uncertain. Anne does not want to dwell on a possibility that might make her discontented with her present life. Mrs. Allan answers that people make their lives wherever they are: college may make that work easier, but the richness of life depends on what people put into it, not simply what they get out.

Anne responds by naming what already gives her life meaning, including her work, Paul Irving, the twins, and her friends. Her gratitude for friendship leads Mrs. Allan to stress truth and sincerity as necessary standards of genuine friendship. The exchange connects aspiration to present relationships rather than setting them against one another. Anne can value a future education without treating her current life or the people in it as merely obstacles to advancement.

A practical change makes college newly possible. Marilla has saved enough to support one year at Redmond College, and money from the stock can provide another; scholarships might help as well. She proposes inviting Rachel Lynde to live with her so Anne would not have to leave Marilla alone with the twins. Rachel’s circumstances make the offer consequential: the farm is mortgaged, Thomas Lynde’s illness has brought expenses, and Rachel fears having to leave Avonlea to live with Eliza. Marilla’s plan turns Anne’s aspiration into a shared arrangement of care. Anne is astonished by the possibility but leaves the decision about inviting Rachel to Marilla, revealing that pursuing education does not erase her concern for the people whose lives would be affected.

Domestic Standards and the Cost of Inflexibility

James A. Harrison’s account of his marriage to Emily Harrison offers a less harmonious picture of ideals translated into daily rules. Before his marriage, his sister had urged him to marry Emily Scott, who had money of her own and was known as a pattern housekeeper. Harrison says he expected to be fortunate when Emily accepted him. But on their return from their wedding trip, she began cleaning their home at once, working late into the night and rising again at four. He describes housekeeping as an all-consuming pursuit, then recalls how its standards extended to him: he was expected to change his boots for slippers, smoke only in the barn, improve his grammar, and stop eating with his knife.

Harrison does not present himself as blameless. He admits that he was cantankerous, resisted improving, and answered Emily’s criticism with crankiness. Their conflict suggests the difference between an aspiration for order and an inflexible effort to remake another person. The disagreement worsened over Ginger, the parrot Harrison cherished because his sailor brother had sent it to him while dying. Emily disliked the bird’s profane repetitions and tried to stop them; Harrison considered the parrot’s lack of understanding a reason for allowance. He says that the more she tried to correct Ginger, the worse the bird became, just as his own habits worsened under her criticism. The episode presents domestic ideals as consequential but not automatically wise: standards imposed without accommodation can become part of the quarrel they are meant to resolve.

Education as a Larger Purpose

When Anne finally says she is going to Redmond College, she is glad in mind and sorry in heart. Her aim has also changed. She may try for honors, but they matter less to her than learning how to live well, make the most of life, and understand and help other people as well as herself. James A. Harrison approves this purpose, arguing that college should not simply produce graduates crowded with book learning and vanity.

This ending gathers the book’s different treatments of aspiration. Anne’s education is not merely a prize to win, and her ideals are not a demand for flawless performance. They give direction to teaching, friendship, self-discipline, and care; experience tests particular theories, while the underlying commitment to high aims remains. The aspiration that survives is practical and relational: learning matters insofar as it helps Anne live more fully and become more capable of understanding and helping others.