Parrots That Mimic Sailors

Parrots That Mimic Sailors is embodied in Ginger, the parrot kept by J. A. Harrison. The bird is the first parrot anyone in Avonlea has kept, making his presence seem barely respectable to the community. His notoriety rests not only on being unusual: he swears, bites, and resists attempts to change his habits. Yet to J. A. Harrison he is valuable company, and the man’s attachment to him outweighs the objections of his neighbors.

Arrival and Reputation

Ginger stands out in Avonlea both as an unfamiliar kind of pet and as a source of scandal. People hear that he swears terribly, and the bird’s behavior has a physical consequence: when John Henry Carter stoops too close to the cage, Ginger bites a piece out of the back of his neck. The mark remains visible when John Henry goes home on Sundays, turning the incident into a story others can see for themselves.

The bird’s speech is explained through imitation rather than treated as a peculiarity without cause. When Anne Shirley arrives to confess that she has sold J. A. Harrison’s Jersey cow without his knowledge or consent, he glances furiously at Ginger and explains that his brother, a sailor, gave him the bird. Sailors do not always use choice language, he says, and parrots imitate what they hear. Ginger’s offending vocabulary thus carries a trace of the human world from which he came.

Temperament and the Limits of Training

Ginger’s name, chosen by J. A. Harrison’s sailor brother, seems ill-suited to the bird’s gorgeous plumage. J. A. Harrison speculates that it may instead refer to Ginger’s temper. The name captures the contrast between the bird’s green-and-gold appearance and the difficult disposition behind it.

That disposition proves resistant to correction. J. A. Harrison says he has tried to break Ginger of swearing, as have other people, but the habit persists. Some people object to the bird’s language; others are prejudiced against parrots altogether. The text presents Ginger’s imitativeness as both the source of his notoriety and a limit on how far his keeper can shape him.

J. A. Harrison’s Attachment

J. A. Harrison acknowledges that Ginger has cost him considerably in various ways, but insists that nothing would induce him to give the bird up. Ginger is a lot of company to him, a significance that becomes especially clear when J. A. Harrison brings the bird back because, he says, it would be lonely. His concern for Ginger’s companionship mirrors the role the bird plays in his own life.

Anne offers Ginger a walnut, ready to forgive everyone and everything, but the bird rejects the overture. He sits moodily on his perch and ruffles his feathers until he looks like a ball of green and gold. The refusal makes him more than a prop for J. A. Harrison’s eccentricity: Ginger has a temperament that does not instantly yield to friendliness. By the end of the meal, Anne and J. A. Harrison have become friends, and J. A. Harrison approves of the Improvement Society. Ginger remains a vivid presence in that encounter—unruly, difficult to reform, and cherished all the same.