Anne's despair

Anne Shirley's despair is not a passing mood but a defining emotional rhythm in her life at Green Gables, a state she names and returns to whenever the world fails to meet the soaring expectations of her imagination. It is the shadow side of her intense capacity for delight, and the narrative tracks its onset, its expression, and its gradual transformation as Anne grows from a neglected orphan into a beloved daughter and friend.

The Language and Experience of Despair

Anne has a precise vocabulary for her suffering. She speaks of being "in the depths of despair" , a phrase she uses with theatrical gravity but genuine feeling. When Marilla asks if she can eat while in such a state, Anne explains that a lump rises in her throat and prevents swallowing, even something as desirable as a chocolate caramel . This physical manifestation of grief is real to her. She describes her life as "a perfect graveyard of buried hopes," a sentence she read in a book and recites to comfort herself when disappointed . For Anne, the romance of the phrase itself provides a strange solace, allowing her to feel like a heroine in a story even in her misery. Her despair is often accompanied by dramatic physical collapse: she flings herself face downward on her bed, crying bitterly , or sits with her face swollen and tear-stained . When she believes she has lost Diana's friendship forever, she tells Marilla, "My heart is broken. The stars in their courses fight against me" , and later declares, "My last hope is gone" .

The Roots of Despair: Rejection and Loss

Anne's deepest despair is rooted in the primal fear of being unwanted, a wound carried from her earliest years. She was born to parents who died when she was an infant, leaving her an orphan whom "nobody wanted" . She was passed from the Thomas household, where she helped care for four younger children after Mr. Thomas was killed, to the Hammond household, where she looked after eight children, including three sets of twins . When Mrs. Hammond broke up housekeeping, Anne was sent to the Hopeton asylum because "nobody would take me" . This history of rejection makes her first night at Green Gables a crisis of despair. When she realizes that Matthew and Marilla expected a boy, she cries out, "You don't want me because I'm not a boy! I might have expected it. Nobody ever did want me" . She then proceeds to cry stormily, burying her face in her arms on the table . Later, alone in the east gable, she cries herself to sleep . The pattern repeats when she is forbidden from playing with Diana after the currant wine incident. She tells Marilla, "My heart is broken" , and goes to Mrs. Barry's house to plead, only to be turned away. She returns "calm with despair" .

Despair as a Response to Failure and Humiliation

Anne's despair also flares in response to her own perceived failures and public humiliations. When she dyes her hair green, she is plunged into "the depths of despair" , hiding her face in her pillows and refusing to be seen. She tells Marilla, "My career is closed" . The shame is so acute that she cannot face Josie Pye, declaring herself "the unhappiest girl in Prince Edward Island" . Similarly, when she is forced to sit with Gilbert Blythe as a punishment, she feels it is "the end of all things" , her whole being seething with shame and anger. The despair is not always about external rejection; it is often about the gap between her ideal self and her real, mistake-prone self. After the liniment cake incident, she weeps on her bed, feeling "disgraced forever" . Yet even in these moments, Anne's resilience is evident. She tells Marilla, "I never make the same mistake twice" , and finds comfort in the thought that there must be a limit to the number of mistakes one person can make .

The Transformation of Despair

Over time, Anne's despair loses its power to overwhelm her entirely. The secure love of Matthew and Marilla provides a counterweight. After Marilla tells Anne she can stay at Green Gables, Anne's despair dissolves into joy, and she says, "I'm so happy. I'll try to be so good" . The relationship with Marilla deepens to the point where, after Matthew's death, Anne can say, "It's our sorrow—yours and mine" , and Marilla confesses, "I love you as dear as if you were my own flesh and blood" . This bond transforms the nature of Anne's despair from a lonely, isolating experience into a shared grief that strengthens rather than breaks her. When she decides to give up the Avery scholarship to stay home and care for Marilla, she does so not with despair but with a sense of purpose, saying, "There is a bend in the road. I don't know what lies around the bend, but I'm going to believe that the best does" . The despair that once threatened to consume her has become a part of a larger, more resilient emotional landscape, one that includes the joy of sincere work, worthy aspiration, and the love she has finally found.