The flat (boat)

The flat (boat) is a small, flat-bottomed dory kept by Mr. Barry for duck shooting on the pond below Orchard Slope. It is a simple, utilitarian craft, but it becomes the stage for one of the most dramatic and symbolically charged episodes in Anne Shirley's early life at Green Gables. The boat's material fragility—its vulnerability to a hidden stake and its tendency to leak—directly precipitates a crisis that reshapes Anne's relationship with Gilbert Blythe and forces her to confront the limits of romantic imagination in the practical world of Avonlea.

Appearance and Use

The flat is described as a "little flat-bottomed dory" that Anne and Diana Barry learn to row themselves about the pond. It is kept at a small wooden platform built out into the water at the tip of a headland fringed with birches, a spot convenient for fishermen and duck hunters. The girls use it for pleasure, fishing for trout over the bridge and drifting down the current for fun. They discover that if the flat is pushed off from the landing place, it will drift down with the current under the bridge and finally strand itself on another headland lower down. This discovery makes the boat the perfect vehicle for their dramatic games.

The Elaine Incident

Anne's plan to dramatize Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott" transforms the flat from a fishing boat into a symbolic barge. The girls prepare the vessel by spreading a black shawl—Diana's mother's—over it as the "pall of blackest samite." Anne lies down on the bottom with closed eyes and hands folded over her breast, while Jane Andrews places an old piano scarf of yellow Japanese crepe over her as a "cloth of gold" coverlet and a tall blue iris in her folded hands as a substitute for the white lily. The flat is pushed off, scraping roughly over an old embedded stake in the process. For a few minutes Anne enjoys the romance of her situation fully, drifting slowly down the pond. Then the boat begins to leak. The sharp stake at the landing has torn off the strip of batting nailed to the flat's bottom, and water pours through a big crack. Anne realizes she is in a dangerous plight: the flat will fill and sink long before it can drift to the lower headland, and the oars have been left behind at the landing.

Crisis and Rescue

With the water rising in the flat every moment, Anne prays earnestly while keeping her eyes open, knowing the only way God could save her was to let the flat float close enough to one of the bridge piles for her to climb up on it. The flat bumps right into a pile for a minute, and Anne scrambles up on a providential stub, flinging the scarf and shawl over her shoulder. The flat drifts under the bridge and promptly sinks in midstream. Ruby Gillis, Jane Andrews, and Diana, already awaiting it on the lower headland, see it disappear and believe Anne has gone down with it. They run frantically for help. Anne clings to the slippery old pile, her position uncomfortable and her imagination beginning to suggest gruesome possibilities. Then Gilbert Blythe comes rowing under the bridge in Harmon Andrews's dory. He pulls close to the pile, extends his hand, and Anne, clinging to his hand, scrambles down into his boat. She sits in the stern, drabbled and furious, with her arms full of dripping shawl and wet crepe, finding it extremely difficult to be dignified under the circumstances.

Consequences and Significance

The flat is lost—it sinks to the bottom of the pond—and Anne's presentiment proves correct: she and Diana are not allowed to row on the pond any more. But the incident's deeper consequence is relational. After Gilbert rows her to the landing, he detains her and asks if they can be good friends, apologizing again for his old insult. Anne hesitates, feeling an odd, newly awakened consciousness that the half-shy, half-eager expression in Gilbert's hazel eyes is something very good to see. Her heart gives a quick, queer little beat. But the bitterness of her old grievance stiffens her wavering determination, and she coldly refuses, declaring she will never be friends with him. Yet she is conscious of an odd feeling of regret and almost wishes she had answered differently. The flat, by failing as a vessel, succeeds as a catalyst: its sinking forces Anne into a situation where she must accept help from the boy she has sworn to hate, and that acceptance begins the slow, unacknowledged thaw of her resentment. Anne later reflects that the mistake has cured her of being too romantic, concluding that it is no use trying to be romantic in Avonlea. Matthew, however, whispers to her not to give up all her romance, keeping a little of it.