Anne Shirley’s departure from Avonlea for Redmond is both the beginning of the college life she has wanted for three years and a wrenching leave-taking from the home that shaped her. A Monday journey in persistent rain carries her from Green Gables to Kingsport, where the promise of study does not immediately overcome homesickness. The departure opens a longer passage through estrangement, adaptation, academic ambition, and the changing ties that connect Anne’s old home to her new life.

The Farewell at Green Gables

Anne had hoped for fine weather because Diana Barry was to drive her to the station, making their last journey together for some time. Instead, she woke to rain and a landscape obscured by mist. The weather sharpens her sense that leaving is not simply a temporary trip: she expects Green Gables to remain a refuge for holidays, but knows that returning for vacations will not restore the life she is leaving. The familiar places she recalls—the little white porch room, the Snow Queen at the window, the brook, Dryad’s Bubble, the Haunted Woods, and Lover’s Lane—are bound to memories of girlhood that she cannot carry forward unchanged.

The strain reaches the breakfast table. Davy Keith cries over his porridge and cannot eat; his sister Dora Keith remains composed enough to eat the portion he leaves. When Diana arrives with horse and buggy, the household’s farewells take different forms. Rachel Lynde embraces Anne and urges her to look after her health. Marilla Cuthbert gives her a brief kiss and says they will hear from her once she is settled, appearing brusque and tearless except for the feeling visible in her eyes. Dora offers a prim kiss and two restrained tears. Davy, who has been crying on the back-porch step, runs upstairs and hides in a clothes closet rather than say goodbye. His muffled cries are the last sounds Anne hears as she leaves Green Gables.

The Journey to Kingsport

Anne travels with Charlie Sloane and Gilbert Blythe. Because the branch-line train from Carmody does not connect with the boat train, they must reach the station at Bright River. Rain falls throughout the drive. On the platform, with the train already whistling, Anne has only time to secure her ticket and trunk check, say a hurried goodbye to Diana, and board. She wishes she were going back to Avonlea and expects to be overcome by homesickness. Even Gilbert’s presence offers little comfort in the rain, with Charlie there as well.

The passage by water brings a small change in the journey’s mood. As the boat leaves Charlottetown harbor, the rain stops and sunlight breaks through the clouds over the sea and the Island’s red shores. Charlie becomes seasick and goes below, leaving Anne and Gilbert together on deck. The clearing weather does not erase Anne’s sadness, but it interrupts the day’s unrelieved gloom as she travels farther from home.

The train reaches Kingsport at nine that night. In the crowded station’s blue-white glare, Anne feels bewildered until Priscilla Grant, who has arrived ahead of her, finds her. The reunion gives Anne a familiar companion at the end of a tiring journey, but it does not instantly make the unfamiliar city feel like home.

From Disorientation to Belonging

At Redmond, Anne and Priscilla initially feel lost in a much larger community than the one they have left. Anne describes the registration crowd as making her feel insignificant, as if she were invisible and might be stepped on. Priscilla, by contrast, feels conspicuously tall and awkward. Their comparison makes clear that the difficulty is not merely entering college: they had known everyone at Queen’s University and expected, without quite realizing it, to take up their lives at Redmond where they had left off. Instead, they must find their place again.

For the next three weeks, they continue to feel like strangers. Then college life begins to cohere. Redmond’s classes, professors, students, societies, and social activities cease to seem like disconnected fragments, and the Freshmen become a class with shared interests, rivalries, and ambitions. Their victory over the Sophomores in the annual Arts Rush gives them the confidence and collective identity that Anne and Priscilla lacked on arrival. Gilbert Blythe’s strategic leadership in the contest earns him the Freshman class presidency and an invitation to join Lamba Theta, while the victory itself helps Anne’s new surroundings become more legible and familiar.

The Education’s Costs and Rewards

Anne’s first college year turns the departure into a sustained effort to make higher education possible. She studies with the specific aim of winning the Thorburn Scholarship in English, because the award would allow her to return to Redmond without drawing on Marilla’s limited savings. The scholarship makes the promise of the journey concrete: Anne can continue her education through her own achievement rather than treating her guardian’s money as an open-ended resource.

That security remains precarious. During a later winter at Green Gables, Anne wonders whether she can afford another year at Redmond. The scholarship available in her Sophomore year is small, she will not take Marilla’s money, and she sees little prospect of earning enough during the summer. She considers returning to district-school teaching until she can save what she needs, even though that could separate her from her class and end the shared life at Patty’s Place. Her resolve to earn her way through shows that the opportunity opened by leaving Avonlea depends on continuing financial effort, not on a single successful departure.

Anne does return to Redmond with the Thorburn Scholarship, and the college years culminate in further academic distinction: at Convocation she takes High Honors in English, while Priscilla Grant earns Honors in Classics and Phil Gordon in Mathematics. The original journey thus leads not to an uncomplicated escape from home, but to an education pursued through friendship, competition, scholarship, and periods of doubt.

A Beginning, Not a Simple Escape

The departure’s meaning changes as Anne’s life continues. She returns to Avonlea after her first year to find that the familiar community has changed: a new minister occupies the pulpit, several familiar faces are gone, and Billy Andrews has married Nettie Blewett. Later, at Diana Barry’s wedding, Anne feels the loss of the constant companionship they shared as girls. These returns make the separation from home part of a broader experience of time passing; neither Anne nor Avonlea can remain as she remembers them.

Redmond also becomes the setting in which Anne’s attachments and ambitions develop, but the move does not settle every question of her future. Much later, Gilbert’s serious illness forces her to recognize that she has loved him all along, while his recovery allows their relationship to begin again on new terms. Anne accepts that she and Gilbert must wait three years for him to complete his medical course, and looks forward to working and dreaming together. The college departure therefore marks a decisive transition, not a severance: Anne leaves the home of her childhood, but the relationships formed there continue to shape the life she builds beyond it.