Philippa Gordon

Philippa Gordon, usually called Phil, enters Anne Shirley and Priscilla Grant’s Redmond life as a vivid stranger in a cemetery and becomes both their close friend and the social link that eases their arrival at college. Her beauty, wealth, and playful manner make her widely admired, but the novel’s portrait does not leave her at the level of a charming coquette: beneath her joking self-presentation are loyalty to her friends and a growing ability to choose her own future. Her courtship of Jonas Blake gives that change its clearest form, as a young woman who once cannot choose a hat comes to stand firm in a consequential choice of marriage.

Identity and First Impressions

Anne Shirley and Priscilla first notice Philippa at Redmond, then approach her in a graveyard, where she has repeatedly started up an avenue and turned back. Their first view is shaped by her appearance: brown, satin-smooth hair, large velvety eyes, a crooked rose-red mouth, and a fashionable brown suit and pink hat trimmed with golden-brown poppies. Philippa’s clothes are so stylish that Priscilla feels the contrast with her village-trimmed hat, while Anne worries that her own handmade blouse looks countrified. Their momentary self-consciousness gives way when Philippa rises with an outstretched hand and a lively, friendly smile.

Her polished appearance contrasts with a guileless, almost disarming conversational style. Philippa says she was born in Bolingbroke and treats that fact as a reason that telling Anne secrets will feel less like confiding in a stranger. She describes herself as unable to keep a secret and prone to indecision, then recounts how she spent half an hour choosing between two hats for a visit to a graveyard. Unable to settle the matter by preference, she laid them side by side, shut her eyes, and let a hatpin decide. She asks Anne directly what she thinks of her looks; Anne answers that Philippa was the prettiest girl she saw at Redmond. The exchange establishes a character who is at once self-conscious about appearance and frank enough to make that concern funny.

Friendship and Place at Redmond

Philippa is the daughter of a rich, well-known man and belongs to an old, exclusive family. Her beauty and charm quickly open Redmond’s cliques, clubs, and social circles to her. She brings Anne and Priscilla into those circles, making their first college year socially easier than it is for other freshmen without a similarly influential friend. The narrative stresses that Philippa’s access does not become snobbery: she is loyal to Anne and Priscilla, especially Anne, and acts as though affection for her includes acceptance of her friends. The result is a striking contrast between her privileged position and her generous use of it.

To Anne and Priscilla, whose views of life are more serious, Philippa remains an amusing and lovable companion, though they recognize that she has substantial intelligence. She seems perpetually in demand for fun, receives callers at home, and attracts admirers from her own and other classes. She relishes telling Anne and Priscilla about each new conquest, sometimes with comments that would embarrass the young men concerned. This comic delight in attention is part of her social performance, but it does not exhaust her character: her easy enjoyment of flirtation later coexists with a serious attachment she herself did not expect.

Their friendship also takes domestic form. When Anne announces that she and Priscilla have rented Patty’s Place for the next winter, with Stella Maynard coming and Aunt Jamesina keeping house, Philippa immediately begs to join them. She offers to sleep in the little doghouse in the orchard if there is no room. By the time the household has been established for three weeks, Philippa calls Patty’s Place homier than home. At twilight, she shares its living room with Anne, Priscilla, Stella, Aunt Jamesina, Rusty, Joseph, and The Sarah-cat; firelight, purring cats, and a bowl of chrysanthemums sent by one of Philippa’s admirers mark the warmth of the shared setting. The house gives her friendship with Anne and the others a daily, domestic closeness beyond the college social world.

Courtship and a Change in Self-Understanding

Philippa’s attachment to Jonas Blake develops through companionship rather than the sort of polished romantic ideal she might once have expected. She and Jonas become close friends; both are Redmond graduates, and they fish, boat, and walk together on the sands by moonlight. Philippa describes him as physically ungainly, with a large, loose-jointed frame, long legs, lank hair, green eyes, and a large mouth, yet praises his voice, soul, and disposition. In her account, his kindness seems to radiate from him, and moonlight makes his homeliness less important to her. Her description joins teasing candor to genuine affection: she can see what is conventionally unattractive and still find him lovable.

Others disapprove of Jonas because he laughs and jokes and appears to prefer Philippa’s company to theirs. Philippa, in turn, becomes uneasy that he may think her frivolous. She wonders why his opinion should matter, even while showing that it does. When Jonas preaches in the village church, she finds the idea of him as a minister almost too incongruous to take seriously. The tension between her public identity as a playful social favorite and her wish to be understood by Jonas reveals a more vulnerable concern: she wants him to see more than the entertaining surface she habitually presents.

Philippa’s engagement marks a sharp turn from her earlier indecision. While walking among the pines with Anne, she confesses that she is the happiest girl in the world. Anne understands that Jonas has asked her to marry him. Philippa says she sneezed three times during the proposal, but accepted almost before he had finished because she feared he might change his mind. Her excitement is mixed with astonishment that Jonas could love someone she had thought frivolous, and that she could fall in love with a man she once would not have considered handsome.

Anne tells Philippa that frivolity is an exterior rather than the substance of her character, recognizing a loyal and womanly nature beneath it. Philippa agrees that Jonas knows and loves the real person beneath that surface, while also accepting that her playful manner is part of her. She says she had previously imagined marrying other admirers, but at Christmas told them she could not marry them. In retrospect, those possibilities seem remote: she now believes there is only one man she can marry. Most significantly, she says that she has made up her own mind and is glad that her certainty belongs to her rather than to someone else. The contrast with her hatpin decision turns a comic habit into a measure of change: in love, she no longer leaves the choice to chance.

Family Opposition and Narrative Significance

Philippa’s decision meets resistance at home. She reports that her mother reacted furiously, while her father was calmer because his own father had been a minister and he therefore had sympathy for the clergy. After her mother had grown calmer, Philippa brought Jonas to Mount Holly, where both parents came to love him. Her mother nevertheless continued to hint in conversation that she had hoped for a different future for her daughter. Philippa acknowledges that the path through her vacation was not easy, but insists that she has prevailed and has Jonas; she treats that outcome as more important than the obstacles.

When Aunt Jamesina expresses pity for Jonas, Philippa rejects the implication that he is the one making a sacrifice. She jokes that he is to be envied because he is gaining her brains, beauty, and heart. The retort is playful, but it also completes the pattern that defines her: she uses humor without surrendering conviction. Philippa’s arc is not a rejection of her lively, flirtatious self; it is the discovery that this manner need not prevent loyalty, self-knowledge, or seriousness. Through her, the story sets outward frivolity against inward constancy and makes choosing a partner an act of personal judgment rather than social display. Her affectionate friendship with Anne and her eventual steadiness with Jonas show the same quality in different forms: Philippa is generous with those she loves, and, once she knows what she wants, capable of holding fast to it.