Anne's red hair

Anne Shirley's red hair is one of the most persistent and emotionally charged features of her identity in Anne of Green Gables, functioning as a visible symbol of her perceived otherness, a source of profound personal anguish, and a catalyst for some of the novel's most dramatic and revealing episodes. From the moment of her arrival at Bright River station, where her "decidedly red hair" is noted by the narrator, to her final years at Green Gables, where it has darkened to a "handsome auburn," Anne's hair is a constant thread in her story, inextricably linked to her feelings of worth, her temper, and her gradual journey toward self-acceptance.

The Mark of Otherness and a Lifelong Sorrow

Anne's red hair is established almost immediately as her chief grievance against her own appearance. When she first meets Matthew Cuthbert, she twitches one of her long glossy braids over her shoulder and asks him what color he would call it. Matthew's hesitant answer—"It's red, ain't it?"—prompts a sigh from Anne that seems to exhale "all the sorrows of the ages." She explains that while she can imagine away her freckles, green eyes, and skinniness, she "CANNOT imagine that red hair away," declaring it "my lifelong sorrow." This sense of red hair as an unalterable curse is reinforced by her memory of Mrs. Thomas, who told her that "God made my hair red ON PURPOSE, and I've never cared about Him since." For the young Anne, her red hair is not merely a physical trait but a mark of divine disfavor and a barrier to being loved. This feeling is brutally confirmed when Mrs. Rachel Lynde, on her first inspection of Anne, delivers the cutting verdict: "And hair as red as carrots!" This public humiliation triggers Anne's explosive temper, leading to her famous outburst and the subsequent demand for an apology. The incident underscores how deeply Anne's sensitivity about her hair is tied to her sense of personal worth; an attack on her hair is an attack on her very self.

Attempts at Alteration: Imagination, Hope, and Disaster

Anne's struggle with her red hair is not passive. She employs her powerful imagination as a first line of defense, trying to convince herself that it is "a glorious black, black as the raven's wing," but admits the effort always fails. A glimmer of hope arrives during her apology to Mrs. Lynde, when the older woman offers a consoling anecdote about a girl whose red hair "darkened to a real handsome auburn" as she grew up. Anne seizes on this possibility, declaring that Mrs. Lynde has "given me a hope" and that she "could endure anything if I only thought my hair would be a handsome auburn when I grew up." This hope, however, leads to her most spectacular failure. Tempted by a traveling peddler who promises a dye that will turn her hair a "beautiful raven black," Anne spends her last fifty cents on the bottle. The result is catastrophic: her hair turns a "queer, dull, bronzy green." The green hair is, for Anne, "ten times worse" than the original red, and she is forced to have it cut short, an act she describes as a "tragic thing." This episode, born of vanity and a desperate wish to escape her red hair, becomes a painful lesson that she later counts among the mistakes that have "cured me of vanity."

The Evolution of Acceptance and a Symbol of Growth

Over time, Anne's relationship with her red hair undergoes a subtle but significant transformation. As she grows older, the hair itself changes, darkening from its initial fiery shade. By the time she is preparing for the concert at the White Sands Hotel, Diana Barry assures her that her hair is "ever so much darker than it used to be before you cut it" and that she thinks it can now be called "auburn." Anne, flushing with delight, admits she had sometimes thought so herself but had never dared to ask. This external validation marks a turning point. The red hair that was once her "lifelong sorrow" becomes a feature that can be complimented; an American artist at the concert even asks about "the girl on the platform with the splendid Titian hair." Anne's final, hard-won peace with her hair is evident in a conversation with Marilla near the end of the novel. She laughs at the memory of the dyeing incident and notes that her hair is now called auburn, adding, "I laugh a little now sometimes when I think what a worry my hair used to be to me—but I don't laugh MUCH, because it was a very real trouble then." This acknowledgment—that the pain was real but is now past—signals Anne's maturation. Her red hair, once a symbol of her exclusion and unhappiness, has become a part of a past she can reflect on with rueful affection, a testament to the journey from a tormented orphan to a young woman secure in her own identity.