University of Iceland

Humanities

MA in Literature, Culture and Media, English

Orphan Trauma and the Narrative of Imagination

Autobiographical Memory, Trauma and Coping Mechanisms in

The Alpine Path, Emily of New Moon and Anne of Green Gables

M.A. Essay

Amy Anne Kennedy

Id.#: 030292-5379

Supervisor: Guðrún Björk Guðsteinsdóttir

June 2021

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ABSTRACT

L. M. Montgomery’s novels Emily of New Moon and Anne of Green Gables showcase

her insight into trauma, imagination and healing. Her engagement with autobiographical

memories, both her own and those of Emily and Anne, is multi-faceted. Montgomery

uses her autobiographical memories from The Alpine Path as building blocks for the

girls’ social worlds, and she shares her love of words and narrative with the

protagonists—a love that she amplifies in the narratives in order to fill the void left

behind by the trauma of becoming and being an orphan.

Through examining narrative as the way in which we learn how to make sense

of the world, as the way we create, store and reconstruct memories, as the way we

create fictions for ourselves, and as the way we combat and heal from trauma, it

becomes clear that Emily and Anne make use of every one of these functions of

narrative and imagination.

For the girls, creative narrative, from memory to writing and storytelling, is a

coping mechanism. It is through this coping mechanism, as well as their imaginary

friends and natural environments, that Emily and Anne transform their orphan

narratives, turning them into ones of healing. It is through these mechanisms that the

power of narrative comes to light.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 4

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY 6

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY IN THE ALPINE PATH AND THE TWO NOVELS 12

MEMORY AND TRAUMA 25

MEMORY AND TRAUMA IN EMILY OF NEW MOON AND ANNE OF GREEN GABLES 31

ORPHAN TRAUMA AND COPING MECHANISMS 43

IMAGINATION AND COPING MECHANISMS IN EMILY OF NEW MOON AND ANNE OF GREEN

GABLES 46

CONCLUSION 54

WORKS CITED 57

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INTRODUCTION

As soon as one reads Emily of New Moon (1923) and Anne of Green Gables (1908) by

Lucy Maud Montgomery, as well as her autobiography The Alpine Path (originally

published as essays in 1917 and as a whole book in 1972), one finds a few connecting

pieces—a few of Montgomery’s memories—that made their way into these two novels.

In looking specifically at memory in The Alpine Path and in the two novels, I came

across various forms of autobiographical memory of which the following two I examine

in depth: Montgomery’s memories used as foundations for Emily’s and Anne’s social

worlds within the novels, and the girls’ fictional autobiographical memories

surrounding the trauma of becoming and being orphans.

Emily’s mother dies when she is four years old, and her father dies of a lingering

illness four years later. The narrative begins a few weeks before her father’s death.

After Emily’s father dies, her family members on her mother’s side draw straws to

determine who is to take her in, and it is her Aunt Elizabeth, Aunt Laura, and Cousin

Jimmy who take her to live with them at New Moon. Anne is also an orphan, but unlike

Emily, she never knew her parents. Anne works as household help from a very young

age, taking care of children younger than herself. The narrative begins when Anne is to

be picked up at the train station by Matthew. Anne has just arrived from the orphan

asylum, and Matthew and Marilla are to be her new family. The narratives follow the

girls’ rocky starts at their new homes and the unfolding of their lives through hardship,

friendship and imagination.

Through these texts, I wish to demonstrate that Montgomery’s ideas on trauma

and coping mechanisms were ahead of her time. Some of her ideas correspond to the

contemporary understanding of trauma and coping mechanisms. I draw upon Christa

Schönfelder’s and Susannah Radstone’s contemporary insight into trauma, and Kate

Schick’s and Paul John Eakin’s research into storytelling and self-narration as coping

mechanisms. I also wish to argue that in time the girls’ socio-cultural orphan narratives

and their individual narratives of self turn into redemption narratives of suffering

leading to growth. Furthermore, I wish to argue that Emily’s and Anne’s adoration of

words, language, writing, imagining, and imaginary friends is not only that—these are

coping mechanisms for much deeper feelings of trauma and loss. These novels deal not

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only with the topic of orphan trauma, but also with coping mechanisms and the power

of narrative and imagination in healing from trauma. Montgomery’s texts are much

more than trauma narratives; they offer an insight into the author’s own understanding

of coping with trauma—knowledge she must have gained through her own experience

and imagination.

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AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY

In her article “Autobiographical Memory,” Robyn Fivush discusses autobiographical

memory, its individual, social and cultural construction, as well as the role of stories in

framing memory. Fivush states that in the field of psychology, “autobiographical

memory has most often been studied … as a measure of how and what an individual

remembers about their experiences, and what these memories can tell the researcher

about the structure, content and meaning of personal memory” (13). She further notes

that autobiographical memory is “a process and product of both individual and cultural

construction” (13). Fivush discusses the currently emerging interdisciplinary approach

to autobiographical memory and its push towards examining “memory both as a product

of human cognition and as a process by which we construct social worlds” (13). These

ideas on memory and its construction by oneself of one’s social world come from the

field of psychology, but this idea has much in common with writing and literature, with

creating and imagining characters and their surroundings. Lucy Maud Montgomery’s

memories in The Alpine Path, and along those lines Anne’s and Emily’s memories in

Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon,1 are formed by the individual’s

cognition, and they construct the social world within which the individual is placed.

Fivush posits that language holds a place of great importance in framing social and

cultural interactions, particularly language in the form of stories. She compares these

ideas within socio-cultural theory to those of feminist theories,2 wherein “knowledge

and memory are constructed in local social interactions that facilitate certain ways of

knowing” (14). Our memories construct our social worlds, while social interactions

construct our memories. There are other factors that lead to the creation of

autobiographical memory, but there exists a loop connecting memory and our social

worlds.

Continuing down the path of stories, Fivush further states that “stories provide

an evaluative and interpretive framework for understanding how and why things happen

as they do. Stories move beyond chronological descriptions of what happened to include

explanations, causes and consequences rife with human motivations, intentions and

1 After this point, I will refer to Anne of Green Gables as Anne and Emily of New Moon as Emily. 2 Fivush gives the example of Rosser and Miller 2000.

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drama” (“Autobiographical Memory”15). Not only do stories provide a framework for

understanding, but they can also influence one’s perception of a shared event. A telling

example is one Fivush gives of a mother and daughter going to a carnival, where the

daughter sees bears for the first time. After the carnival, the mother asks the daughter

whether she was frightened of the bears. The daughter’s answer is that she did not find

them frightening. The mother then says that she found them frightening. The little girl

learns from her mother’s version of events, and she later says that she also found them

frightening. Fivush states that in children who are learning to speak it is most often the

parents, especially the mother, who provide a particular interpretation of remembered

events (15), thus moulding the child’s perception and retention of the event. Here, an

event that was not frightening to the child may be encoded as a frightening memory.

The link between bears and fear has been established, not through the child’s own fear,

but through fear stemming from the mother and her narrative. The mother has begun to

construct “a self for the child—one that is afraid of bears” (15).

Through the action of telling and retelling stories of our memories we discover

and construct a sense of self in interaction with the world (Fivush, “Autobiographical

Memory” 16). Autobiographical memory is thus “a fluid dynamic system that is

continuously evolving” (16). The girls in the novels both seem to override the original

stories of their lives, not only through conversing and storytelling with others, but

through their own storytelling for themselves. They take their stories and create new

images of themselves apart from other people’s narratives and those of the societies

within which they find themselves. Fivush’s argument is that “the meaning of these

stories changes according to how they are interpreted and evaluated and how they fit

into the larger story of who we are” (16). Some stories remain stable and provide a

constant narrative of who we are, while in others we introduce slight changes with every

retelling (16). As the girls grow further away, in location and in personal development,

from their selves as orphans, the question here is whether their narratives surrounding

orphanhood remain the building blocks of who they are.

Autobiographical memories are shaped by larger socio-cultural narrative forms,

including events that should occur, and the approximate timing of said events. These

narrative forms define not only what will happen, but also what should happen (Fivush,

“Autobiographical Memory” 16). There is an element of expectation and belonging in

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these socio-cultural narrative forms or scripts—scripts that never have and never will

include orphans. Fivush discusses this idea in terms of “conformity” or “deviance” from

the general life narrative (16). At first, Emily and Anne certainly deviate from the

general life narrative of other children, of other girls in their time and setting. After such

a vast deviation early on in their lives, the girls settle in and generally “conform” to

their expected outcomes. As Rubin states, “much that people ‘remember’ as part of their

life story is really shared cultural knowledge about the life course. This shared

knowledge can often be attributed to cultural expectations, rather than to an individual’s

autobiographical memory” (Rubin 79). Through no fault of their own, orphans deviate

from the larger socio-cultural narrative. Emily’s and Anne’s scripts do so in a very

serious way: they deviate into a set narrative of orphanhood, but they do not remain in

this narrative for the rest of their lives.

At the beginning, Emily and Anne do not fit into the larger socio-cultural

narrative dictating how their lives should be unfolding, rather they are placed in a

different master narrative—that of the orphan. Fivush states that “master narratives

become increasingly important in the wake of trauma” (“Autobiographical Memory”

16). The question here is whether the trauma of becoming an orphan can be considered

a master narrative. Master narratives mostly surround larger cultural traumas, such as

the trauma of war, terrorism, or natural disasters. Within these examples, an individual

will look to others who have lived the same experience as them. The master narrative,

thus, provides a frame for the traumatic event. But what of trauma on an individual

level? Orphans may meet other orphans at an asylum, as in Anne’s case. It is possible

that their narratives are framed by those surrounding them, such as the people who work

at the asylum and the other orphans. Emily and Anne have different frameworks

surrounding each of their orphan narratives, but they could simultaneously be part of

what Fivush calls the redemption narrative: “The redemption narrative does not simply

provide a framework for creating meaning out of difficult experiences; it creates the

narrative that only those who suffer can truly grow as individuals” (17). Being orphaned

causes suffering and trauma, and overcoming suffering and trauma leads them to grow

as individuals. Emily and Anne both suffer the trauma of losing their parents, as well as

the subsequent social difficulties that stem from their situations. Even so, both of the

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girls possess enough determination and imagination to grow into their own versions of

themselves irrespective of their beginnings.

On the role of stories and narrative in creating autobiographical memories and a

sense of self, Fivush, in her article “The Narrative Construction of Human Meaning,”

discusses the way in which narrative, stories, and language aid in the construction of the

meaning of events in children’s lives. The article deals with very young children, aged

one to three, but some of the ideas surrounding the topic of language and stories

creating meaning can also be seen in the two novels. Fivush states that “narrative

becomes the way in which young children create coherence across momentary

experiences” (366), and even though Emily and Anne are not within the age range of

this article, they still seem to use their imaginations and their own stories to narrate new

lives for themselves, thus creating a realistic alternate life, wherein either no trauma

exists, or wherein the heroine has endured more trauma than they have themselves.

Fivush discusses the idea that,

in the very act of narrating, young children begin to reflect on experience as

intentional. In analyzing the retellings of the same event over and over, we see

that narratives are not simple reflections of mental representations, but are the

tools that help children create these representations. Without the narrative,

experience would remain undifferentiated; with narrative, experience becomes

stories that link humans to each other across time. (367)

The language used in narrating one’s own memories comes from those who are around

us when we are starting to develop language, and as we saw in the carnival bear

example, it is not only the language that shapes our memories, it is also the person or

people from whom we learn language; their stories, their narrative forms, their beliefs,

and their ideas. Generally speaking, much of this comes from a child’s parents or carers,

as they are the ones small children spend the most time with. These differ in the lives of

Emily and Anne: Emily references her father, while Anne references literature. Emily

writes long descriptions of people and events that hold meaning for her, thus

differentiating these events and placing them within her autobiographical memory. Her

retelling of these events makes them into stories. Anne enjoys retelling events in oral

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form, but she changes details and creates an imaginary world for herself. Fivush also

discusses this idea of our own narratives becoming our reality in memory:

narratives may originally be about experience, but ultimately they are about re-

narrating the narrative over time. The narrative itself becomes the reality. Once

these narrative forms are internalized, it is no longer possible to have

unmediated experience; now all experience is mediated through socioculturally

provided narrative forms that shape how we understand experience even as it is

happening. Experience is no longer direct, but always mediated through a

sociocultural lens. (“The Narrative” 367)

The sociocultural narratives the girls are fed externally all pertain to them being

orphans. The narratives they create for themselves change over time: from those created

for them by others, to those the girls create for themselves, which become encoded in

their “life history” memories (Nelson 7).

In her article “The Psychological and Social Origins of Autobiographical

Memory,” Katherine Nelson discusses, among other things, declarative and explicit

memory systems, and she uses them to establish an explanation for the creation of a

“life history” memory (7). Within these types of memory systems, she also discusses

episodic memory in contrast with generic event memory, as well as the idea that not all

episodic memory is autobiographical memory. She explains it thus:

What I ate for lunch yesterday is today part of my episodic memory, but being

unremarkable in any way, it will not, I am quite sure, become part of my

autobiographical memory … In contrast, the first time I present a paper at a

conference is part of my autobiographical memory: I remember the time, place,

and details of the program and participants, and I have a sense of how that

experience fits into the rest of my personal life story. (8)

Memories of events that hold meaning to an individual are those that will be recorded as

autobiographical memory, while trivial memories of everyday occurrences may not.

The girls’ loss of their parents is an experience that not only fits into the rest of their life

story, but it defines the direction their life stories take. Nelson further states that “it is

important to make this distinction at the outset, because, as recent research has

established, very young children do have episodic memories, but do not yet have

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autobiographical memory of this kind” (8). This is an interesting fact in connection with

Anne and her story. Any difference in Emily’s and Anne’s traumatic memories may

stem from the age at which each of them became an orphan.

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AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY IN THE ALPINE PATH AND THE TWO

NOVELS

Lucy Maud Montgomery adapted some of the memories from her autobiography The

Alpine Path and used them when writing Emily and Anne. In analysing The Alpine Path,

in connection with the two novels, we will first apply Fivush’s idea of memory as both

“a product of human cognition and as a process by which we construct social worlds”

(“Autobiographical Memory” 13). Montgomery’s memories were formed by her

cognition, and they constructed the social world within which she was placed. Thus,

Montgomery’s memories that appear in her autobiography3 as well as in the two novels

construct both her own social world and those of Emily and Anne. As we have found,

the individual’s social world also influences the formation of autobiographical memory.

Much of our experience, thus, stems from other individuals as well as from ourselves.

The following is an excerpt from The Alpine Path, a part of which also appears

in Emily:

Many years ago, when I was still a child, I clipped from a current magazine a bit

of verse, entitled “To the Fringed Gentian,” and pasted it on the corner of the

little portfolio on which I wrote my letters and school essays. Every time I

opened the portfolio I read one of those verses over; it was the key-note of my

every aim and ambition:

Then whisper, blossom, in thy sleep

How I may upward climb The Alpine path, so hard, so steep,

That leads to heights sublime;

How I may reach that far-off goal

Of true and honoured fame,

And write upon its shining scroll

A woman’s humble name. (Montgomery, The Alpine Path 1-2)

3 In narrowing the scope of my thesis, I decided to use only Montgomery’s The Alpine Path in my analysis, although her letters and journals are also likely to contain autobiographical memories.

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The same poem appears in Emily, when Dean sends Emily the poem in a letter because

it reminds him of her. Dean is Emily’s older cousin, whom she meets after having lived

at New Moon for a few months. She meets him while she is spending a summer at her

Aunt Nancy’s house. Dean and Cousin Jimmy are the only two adults that Emily

interacts with in a way that is similar to her interactions with her father. They, too, are

interested in poetry and write their own, like Emily. As Anne would say, they are

“kindred spirits” (Montgomery, Anne 37; 60; 85; 91). The poem resonates with Emily,

precisely as it did with Montgomery:

When I read that the flash came, and I took a sheet of paper—I forgot to tell you

Cousin Jimmy gave me a little box of paper and envelopes—on the sly—and I

wrote on it:

I, Emily Byrd Starr, do solemnly vow this day that I will climb the

Alpine Path and write my name on the scroll of fame.

Then I put it in the envelope and sealed it up and wrote on it The Vow of

Emily Byrd Starr, aged 12 years and 3 months, and put it away on the sofa shelf

in the garret. (Montgomery, Emily 301)

The next instance of Montgomery using her own autobiographical memories in

one of her novels is a tale of her ancestors’ arrival in Canada, one that she utilises in

Emily’s narrative:

Hugh Montgomery came to Canada from Scotland. He sailed on a vessel bound

for Quebec; but the fates and a woman’s will took a hand in the thing. His wife

was desperately seasick all the way across the Atlantic—and a voyage over the

Atlantic was no five days’ run then. Off the north shore of Prince Edward Island,

then a wild, wooded land, with settlements few and far between, the Captain

hove-to in order to replenish his supply of water. He sent a boat ashore, and he

told poor Mrs. Montgomery that she might go in it for a little change. Mrs.

Montgomery did go in it; and when she felt that blessed dry land under her feet

once more, she told her husband that she meant to stay there. Never again would

she set foot in any vessel. (The Alpine Path 3)

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This instance of knowing formed a part of Montgomery’s social world. It is a piece in a

vast puzzle that formed her sense of self. Montgomery transplanted a piece of her own

puzzle of self into Emily’s world, thus forming a new sense of self in the recently-

orphaned Emily:

“Yes—Hugh Murray’s wife—your great-great-grandmother—was a Shipley—

an Englishwoman. Ever hear of how the Murrays came to New Moon?”

“No.”

“They were bound for Quebec—hadn’t any notion of coming to P. E. I.

They had a long rough voyage and water got scarce, so the captain of the New

Moon put in here to get some. Mary Murray had nearly died of seasickness

coming but—never seemed to get her sea-legs—so the captain, being sorry for

her, told her she could go ashore with the men and feel solid ground under her

for an hour or so. Very gladly she went and when she got to shore she said,

‘Here I stay.’ And stay she did; nothing could budge her; old Hugh—he was

young Hugh then, of course, coaxed and stormed and raged and argued—and

even cried, I’ve been told—but Mary wouldn’t be moved. In the end he gave in

and had his belongings landed and stayed, too. So that is how the Murrays came

to P. E. Island.” (Emily 75)

The seasickness, the lack of water, the short respite on land, the subsequent forever

home, and the female ancestor’s sheer will are all elements shared in these two

narratives. Emily finds out about her own past through the stories told to her by her

relatives; she finds out about the Murray pride (46), the traditional stubbornness in her

family, and the Murray look (73), all of which she possesses. Montgomery transplanted

her own autobiographical memories into Emily’s narrative, wherein she expanded them

and surrounded them with a whole family of memories and traditions in order to give

Emily a tangible background. Emily draws from the transplanted autobiographical

memory and expands it into a part of her social narrative, which she can then follow in

her own process of building memories and a sense of self, much as knowledge about her

ancestors would have aided Montgomery in situating herself in her present.

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Montgomery shares other memories of her family with Emily. One of the most

prominent memories is that of her grandfather’s brother, James Macneill:

But [Alexander Macneill’s] older brother, James Macneill, was a born poet. He

composed hundreds of poems, which he would sometimes recite to favoured

persons. They were never written down, and not a line of them, so far as I know,

is now extant. But I heard my grandfather repeat many of them, and they were

real poetry, most of them being satirical or mock-heroic. They were witty,

pointed, and dramatic. (The Alpine Path 6)

Emily’s Cousin Jimmy also composes poetry, which he only seldom recites to other

people: “‘I’ll recite my poetry to you. It’s very few people I do that for. I’ve composed a

thousand poems. They’re not written down—I carry them here.’ Cousin Jimmy tapped

his forehead. ‘Is it very hard to write poetry?’ asked Emily, looking with new respect at

Cousin Jimmy” (Emily 47). In his poetry, his non-notation, and his select audience for

reciting, Cousin Jimmy is very nearly Montgomery’s great-uncle James, not only in

character, but also in name. In addition to Emily’s written stories, her poetry brings her

joy and a release from her new everyday life. Within this composition and sharing lies a

tie between Emily and Cousin Jimmy. Montgomery, herself a writer and poetry

enthusiast, transposed her own connection to her great-uncle James onto Emily and her

Cousin Jimmy. This connection is one Emily had with her father, and before he died,

Emily would read everything she wrote to him. She wrote descriptions of beautiful

events that gave her “the flash”—a feeling of tangible beauty, connecting Emily to a

different world through a thin veil:

It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, that she was

very, very near to a world of wonderful beauty. Between it and herself hung

only a thin curtain; she could never draw the curtain aside—but sometimes, just

for a moment, a wind fluttered it and then it was as if she caught a glimpse of the

enchanting realm beyond—only a glimpse—and heard a note of unearthly

music. (Emily 6)

The description of an event worthy of the flash “would hurt her with its beauty until she

wrote it down. Then she would read it to Father” (Emily 6). This creating, writing, and

sharing of words and poetry is a connection Emily had to her father, and upon becoming

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an orphan, the first person she rekindles this connection with is Cousin Jimmy:

“‘Cousin Jimmy—Cousin Jimmy,’ said that individual. Emily looked steadily at him,

and liked him at once without any reservations” (Emily 27).

Montgomery’s mother’s death is another autobiographical memory that she

transposes onto Emily’s narrative:

When I was twenty-one months old my mother died, in the old home at

Cavendish, after a lingering illness. I distinctly remember seeing her in her

coffin—it is my earliest memory. My father was standing by the casket holding

me in his arms. I wore a little white dress of embroidered muslin, and Father

was crying. (The Alpine Path 6-7)

Emily’s mother also dies when Emily is very young—when she is four (Emily 12),

while Emily’s father later dies of a lingering illness. Anne loses both of her parents, also

at a very young age—as a baby, in fact. Montgomery states that she was “brought up by

[her] grandparents in the old Macneill Homestead in Cavendish. Cavendish is a farming

settlement on the north shore of Prince Edward Island. It was eleven miles from a

railway and twenty-four miles from the nearest town” (The Alpine Path 7). Montgomery

had a father, but it seems as though he did not play a great part in her life; rather she

lived with and was brought up by her grandparents. These memories of Montgomery’s

link to Emily and Anne in different ways. After becoming an orphan, Emily is also

auctioned off within her extended family, and she ends up living with her two aunts,

Elizabeth and Laura, and Cousin Jimmy. This is the first connecting piece with

Montgomery’s autobiographical memory—staying within family. In Anne’s case, she

does not end up with family, but her situation with Matthew and Marilla is very similar

to that of Montgomery and her grandparents. Both Emily and Anne are placed on Prince

Edward Island, like Montgomery, and Anne’s positioning on a farm far away from town

is similar to that of Montgomery. Furthermore, Montgomery’s visits to her Grandfather

Montgomery’s house mirror Emily’s visit to her Great-Aunt Nancy Priest (238), and

Montgomery’s illness is mirrored in Emily’s illness after she returns to New Moon

(330):

Many of those early memories are connected with visits to Grandfather

Montgomery’s farm at Park Corner. He and his family lived in the “old house”

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then, a most quaint and delightful old place as I remember it, full of cupboards

and nooks, and little, unexpected flights of stairs. It was there, when I was about

five years old, that I had the only serious illness of my life—an attack of typhoid

fever. (The Alpine Path 9)

These autobiographical memories, along with countless others, constructed

Montgomery’s social world. Returning to the puzzle analogy; Montgomery used a few

of the pieces of her own puzzle to create new puzzles for Emily and Anne. She created

new social worlds that in certain instances are reminders of their origins.

In analysing the autobiographical memories that Montgomery transcribes onto

the girls, it transpires that many of these are connected with feelings of social anxiety

and distress. As an adult, writing her autobiography, Montgomery still remembered,

with bitterness, being called names by her father’s friend, Mr. Forbes:

He was, I believe, an amiable, respectable, and respected, old gentleman. But he

won my undying hatred by calling me “Johnny” every time he spoke to

me. How I raged at him! It seemed to me a most deadly and unforgivable insult.

My anger amused him hugely and incited him to persist in using the

objectionable name. I could have torn that man in pieces had I had the power!

(The Alpine Path 12)

Is being called “Johnny” similar to being called “Carrots”? The injustice felt by the

child being called something other than their name undoubtedly is similar. Montgomery

was called “Johnny,” and Anne is called “Carrots.” The first instance of Anne being

told her hair is the colour of carrots is when she meets Mrs. Rachel Lynde (Marilla and

Matthew’s neighbour): “She’s terrible skinny and homely, Marilla. Come here, child,

and let me have a look at you. Lawful heart, did any one ever see such freckles? And

hair as red as carrots! Come here, child, I say” (Anne 67). This first injustice sowed the

seed for Anne’s hatred of being called “Carrots.” This, after the reader already knows of

Anne’s sorrow surrounding the colour of her hair:

“But just now I feel pretty nearly perfectly happy. I can’t feel exactly perfectly

happy because—well, what color would you call this?”

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She twitched one of her long glossy braids over her thin shoulder and

held it up before Matthew’s eyes. Matthew was not used to deciding on the tints

of ladies’ tresses, but in this case there couldn’t be much doubt.

“It’s red, ain’t it?” he said.

The girl let the braid drop back with a sigh that seemed to come from her

very toes and to exhale forth all the sorrows of the ages.

“Yes, it’s red,” she said resignedly. “Now you see why I can’t be

perfectly happy. Nobody could who has red hair.” (Anne 19)

Montgomery uses her own memory of being called a name she did not like in Anne’s

narrative, but in Anne’s case, the description of her hair being as red as carrots turns

into a derisive nickname. Since this is already a touchy subject for Anne, the nickname

bites all the more: “Gilbert reached across the aisle, picked up the end of Anne’s long

red braid, held it out at arm’s length and said in a piercing whisper: ‘Carrots! Carrots!’”

(114). This first, and last, instance of being called Carrots happens at school. Gilbert

never calls her Carrots again, but the pain it causes keeps Anne from becoming friends

with Gilbert for years. She hates him long after the incident.

Autobiographical memory does not only contain memories of events. Events are

always embedded in specific settings and places that provide detailed backgrounds and

specific connotations for our memories. Aside from Green Gables, the school grounds

are a place where Anne spends much of her time, and these school grounds are similar

to those Montgomery describes in The Alpine Path:

That old spruce grove, with its sprinkling of maple, was a fairy realm of beauty

and romance to my childish imagination. I shall always be thankful that my

school was near a grove—a place with winding paths and treasure-trove of ferns

and mosses and wood-flowers. It was a stronger and better educative influence

in my life than the lessons learned at the desk in the school-house. (The Alpine

Path 13)

Anne’s school grounds are similar: “The schoolhouse was set back from the road and

behind it was a dusky fir wood and a brook where all the children put their bottles of

milk in the morning to keep cool and sweet until dinner hour” (Anne 110), but it is also

Kennedy 19

this idea of learning from nature, spending time outside, and admiring one’s

surroundings that is so evident in both Emily’s and Anne’s narratives.

Montgomery, Emily and Anne all have one obvious thing in common —

writing: “It was from my mother’s family—the Macneills—that I inherited my knack of

writing and my literary tastes” (The Alpine Path 4). Montgomery’s love for writing and

words is possibly the most significant autobiographical contribution to Emily’s and

Anne’s lives.4 Emily’s early writing is mostly the notation of events or images of her

experiences—her self-narration of memories, thus her creation of autobiographical

memories. Emily notes memories in a way familiar to her through her father, thus

connecting to the idea of learning how to create autobiographical memories from your

parents and their forms of narrative. Anne, in the absence of parental guidance, or even

proper guardians, takes her inspiration from literature. The girls narrate the present, in

the case of Emily, and create imaginary scenarios, in the case of Anne, more often than

they reminisce over memories of the past, but there are a few instances that give some

insight into their development of memory. Thinking thoughts, creating narratives out of

those thoughts, and having them become part of one’s autobiographical memory is a

process that hinges on narration. Emily is outspoken. She sometimes says things before

thinking about what she is about to say and to whom: “‘I don’t believe you ever had

much fun,’ said Emily—and then gasped in horror. She hadn’t meant to say that out

loud—she had only meant to think it. But she had such an old habit of thinking aloud to

Father” (Emily 31). The way in which she is thinking about the situation, thinking aloud

rather than in silence, points to Emily’s way of narrating the present to herself and how

she would have narrated it to her father.

Narration, in any form, is the foundation of autobiographical memory, thus

Emily’s father must have taught her, by example, to narrate events, and her thoughts on

them, aloud. Even when her father was alive, she would write her verses and prose in a

yellow account book and read them to him. When, later, her vocal mode of memory-

making is no longer an option for Emily, she resorts to writing not only imagined

stories, but also everyday events and descriptions of people in the form of letters to her

4 Montgomery said that her personal favorite of her novels was The Story Girl. It would be interesting to see whether and to what extent her use of autobiographical memory in Anne and Emily is mirrored in The Story Girl.

Kennedy 20

father. Emily’s first piece of writing after her father’s death manifests itself as a

narrative of an unpleasant event, a narrative through which Emily comes to accept her

situation:

For a moment she thought she would throw herself on her bed and cry. She

couldn’t bear all the pain and shame that was burning in her heart. Then her eyes

fell on the old yellow account-book on her little table. A minute later Emily was

curled up on her bed, Turk-fashion, writing eagerly in the old book with her

little stubby lead-pencil. As her fingers flew over the faded lines her cheeks

flushed and her eyes shone. She forgot the Murrays although she was writing

about them—she forgot her humiliation—although she was describing what had

happened; for an hour she wrote steadily by the wretched light of her smoky

little lamp, never pausing, save now and then, to gaze out of the window into the

dim beauty of the misty night, while she hunted through her consciousness for a

certain word she wanted; when she found it she gave a happy sigh and fell to

again.

When she heard the Murrays coming upstairs she put her book away.

She had finished; she had written a description of the whole occurrence and of

that conclave ring of Murrays, and she had wound up by a pathetic description

of her own deathbed, with the Murrays standing around imploring her

forgiveness. (Emily 43-44)

Emily retells the event to herself in writing, but she also adds on an imaginary ending

that makes the whole situation more bearable—much in the way Anne invents parts of

her own memories.

In the example above, Emily’s writing showcases Montgomery’s connection to

Emily through her own autobiographical memories and Emily’s mode of transcribing

her memories. Emily, too, has Montgomery’s “knack of writing” (The Alpine Path 4),

as well as her love of beautiful words and literature. Like Montgomery, Emily inherited

this love from her family. Pertaining to her mode of transcribing memories, this

example clearly showcases Emily’s process of consolidating and storing memories of

events. Later, Emily writes long letters to her father, in which she describes all of the

current events in her life: “‘Dear Father’—and then she poured out her tale of the day—

Kennedy 21

of her rapture and her pain—writing heedlessly and intently until the sunset faded into

dim, starlitten twilight” (Emily 98). After this first instance of writing a letter to her

father, whole chapters of Emily are letters written by Emily to her father. Instead of

third person narration, the reader is given a taste of Emily in first person, of her writing

style, her spelling mistakes, and her perception and narration of events. She still writes

descriptions of people and events that are in some way difficult for her to process;

however, later, she also begins to write for the beauty of writing, much like her Cousin

Jimmy: “‘Oh, Father dear, I have made a great diskoverry. I wish I had made it when

you were alive for I think you’d have liked to know. I can write poetry’” (Emily 103).

Poetry gives Emily a sense of accomplishment, and at the beginning of her venture into

poetry, it is something she shares only with the paper upon which she writes:

At sight of it Emily stood stock still and composed a verse of poetry.

Buttercup, flower of the yellow dye,

I see thy cheerful face

Greeting and nodding everywhere

Careless of time and place. In boggy field or public road

Or cultured garden’s pale

You sport your petals satin-soft,

And down within the vale.

So far, so good. But Emily wanted another verse to round the poem off

properly and the divine afflatus seemed gone. She walked dreamily home, and

by the time she reached New Moon she had got her verse and was reciting it to

herself with an agreeable sense of completion.

You cast your loveliness around

Where’er you chance to be,

And you shall always, buttercup,

Be a flower dear to me.

Emily felt very proud. This was her third poem and undoubtedly her

best. Nobody could say it was very blank. She must hurry up to the garret and

write it on a letter-bill. (Emily 114-115)

Kennedy 22

This is just the beginning of a long list of poems that Emily writes. Writing quickly

becomes more than a hobby for Emily; she wishes to succeed as a writer, much like

Montgomery. In beginning to write poetry and stories, Emily slowly leaves behind her

autobiographical writing. By this time, she has found a different way of processing, not

by reminiscing on events, but by creating new imaginings. This early poetic creation is

also tied to socio-literary norms of the time, which Emily has absorbed. Her poetry is no

purer than her letters and her memory-tied stories in terms of coping with her situation,

but it seems to be a natural progression for Emily. After completing her first letter to her

father, the narrator says that, “In the writing, pain and humiliation had passed away”

(Emily 44).

Anne does not describe her past very much in the novel, a past of which the

reader is given quite a vague notion. On the ride from the train station to Green Gables,

Anne says to Matthew: “I’ve never belonged to anybody—not really. But the asylum

was the worst. I’ve only been in it four months, but that was enough” (Anne 15). From

Anne’s short descriptions, it seems as though she was put to work as soon as she was

old enough, which was at a very young age. She was “adopted” by Mrs. Thomas, but

she was not given the chance to be a child. She was adopted in order to take care of

children younger than herself. Unlike Emily, who learned how to narrate memories

from her father, Anne exhibits signs of adopting a literary voice in narrating her own

memories. Fivush states that “narrative becomes the way in which young children create

coherence across momentary experiences” (“The Narrative” 366), and Anne’s

coherence seems to comprise a double narrative; the fact-based narrative style she

learned from adults, and the imaginary narrative style she learned from novels. Anne

narrates parts of her own story based on a narrative style she gleans from reading: “‘But

all the time I KNOW it is just plain red and it breaks my heart. It will be my lifelong

sorrow. I read of a girl once in a novel who had a lifelong sorrow but it wasn’t red

hair’” (Anne 19). Anne relishes the beautiful wording she finds in novels, wording that

she uses in narrating her own story. Her whole manner of thinking about her past,

present, and future is through the romanticised lens of literature. When she reads of a

girl in a novel with a lifelong sorrow, she picks up on the narrative style and uses it in

her own autobiographical story. In the novel, Anne can seem to overly romanticise

almost every event. This trait may not be skin-deep. Anne may have learned, or

Kennedy 23

preferred to learn, her narrative style from literature, instead of from her previous

guardians. This would mean that her system of encoding autobiographical memories

through narrative would be more a literary than a social construction. When Anne is

asked for the truth about her past, foregoing her imaginary add-ins, she reverts to a

narrative that was told to her by one of the adults in her life: “‘I was eleven last March,’

said Anne, resigning herself to bald facts with a little sigh. ‘And I was born in

Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia. My father’s name was Walter Shirley, and he was a teacher

in the Bolingbroke High School. My mother’s name was Bertha Shirley.’” (Anne 41).

She continues to use Mrs. Thomas’ description of events:

Well, my mother was a teacher in the High school, too, but when she married

father she gave up teaching, of course. A husband was enough responsibility.

Mrs. Thomas said that they were a pair of babies and as poor as church mice.

They went to live in a weeny-teeny little yellow house in Bolingbroke. I’ve

never seen that house, but I’ve imagined it thousands of times. I think it must

have had honeysuckle over the parlor window and lilacs in the front yard and

lilies of the valley just inside the gate. Yes, and muslin curtains in all the

windows. (Anne 42)

Anne repeats the story that was told to her. Mrs. Thomas shines through in Anne’s

narration in her mention of responsibility, an idea that an eleven-year-old would be

unlikely to consider. She has no memories of her own of this place or of her parents, but

she embellishes the plain facts she was fed when she was younger. Anne has to “resign”

herself to telling the truth about her past; this is the narrative that is fed to her by the

adults that surround her as she is growing up. She uses beautiful images in her imagined

past; however, she also enjoys using literary phrases that elicit the feeling of tragedy:

“‘Well, that is another hope gone. ‘My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.’

That’s a sentence I read in a book once, and I say it over to comfort myself whenever

I’m disappointed in anything.’” (Anne 40). Anne picks up phrases and ideas from books

and uses them in her descriptions of what she imagines life to be, and these phrases

mould Anne’s “life history” memories (Nelson 7).

Anne does not write as Emily does, but she does hold the same love for poetry

and novels. Even though Anne does not write her own poetry, she enjoys reciting it:

Kennedy 24

“‘We had recitations this afternoon. I just wish you could have been there to hear me

recite ‘Mary, Queen of Scots.’ I just put my whole soul into it. Ruby Gillis told me

coming home that the way I said the line, ‘Now for my father’s arm,’ she said, ‘my

woman’s heart farewell,’ just made her blood run cold’” (Anne 195). Upon witnessing

something beautiful, Emily gets “the flash.” Anne does not call it thus, but when she

sees a beautiful sight or reads or recites a beautiful piece of poetry, she is as captivated

by the words as Emily. Words seem to be a common lifeline for the girls.

If Montgomery’s autobiographical memories provide a base for Emily’s and

Anne’s life stories, the question arises of whether the novels are adaptations of

Montgomery’s life. They are not, and later releases of Montgomery’s journals

contradict her own autobiography. All memory is narrative at the time of remembrance.

Of the two variants of autobiographical memory in the texts, the novels remember

Montgomery through her tentative autobiographical memories rewritten as fiction.

Many of the fictional autobiographical memories in the novels are connected to the girls

being orphans, thus they are connected to trauma.

Kennedy 25

MEMORY AND TRAUMA

Since the girls’ autobiographical memories in the two narratives are connected to other

memories and to memories of trauma, I will take a closer look at memory and its

behaviour concerning the topic of trauma. An aspect of particular note is that of

memory and time, wherein both, together and apart, “only become intelligible in as far

as they exist in linguistic form; they are only thinkable and imaginable as

autobiographical discourse and narrative time” (Brockmeier 117). Memory and its

connection to time, its passage through time, and its placement in time are all defined

through a from of narrative, much like the ideas connecting autobiographical memory to

stories and narratives. In his article “Stories to Remember: Narrative and the Time of

Memory,” Jens Brockmeier notes that “the vividness and immediacy with which we

remember certain events is independent of their remoteness in time. Days or years are

no valid currency in the realm of remembrance” (115). Thus, memories in time are

defined through our own narratives of our lives, but the way memory behaves is not

linear. We may create a timeline of our autobiographical memories, but when a certain

event, person or item sparks recollection, or even when we remember something out of

the blue, the timeline and where the memory is placed upon it make no difference. The

memory is likely to be as clear as ever, especially if it is a memory that holds particular

meaning in our life story. Time may heal the pain of a memory, but the vividness with

which the memory confronts us will remain. In terms of memory and its connection to

trauma, this idea may lead to questions regarding the possibility of healing or

overcoming said trauma, since the memories of it may remain so vivid.

Even though humans create a timeline of their lives, their memories do not

adhere to it completely: “the multiple temporality of memories, in all their nonlinear

and achronological randomness, represents most authentically the time of human

memory, in fact, of our life” (Brockmeier 116). Moreover, some events that one

remembers the next day or the next week may not end up being stored in one’s

autobiographical memory—as demonstrated by Katherine Nelson in her example of

remembering breakfast and remembering a conference—at least, not stored in the sense

of autobiographical memory as a life story. The memories that make the cut are, thus,

those that provide a sense of meaning in the construction of the self. The question here

Kennedy 26

is whether the self is constant or fluid. A person’s narratives of their autobiographical

memories may change based on personal growth and the time of remembrance.

Brockmeier believes that autobiographical remembrance “is a process of meaning

construction that includes the simultaneous configuration of scenarios in very different

times, times that are inextricably tied to their narrative reality” (122). Remembering,

both intentional and nonintentional, of traumatic events or of everyday events, is

unavoidably tied to the subject’s current reality and to their current narrative:

When we call an episode from our past, we reconstruct it from elements

distributed throughout the brain. Recollection is always reconstruction. It is not

a matter of reloading a videotape for replay in the mind’s eye. Memory for

trauma is not exempt from this principle. The living brain is dynamic, and even

the most vivid traumatic memories are not literal, unchanging reproductions of

what occurred. (McNally 818)

The memories remain vivid, but the way in which a person narrates them to themselves

or to others may change. This could be a possible road to overcoming trauma in

connection with the redemption narrative.

One of the ideas that Gregory Hampton discusses in his article “Lost Memories:

Memory as a Process of Identity in the Fiction of Octavia Butler” is that of fiction

within memory. Some have posited that memories are like records or imprints of events

that have happened. Hampton examines some of Freud’s ideas on memory, wherein

remembering the past is not like looking up records in a filing cabinet, rather it is

similar to creating a “plausible fiction” (262) for oneself, which in turn “helps our

consciousness navigate our present state of being” (262). Hampton takes his argument

further with the inclusion of forgetting. Since “perfect recall” (263) for the most part

does not and cannot exist, much of our memory bank is filled with elements of

subjectivity and fiction. Every event that one is a part of will be recorded as a memory

subjective to that specific person, and even when an event is traumatising, negative, or

harmful, people will often forget some details of the event. Sometimes, it is within this

element of forgetting that one can imagine oneself in one’s day-to-day life. Hampton

posits that “humanity’s ability to forget is a defense mechanism that allows us to

tolerate our bouts of inhumanity” (266). This defence mechanism may also be

Kennedy 27

understood as allowing a person to tolerate others’ bouts of inhumanity directed towards

them.

Hampton’s ideas surrounding perfect recall are corroborated by Paul John Eakin.

Eakin adds to Hampton’s ideas on perfect recall by stating that “memory doesn’t

operate that way neurologically” (26). He explains his argument from a medical

standpoint, wherein he discusses the use of brain imaging in understanding the

reconstruction of memories during recall. Whenever we recall a specific memory, that

memory is “constructed anew, and different areas of the brain may be involved in each

act of recall” (26). He also discusses memories as fictions; not as untruths, but rather as

something that is formed. Within this formation of self in a constantly changing reality

is where the human urge for self-narration lies (26). Now we can examine memories as

fictions that correlate to a person’s present. Maybe the orphans’ “rehabilitation” through

imagination aids in creating a different time and place in which to remember, thus

manipulating their traumatic memories into something more bearable. Eakin continues

his discussion of memory with its pervasive orientation towards the future: “I have

suggested that we remodel our pasts to bring them into sync with our sense of our selves

and lives in the present, but we also do so in view of our plans for the time to come.

That’s the thing: in any present our heads are filled with plans for the future” (26). The

narrative of being an orphan, the memories that surround being an orphan, the narratives

constructed by others surrounding being an orphan—none of these serve Emily or Anne

in their present situations or in their imagined and planned futures. The girls write and

imagine stories connected to their narratives, and most often they tell or write these

stories to and for themselves, which gives them a different perspective and present from

which to approach their memories, as well as from which to engage with trauma.

As Christa Schönfelder states in her article “Theorizing Trauma: Romantic and

Postmodern Perspectives on Mental Wounds,” the field of trauma studies was once

“situated in the domain of medicine and then psychology,” but in recent decades,

trauma studies has “emerged as a new field within the humanities” (28). Most of her

ideas surround the reading of literary versions of trauma and the emotional

identification this brings to the reader. She states that “literary texts and their fictional

worlds allow for nuanced engagements with the subject of trauma” (29) on the part of

the reader. This idea could be transposed onto Emily’s letters and poems, Anne’s

Kennedy 28

imagined worlds and characters, and both of their imaginary friends. The girls’ texts and

worlds offer them this experience of nuanced engagement with their own traumatic

memories. These creative outlets all hold a form of narrative, a narrative that originates

with Emily and Anne. Schönfelder further defines the role of trauma texts and

narratives as an “attempt to communicate that which resists ordinary processes of

remembering and narrating, of representation and comprehension. Trauma narratives

raise important questions about the possibility of verbalizing the unspeakable, narrating

the unnarratable, and making sense of the incomprehensible” (30). The question here is

whether the two novels can be classified as texts concerning the trauma of being an

orphan. Based on trauma theory, it seems that they are not trauma narratives, since they

do not contain the criteria as related in the following excerpt:

The text presents and exemplifies, both thematically and formally speaking, the

main features that have been identified by trauma theory as recurrent in trauma

fiction, such as the evocation of a traumatic experience, the reflection on the

consequences for the survivors, the transmission of the trauma to subsequent

generations, and the exposure of the difficulty of bringing closure. Stylistically,

the novel deploys the ambivalence inherent to the remembrance and

representation of a traumatic event which is illustrated through the use of

fragmentation, silences, chronological shifts, memory discontinuities, repeated

scenes, and metaphoric dreams. (Estévez-Saá 23)

According to this definition, Montgomery’s novels might not be classified as trauma

narratives in this iteration of trauma theory, since trauma is not the main focus of the

novels, but the protagonists most certainly deal with the very specific trauma of

becoming orphans. The novels deal with trauma on a personal level, not widespread

trauma; thus, we are also dealing with personal memory, not cultural memory.

Schönfelder further connects her ideas on personal trauma with Deborah

Horvitz’s ideas on art and narrative and their ability to aid in healing or working

through trauma (34). Writing poetry and stories, telling stories, imagining stories,

imagining places—these are all activities in which Emily and Anne partake. Not only

do they partake in them: they revel in them. These activities are an enormous part of

Emily’s and Anne’s daily lives, and they must in some way help the girls cope with

Kennedy 29

their situations. Schönfelder discusses many authors’ ideas on the possible connection

between writing and healing and recovering: “While blind spots regarding the potential

of narration and the importance of recovery persist in some strands of trauma theory, for

critics like Horvitz, Vickroy, Kaplan, and Griffiths, literary trauma writing and the topoi

of recovery and healing are not mutually exclusive” (34). Montgomery’s two novels

may not fall into the category of literary trauma writing, but they deal with traumatic

experiences and memories, and they most certainly revolve around the topics of healing,

growing, and moving on.

In her article, Schönfelder contrasts the Romantic and Postmodern literary

understanding of trauma and recovery with the medical understanding of the time

periods, and she notes that,

the comparison of trauma narratives from different time periods will cast new

light on issues of recovery, especially because Romantic and postmodern trauma

novels tend to approach recovery in rather different ways … broadly speaking,

postmodern explorations of processes of recovery or partial recovery contrast

with Romantic scepticism, ambivalence, and (in some cases) radical rejections

of recovery. (35)

Of the two novels, Emily (1923) was published in the Modern period, and Anne (1908)

was published between the Victorian and Modern periods. These two texts were written

between the two literary periods discussed in Schönfelder’s article, thus the Romantic

ideas surrounding trauma and recovery may have had an impact on the texts.

Schönfelder states that “traumatic stress studies strive to define the boundaries between

traumatic and non-traumatic stressors as well as between healthy coping strategies and

symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder” (38). In the time period that Schönfelder

examines, she notes that the novels on the topic of trauma explore both optimistic and

pessimistic views on self-therapeutic scenarios and that they are “profoundly concerned

with the (im)possibility of recovery” (77). This creates a binary: the impossibility and

the possibility of recovery—a binary that is mirrored in Susannah Radstone’s article

“Trauma theory: Contexts, Politics, Ethics,” wherein she suggests that,

notwithstanding the sophistication of trauma theory’s underpinnings in De

Manian or Derridean deconstruction it nevertheless offers a theory of the subject

Kennedy 30

which retreats from psychoanalysis’s rejection of a black-and-white vision of

psychical life to produce a theory which establishes clear, not to say Manichean

binaries of “inside” and “outside,” “trauma” and “normality,” and “victims” and

“perpetrators.” (Radstone 19)

Trauma theory tends to reverse the rejection of black-and-white thought, thus creating

binaries that texts must adhere to in order to be classified as trauma literature. Even

though the two novels do not conform to trauma theory, there is a definite tendency in

the texts towards presenting these and other binaries. Emily and Anne are not

representations of normality and they are definite victims of trauma in their narratives.

In taking this idea further, the girls live in the constant binaries of “me” and “you,” or

“us” and “you,” or “me” and “them.” The orphan is always someone other, they are the

single soul among an established community, society or family.

Kennedy 31

MEMORY AND TRAUMA IN EMILY OF NEW MOON AND ANNE OF GREEN

GABLES

Traumatic memories tend to come back as flashbacks, or they may not have been

encoded in the same manner as non-traumatic memories. The girls do not forget the loss

of their parents; rather, Anne was too young to encode the memories surrounding the

loss of her parents, and Emily remembers the events clearly, if not fondly. The girls

both have vivid memories of their time as orphans, and it is these in connection with

trauma that prove to be of particular interest. In his article “A Basic-Systems Approach

to Autobiographical Memory,” David C. Rubin touches on the element of narrative

when discussing panic and trauma and the role of anticipation: “Autobiographical

memories of situations that lead to panic and trauma are different from autobiographical

memories of situations that lead to worry and social anxiety. In the former case, a

specific, highly negative event has occurred; in the latter, such an event may only have

been anticipated” (Rubin 81). I would argue that, in order to exist, such anticipation

requires a form of narrative. The girls’ autobiographical memories of becoming and

being orphans likely lead to trauma, but there are definite instances that also lead to

stress and worry. Some of the stories Montgomery relates in her autobiography and then

uses in her novels are events that happened to her or that she witnessed, and they hold

feelings of social anxiety and worry:

The notable incident of the liniment cake happened when I was teaching school

in Bideford and boarding at the Methodist parsonage there. Its charming

mistress flavoured a layer cake with anodyne liniment one day. Never shall I

forget the taste of that cake and the fun we had over it, for the mistake was not

discovered until tea-time. A strange minister was there to tea that night. He ate

every crumb of his piece of cake. What he thought of it we never discovered.

Possibly he imagined it was simply some new-fangled flavouring.

(Montgomery, The Alpine Path 52)

Montgomery is not the one who makes the cake, but it is a memory in which she takes

part. She uses this memory of hers in Anne’s narrative, wherein Anne is the one who

makes the mistake of putting medicine in a cake:

Kennedy 32

Mrs. Allan took a mouthful of hers and a most peculiar expression crossed her

face; not a word did she say, however, but steadily ate away at it. Marilla saw

the expression and hastened to taste the cake.

“Anne Shirley!” she exclaimed, “what on earth did you put into that

cake?”

“Nothing but what the recipe said, Marilla,” cried Anne with a look of

anguish. “Oh, isn’t it all right?”

“All right! It’s simply horrible. Mr. Allan, don’t try to eat it. Anne, taste

it yourself. What flavoring did you use?” …

Anne fled to the pantry and returned with a small bottle partially filled

with a brown liquid and labeled yellowly, “Best Vanilla.”

Marilla took it, uncorked it, smelled it.

“Mercy on us, Anne, you’ve flavored that cake with ANODYNE

LINIMENT. I broke the liniment bottle last week and poured what was left into

an old empty vanilla bottle” …

Anne dissolved into tears under this double disgrace. (Montgomery,

Anne 178-179)

Here, Anne’s propensity for making mistakes has real repercussions; at least in her

mind. This is one of the situations that causes Anne to feel some form of social anxiety

or shame. The minister’s wife forms a part of Anne’s female social ideal, and this

accident, in Anne’s eyes, would never have happened to someone like Mrs. Allan. It is

not only shame that Anne feels; she feels guilt for causing the situation. In situations

like this one, Anne cannot imagine away what has happened, she seems unable to create

a new fiction for herself. It is in this way that Anne’s traumatic memories differ from

those that cause her shame, whereas Emily deals with these two types of memory in

much the same way—she writes her narrative of these events in letters to her deceased

father. The girls’ traumatic memories in the novels do not relate directly to

Montgomery’s autobiography, rather it is certain memories connected to social anxiety

that Montgomery places in the girls’ frameworks. Anne and Emily have shared and

distinct experiences of becoming and being orphans, shared and distinct coping

Kennedy 33

strategies, and a shared exit through narrative. The girls’ traumatic memories all call for

the use of narrative and their imaginations to create alternate stories.

Orphans not only go through the trauma of losing their parents, but they also

live with the socio-cultural narrative that accompanies their situation and forms a mould

for the girls’ post-trauma behaviour. Emily and Anne have extant ways of narrating

their own memories from which the social element in forming autobiographical memory

and a sense of self may differ. Even so, the girls are both orphans, not only in being, but

also in the eyes of others. The first time Emily hears anything about becoming an

orphan, she is instructed to be sensible:

[Your father has] been dying by inches for the last five years … For mercy’s

sake, Emily Byrd Starr, don’t stand there staring like that! You give me the

creeps! You ain’t the first child that’s been left an orphan and you won’t be the

last. Try and be sensible. And don’t go pestering your pa about what I’ve told

you, mind that. (Montgomery, Emily 8)

Ellen Greene disregards any aspects of trauma or loss. In Ellen’s narrative, orphans

must be calm and sensible about the situation they are in and about losing their

parent(s). The first social narrative Emily becomes acquainted with is, therefore, one of

restraint. She must grieve on her own, while outwardly presenting a calm exterior. The

next piece of narrative she is given is from her father: “And I want you to be brave. You

mustn’t be afraid of anything, Emily. Death isn’t terrible. The universe is full of love—

and spring comes everywhere—and in death you open and shut a door. There are

beautiful things on the other side of the door” (Emily 17). Emily must be brave—

orphans must be brave. Emily’s social narrative is becoming more clearly defined; she

must now be sensible and brave: “when morning came her tears were all shed. She was

pale and quiet and docile” (Emily 19). Another addition to her orphan narrative is given

to her again by Ellen: “‘Well, you won’t have the choosing likely. You ought to be

thankful to get a home anywhere. Remember you’re not of much importance.’ ‘I am

important to myself,’ cried Emily proudly” (Emily 20-21). Emily should be grateful, and

she is to know that she is not important. So far, if Emily is to be a proper orphan, she

needs to be sensible, brave, grateful, and humble, and there is also an underlying feeling

of being a burden. When Emily first meets her Murray relatives, they, much like Mrs.

Kennedy 34

Rachel in Anne, begin to discuss her looks and features: “‘You make me feel as if I was

made up of scraps and patches!’ she burst out indignantly” (Emily 30). This similarity in

the novels indicates another aspect of the social narrative of being an orphan: anyone

can voice their opinion about you in your presence. A child who is not an orphan would

not be in the presence of other adults without their parents. Other adults would not dare

to criticise someone else’s child, but when the parents or guardians are gone, or are not

yet instated as such, the floor is open for any comment or criticism. Emily and Anne

both have their looks commented on openly. Now, Emily’s orphan narrative includes

being exposed to open criticism. Emily keeps her feelings to herself: “Every glance that

fell on him hurt Emily; but she sat still and gave no outward sign. Aunt Ruth said

afterwards that she had never seen a child so absolutely devoid of all natural feeling”

(Emily 36). Emily is withholding any outward sign of sadness or grief because of the

orphan narrative that she has been fed. She is behaving sensibly and bravely, as she has

been instructed to do, as any orphan “should” behave. Or does this behaviour come

down to the Murray pride she possesses?

Emily and Anne share the aspect of open criticism in their orphan narratives, but

one aspect that is Anne’s alone is that of orphans being in some way dangerous. Mrs.

Rachel, before ever meeting Anne, holds an engrained narrative of suspicion towards

orphans. In her mind, orphans are untrustworthy, unpredictable, malicious, would-be

killers. As we find later in the novel, Mrs. Rachel is prone to sharing gossip and

exaggerating the details, but this is still an idea of orphanhood into which Anne enters:

“Why, it was only last week I read in the paper how a man and his wife up west of the

Island took a boy out of an orphan asylum and he set fire to the house at night—set it

ON PURPOSE, Marilla—and nearly burnt them to a crisp in their beds” (Montgomery,

Anne 10). Mrs. Rachel tells Marilla another example from the grapevine: “‘Only don’t

say I didn’t warn you if he burns Green Gables down or puts strychnine in the well—I

heard of a case over in New Brunswick where an orphan asylum child did that and the

whole family died in fearful agonies. Only, it was a girl in that instance’” (Anne 10-11).

In Anne’s case, the aspect of open criticism is one she endures from Mrs. Rachel, when

she tells Anne that her hair is as red as carrots (Anne 67). The social narrative Emily and

Anne face, concerning being an orphan, also includes the aspect of being unwanted.

Emily feels it to an extent, when her relatives have her pick straws to determine who

Kennedy 35

will take her in (Emily 45), but it is Anne who has felt this aspect her whole life: “‘You

don’t want me!’ she cried. ‘You don’t want me because I’m not a boy! I might have

expected it. Nobody ever did want me’” (Anne 27). So far, Anne’s social narrative

consists of her being untrustworthy, worthy of open criticism, and being unwanted. Just

like Emily, Anne is also told to be sensible, if in different terms:

“Well, well, there’s no need to cry so about it.”

“Yes, there IS need!” The child raised her head quickly, revealing a tear-

stained face and trembling lips. “YOU would cry, too, if you were an orphan and

had come to a place you thought was going to be home and found that they

didn’t want you because you weren’t a boy. Oh, this is the most TRAGICAL

thing that ever happened to me!” (Anne 27)

Of course, a child would cry in such a situation. Her hopes are up, she thinks she is

going to be adopted, but it turns out that her new guardians actually wanted a boy. Anne

thinks that she will be sent back to the orphan asylum. This scenario is her worst

nightmare, but she is expected to behave sensibly and properly.

Mrs. Rachel’s narrative of orphans being untrustworthy at best is mirrored in an

interaction Anne had before coming to Green Gables: “I’ll try to be so good. It will be

uphill work, I expect, for Mrs. Thomas often told me I was desperately wicked” (Anne

57). Since Anne is told she is “desperately wicked,” she feels the need to try her best to

be good. In Anne’s mind, the wickedness and the supposed ugliness of being skinny and

having red hair go hand-in-hand with the orphan narrative she has been fed by the adults

surrounding her as she was growing up. She feels the need to leave all of those aspects

of herself behind in order to become a not-orphan—a daughter. In both Emily’s and

Anne’s cases, their understanding and narration of their situations are divided into their

internal narratives and external narratives. The girls’ external narratives come from the

grown-ups in their lives: Anne’s previous “adoptive” parents, the people at the orphan

asylum, Matthew and Marilla, Mrs. Rachel, Emily’s father, Emily’s extended family,

and Ellen Greene. What remains is the idea that orphans are notoriously badly behaved,

that they are not to be trusted, that they are always skinny (Anne 16), that they should

accept their situation and any criticism calmly, and that they should keep their emotions

to themselves.

Kennedy 36

Another aspect within the orphan narrative is that of the “poor” orphan: “Aunt

Laura lifted her up and said, ‘I’m going to take the poor child up to bed—she’s worn

right out.’” (Montgomery, Emily 32). Emily is called the poor child, demonstrating an

aspect of pity in her orphan narrative. Later, she is called a poor little soul:

“Poor little soul,” said Aunt Laura gently.

(Something frozen in Emily’s heart melted at that moment. She was

pitifully pleased over being called “poor little soul” so tenderly.)

“I do not think you need pity her overmuch, Laura,” said Uncle Wallace

decidedly. “It is evident that she has very little feeling. I have not seen her shed

a tear since we came here.” (Emily 40).

Emily’s Aunt Laura goes on to say that Emily feels so much she needs to hide it (Emily

40). This pleasure in being called “poor” is mirrored in Anne, wherein Anne defines

herself as a poor orphan: “Oh, Mrs. Lynde, please, please, forgive me. If you refuse it

will be a lifelong sorrow on a poor little orphan girl, would you, even if she had a

dreadful temper? Oh, I am sure you wouldn’t. Please say you forgive me, Mrs. Lynde”

(Montgomery, Anne 77). Anne uses this again when speaking to Mrs. Barry, her friend

Diana’s mother, after mistakenly getting Diana drunk: “Just imagine if you were a poor

little orphan girl that kind people had adopted and you had just one bosom friend in all

the world” (Anne 133). Emily relishes in being called a “poor little soul” by her Aunt

Laura—it is a sign of being cared for. Aunt Laura is empathetic enough to Emily’s

situation that she feels her pain in losing her father. Aunt Laura is, thus, someone who

understands, someone who does not expect Emily to hide all of her emotions away.

Anne similarly enjoys the term “poor orphan,” only in her case, she herself uses it as a

tool for eliciting endearment and feelings of empathy and care. Even before Anne’s own

use of the term, she is called so by Mrs. Rachel “Well, I’m sorry for that poor young

one and no mistake,” (Anne 11) only in this instance, Anne is not present to hear the

comment. The term “poor” seemingly goes hand-in-hand with being an orphan, and it

fits in with the established narratives. Emily’s social narrative of being an orphan

encompasses being sensible, brave, grateful, unimportant, humble, burdensome,

accepting of criticism, and poor. Anne’s encompasses being accepting of criticism,

wicked, unwanted, untrustworthy, sensible, and poor.

Kennedy 37

Even with this social narrative of her behaviour, Emily cannot help but lash out

when anyone says anything negative about her parents, especially about her father, or

about herself. Anne is also prone to lashing out at people who say mean things about

her or make fun of her. Emily first lashes out when Ellen Greene calls her father a

corpse: “‘Why not? If you ain’t the queerest child! He makes a better-looking corpse

than I thought he would, what with being so wasted and all. He was always a pretty

man, though too thin.’ ‘Ellen Greene,’ said Emily, suddenly, ‘if you say any more of—

those things—about Father, I will put the black curse on you!’” (Montgomery, Emily

18-19). Anne also lashes out, to an even greater extent than Emily:

With one bound she crossed the kitchen floor and stood before Mrs. Rachel, her

face scarlet with anger, her lips quivering, and her whole slender form trembling

from head to foot.

“I hate you,” she cried in a choked voice, stamping her foot on the floor.

“I hate you—I hate you—I hate you—” a louder stamp with each assertion of

hatred. “How dare you call me skinny and ugly? How dare you say I’m freckled

and redheaded? You are a rude, impolite, unfeeling woman!” (Montgomery,

Anne 67-68)

Anne tends to lash out verbally in communication with others, while Emily only rarely

lashes out in this way. Emily saves her lashing out for her written narratives of the

events of the day. In her article “Acting out and Working through: Trauma and

(in)Security,” Kate Schick examines both acting out in connection to trauma and

working through said trauma. She connects lashing out with the constant reliving of the

stressors or trauma experienced (1842). The events and words that lead Anne and Emily

to lash out bring back memories of traumatic experiences, and at the beginning, the only

way the girls are able to deal with them is through lashing out. Schick discusses various

modes that may aid in working through trauma, such as art, dance, music, and writing

(1849). Emily begins to write about her experiences, while Anne narrates stories to

herself and to others. Both of the girls use narrative to work through their trauma of

becoming orphans, but what happens when the pain is too great and they cannot write or

imagine? They may lash out, as Schick discusses in her article, or they may react in

another manner.

Kennedy 38

An event Emily is unable to write about is her conversation with Ellen Greene,

when Ellen tells her that her father only has a few weeks to live:

She was all alone now, with this terrible burning pain that seemed all over her

and yet was not of the body. She could never get rid of it. She couldn’t help it

by writing about it in the old yellow account-book. She had written there about

her Sunday-school teacher going away, and of being hungry when she went to

bed, and Ellen telling her she must be half-crazy to talk of Wind Women and

flashes; and after she had written down all about them these things hadn’t hurt

her any more. But this couldn’t be written about. (Montgomery, Emily 10)

This is an example of a memory or event that eludes words—it cannot be written about,

thus it does not have a narrative. Emily is not able to narrate the event of Ellen telling

her that her father only has a few weeks to live. Memories that cannot be verbalized

may have no narrative, hence their encoding as memories may be hindered. As

Schönfelder finds, there are some trauma specialists who state that memories relating to

trauma tend to resist integration into autobiographical memory (75), but this is a

contended subject (McNally 817).5 Emily may not write about the event of Ellen telling

her of her father’s condition, but she does mull it over, thus constructing a mental

narrative: “But Father, so Ellen had said, was going to die in a week or two. Emily felt

as if Ellen had told her this years and years ago. It surely couldn’t be less than an hour

since she had been playing with the Wind Woman in the barrens and looking at the new

moon in the pinky-green sky” (Montgomery, Emily 10). Since all memories are

remembered in the present (Eakin 26), it is as though Emily has always known. All of

her previous memories are now tainted with her new knowledge of her father’s

imminent death. When her father asks her about her mother’s funeral, Emily is able to

narrate the event to him:

I remember the funeral, Father—I remember it distinctly. You were standing in

the middle of a room, holding me in your arms, and Mother was lying just

before us in a long, black box. And you were crying—and I couldn’t think

5 The idea of forgetting traumatic memories, causing a form of amnesia, is a contended idea. Some individuals remember trauma, and some seem to forget. There is no general theory that applies to all individuals.

Kennedy 39

why—and I wondered why Mother looked so white and wouldn’t open her eyes.

And I leaned down and touched her cheek—and oh, it was so cold. It made me

shiver. And somebody in the room said, “Poor little thing!” and I was frightened

and put my face down on your shoulder. (Emily 15)

Emily remembers her mother’s funeral, but it seems as though as a four-year-old she

could not make sense of what she was witnessing. She did not yet have a narrative of

death to refer to, yet she knew the event was a negative one. After finding out about her

father, Emily’s usual source of consolation seems no longer to hold its power:

How very big and empty the world had suddenly become. Nothing was

interesting any more. It did not matter that the little squat apple-tree between

Adam-and-Eve had become a thing of rose-and-snow beauty—that the hills

beyond the hollow were of green silk, purple-misted—that the daffodils were

out in the garden—that the birches were hung all over with golden tassels—that

the Wind Woman was blowing white young clouds across the sky. None of

these things had any charm or consolation for her now. In her inexperience she

believed they never would have again. (Emily 24)

Now, as her father is dying, Emily thinks she knows what to expect from her own

previous experience, or rather, inexperience. Since the usual things no longer hold any

consolation for her, Emily resorts to writing.

In Anne’s case, as the reader is not witness to events leading to her becoming an

orphan, they rely on small instances of Anne’s remembering and retelling to gauge her

feelings about past memories. “I don’t care if I do hurt your feelings by saying so! I

hope I hurt them. You have hurt mine worse than they were ever hurt before even by

Mrs. Thomas’ intoxicated husband” (Montgomery, Anne 68). As opposed to Emily’s

story and the time the reader spends with her father, we do not gain much information

about this husband of Mrs. Thomas’, but the situation that Anne is suggesting cannot

have been a pleasant one. Anne’s reluctancy to retell events and memories from her

past, specially without changing them, may be a sign of these memories carrying

trauma. The following instance from Anne’s past offers another glimpse of Mr.

Thomas’ scary behaviour: “When I lived with Mrs. Thomas she had a bookcase in her

sitting room with glass doors. There weren’t any books in it; Mrs. Thomas kept her best

Kennedy 40

china and her preserves there—when she had any preserves to keep. One of the doors

was broken. Mr. Thomas smashed it one night when he was slightly intoxicated” (Anne

61). These are events that Anne only mentions once, and she does not, possibly cannot,

imagine them to be anything other than what they were:

I’ve never belonged to anybody-not really. But the asylum was the worst. I’ve

only been in it four months, but that was enough. I don’t suppose you ever were

an orphan in an asylum, so you can’t possibly understand what it is like. It’s

worse than anything you could imagine. Mrs. Spencer said it was wicked of me

to talk like that, but I didn’t mean to be wicked. It’s so easy to be wicked

without knowing it, isn’t it? (Anne 15)

Again, the idea that Anne is wicked for talking about the asylum as a terrible place.

Orphans should be grateful and they should not speak negatively of their situation.

Anne tells Matthew that her experience at the asylum was “worse than anything you

could imagine” (15). Now, Anne is prone to exaggerating stories of her life, but she is

also excellent at imagining things. Her experience there must have left a scar

somewhere in her memories, because to Anne, nothing is outside the scope of the

imagination. When Anne mentions her skimpy nightdress in the poor asylum, however,

she returns to her fancies of imagining: “The matron of the asylum made them for me.

They’re fearfully skimpy. There is never enough to go around in an asylum, so things

are always skimpy—at least in a poor asylum like ours. I hate skimpy night-dresses. But

one can dream just as well in them as in lovely trailing ones, with frills around the neck,

that’s one consolation.” (Anne 30). The skimpy nightdress is an injustice, but Anne is

able to imagine herself dreaming in it just as well as she would dream in a beautiful

nightdress. Here, again, it is her imagination that provides some consolation.

Emily manages to stay composed, as she is told to do, until that first night away

from home:

“I feel as if I was in bed with a griffin,” thought Emily. “Oh—oh—oh—I’m

going to cry—I know I am.”

Desperately and vainly she strove to keep the tears back—they would

come. She felt utterly alone and lonely—there in that darkness, with an alien,

Kennedy 41

hostile world all around her—for it seemed hostile now … Oh, for her little bed

at home—oh, for Father’s soft breathing in the room—oh, for the dancing

friendliness of well-known stars shining down through her open window! She

must go back—she couldn’t stay here—she would never be happy here! But

there wasn’t any “back” to go to—no home—no father—. A great sob burst

from her—another followed and then another. (Emily 60)

Emily, in her loneliness in a strange house with strange people, remembers every aspect

of home she so misses. This version of Emily’s self does not remain the same

throughout her story. In the beginning, when her feelings of loneliness and grief still

feel like gaping wounds, Emily is unable to console herself. However, her desperation

does not remain with her forever in her continually renewing present, rather it becomes

part of her memory. It is not a constant for the rest of her life.

Even though the connection between memory and time is not linear, it still

seems as though the girls, especially Emily, need time to become acquainted with their

new surroundings and to soften the traumatic blow of becoming and being orphans.

Emily and Anne appear to leave behind the social definition of being an orphan that so

defines them in the beginning of the novels; Emily, when she has to move in with her

Aunts Elizabeth and Laura and go to a new school, and Anne, when she first moves to

Green Gables and goes to school. With time, their narratives of self become less those

of being orphans and more those of being themselves—Emily and Anne, not “Emily the

Orphan” and “Anne the Orphan.” As the girls grow farther away from becoming and

being orphans and the ensuing trauma, their current realities at the time of remembering

alter the narratives surrounding their traumatic memories. The memories likely remain

vivid, but the way in which the protagonists narrate them to themselves or to others

change, and the way in which the memories are reconstructed also changes. It is

predominantly the girls’ imaginations that keep them going—moving away from the

social orphan narrative and into their own narratives of self. As the girls’ narrative

realities change, so, too, does their construction of meaning surrounding the events that

have happened to them. As Schönfelder questions in her article, “What are possible

ways and means of surviving and confronting a traumatic past and of overcoming a

trauma-related crisis? How can the wounds of trauma survivors be healed? How do

different individuals experience processes of working through and recovery? Is

Kennedy 42

recovery after shattering life-events even possible?” (76). For Emily and Anne, it is

their coping mechanisms that aid in the process of healing from the trauma of becoming

orphans.

Kennedy 43

ORPHAN TRAUMA AND COPING MECHANISMS

In her article “Incarnations of the Orphan,” Nina Auerbach discusses the various forms

orphans take in literature and the tropes that surround the orphan narrative: “In a sense,

the orphan can be thought of as a metaphor for the novel itself: a faintly disreputable

and possibly bastardized offspring of uncertain parentage, always threatening to lose

focus and definition, but, with the resilience of the natural victim, always managing to

survive; a particular product of the modern world” (395). Auerbach continues with a

brief history of the orphan in literature, wherein the fragility of the orphaned child is

contradicted. The orphan narrative has passed through three centuries, taking different

shapes as the timeline progresses. Auerbach begins her analysis with the eighteenth

century and the sly, underground orphan, and she continues into the nineteenth century

with the orphan as a Romantic waif whose existence threatens his surroundings. The

orphan’s solitude “energizes him as visionary, artist, and silent schemer” (395). The

terms Auerbach uses here—resilient, sly, threatening, artist, visionary, schemer—no

matter the timeline of orphans through literary history, can all be seen at one point or

another in Emily’s and Anne’s behaviour and in the social narratives of orphanhood that

surround them. Auerbach continues her analysis with the picaresque orphan, who in his

lonely freedom without a past is capable of continually starting over (398). This

incarnation somewhat applies to Anne, but not to Emily. Does this mean that Emily and

Anne are continuations of the traditional literary orphan? Emily and Anne display the

characteristics of both of these types of orphan, irrespective of the time they were

written in. During the eighteenth century, “orphanhood meant nullity of self. In the

nineteenth century, it comes to stand for something like pure selfhood, being in the

Wordsworthian sense, Coleridge’s ‘infinite I AM’” (404). Following on from this idea

of the “infinite I AM” and pure selfhood, the question is whether Emily and Anne have

this sense of a lone, fulfilled self in the world. They may prefer to categorize themselves

as orphans, daughters, nieces, or friends. Are the two ideas mutually exclusive or can

they combine to make an individual who feels confident in the self they have built?

Auerbach discusses orphans in literature of the twentieth century as embracing their

roots through artistry—“a device with which to create himself, as it was in the

eighteenth century, but in a less defined and durable manner” (416). In these instances,

art could be standing in for a process of narration usually guided by a child’s parents.

Kennedy 44

Both of the protagonists engage in written, oral, and imaginary narration of their

past, present, and imagined scenarios. These are all activities greatly linked to ideas on

healing from and overcoming trauma. As Schönfelder states,

Through the way they imagine victims speaking and/or writing for themselves,

Romantic trauma novels explore the therapeutic potential of language further

than contemporary psychiatric discourses. However, the novels not only give

those suffering from mental disturbances a voice for telling their personal

histories and individual tragedies, but they also investigate in detail the

therapeutic power of oral and written self-expression. (81)

In the novels, this form of creative self-expression is extremely prominent. Through

Emily and Anne, Montgomery explored the power of narrative and language in healing

from trauma. In her article “Acting out and Working through: Trauma and

(in)Security,” Kate Schick discusses various ideas concerning storytelling and its effects

on those working through traumatic memories and experiences. She examines the

following two ideas on storytelling:

Telling the story of a trauma is central to the mourning process. Psychiatrist

Judith Lewis Herman describes story-telling as a “work of reconstruction” that

transforms the traumatic memory and enables it to be incorporated into the

traumatised individual’s life story. Yoder maintains that story-telling helps with

the healing process because it “counteracts the isolation, silence, fear, shame, or

‘unspeakable’ horror” (Schick 1849-1850).

Again, in Herman’s vision of storytelling counteracting trauma, we see this idea of

retelling, of forming anew these memories of the past in the present. Emily reconstructs

her memories in written form, thus enabling them to be incorporated into her life story.

Anne reconstructs her memories to include imaginary elements that also transform her

traumatic memories into ones that can more easily and more willingly be integrated into

her life story. These are contemporary ideas on storytelling and its connection to healing

from trauma, ideas that Montgomery incorporated into her fictional narratives.

Connecting to others, through writing and storytelling, is a large part of Emily’s

and Anne’s healing process. They both have a wish, a need to find connection. The girls

not only connect to others as daughter, niece, and friend; they also both find connection

Kennedy 45

through imaginary friends and personified elements of nature. Hence, the girls’ social

environments also include imaginary friends, trees, lakes, forests, pathways, and the

wind. In her article, Schönfelder discusses environment and connection in trauma

narratives:

In literary trauma writing, the interpersonal aspects of trauma have tended to

receive considerable attention: most Romantic and postmodern trauma novels

foreground the interpersonal factors affecting the protagonists’ pre-, peri- and

posttraumatic lives. These texts call attention to how strongly the environment

influences the subjective meanings that trauma takes on for the individual, while

also exploring in detail how trauma survivors try to connect to their fellow

human beings—in spite of or precisely through their traumatic past. (85)

Connection through writing and telling stories, imaginary friends, and nature

personified are all elements of Emily’s and Anne’s methods of dealing with trauma in

their peri- and posttraumatic lives. These are the girls’ coping mechanisms, which lead

their narratives from those of trauma to those of redemption, wherein the girls heal from

the trauma and pain they endured and grow as individuals. A connection that is

beginning to emerge is between the girls’ coping mechanisms and nature. As

Kochanowski states, “natural environments in early childhood education can instill both

competence and a sense of overall well-being in children” (146). In the process of

narration turning into stories, turning into imaginary friends, turning into a connection

with nature, the girls’ natural environments may very well instill a feeling of well-being.

Kennedy 46

IMAGINATION AND COPING MECHANISMS IN EMILY OF NEW MOON AND

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES

Gregory Hampton discusses the importance of fiction within memory, wherein

remembering the past is not like looking up records in a filing cabinet; rather it is

similar to creating a fiction for oneself (262). Emily and Anne both, to an extent, create

new fictions to live in instead of living in the wake of their traumatic memories. The

girls’ processes of imagining and reimagining past and present events through narrative

provide them with a means of coping with their situations. Emily’s memories of her

father and their last few days spent together do not seem to be traumatic to her; rather,

what causes her grief is the way in which she finds out about his illness, as well as the

change that she has to undergo after his death and the simple fact that he is gone. She

remembers her last days with her father fondly: “In after years when the pain had gone

out of their recollection, Emily thought they were the most precious of her memories.

They were beautiful weeks—beautiful and not sad” (Montgomery, Emily 19). Emily

narrates her own version of what is going to happen to her father when he dies:

But all at once she found that she wasn’t afraid any longer—and the bitterness

had gone out of her sorrow, and the unbearable pain out of her heart. She felt as

if love was all about her and around her, breathed out from some great, invisible,

hovering Tenderness. One couldn’t be afraid or bitter where love was—and love

was everywhere. Father was going through the door—no, he was going to lift a

curtain—she liked that thought better, because a curtain wasn’t as hard and fast

as a door—and he would slip into that world of which the flash had given her

glimpses. He would be there in its beauty—never very far away from her. She

could bear anything if she could only feel that Father wasn’t very far away from

her—just beyond that wavering curtain. (Emily 17-18)

Emily partially adopts her father’s narrative of how she is to be when she is an

orphan—brave, but she also connects his idea of stepping through a door with her own

imaginary curtain that leads to “the flash.” Emily constructs a new narrative that

comforts and calms her, and it transforms the unknown into something familiar. For

Emily, imagining her negative situations and writing them down also provides a form of

consolation: “Emily did not like Ellen but she felt deserted when Ellen had gone. She

Kennedy 47

was alone now before the bar of Murray opinion. She would have given anything to be

out of the room. Yet in the back of her mind a design was forming of writing all about it

in the old account-book. It would be interesting. She could describe them all—she knew

she could” (Emily 29). Her writing consoles her, offering her an outlet for her feelings

of stress, sadness, betrayal, and pain. In writing, Emily finds a method of coping with

her new reality: “In the writing, pain and humiliation had passed away. She only felt

tired and rather happy. It had been fun, finding words to fit Uncle Wallace; and what

exquisite satisfaction it had been to describe Aunt Ruth as ‘a dumpy little woman’”

(Emily 44). Emily has just written descriptions of all of her relatives. The first notable

coping mechanisms we see in Emily are, thus, her imagined narrative and her writing.

Emily takes a traumatic or negative event and writes about it, describing it in minute

detail. This is similar to certain methods of writing therapy for those who have

undergone trauma (Schönfelder 81; 82; Schick 1849; 1850). Emily uses her imagination

to create descriptions that please her. In her coping with trauma, Emily is more of a

realist, while Anne creates imagined scenarios that she intertwines with reality and her

memories.

If I return to Hampton’s idea of forgetting allowing one to tolerate past

situations in the present (266), this defence mechanism may correlate to Anne and her

time before the orphan asylum, before even her first adoption. She does not seem to

remember much herself, rather she regurgitates a narrative that was told to her, and she

prefers to embellish her story with her imagination. Eakin discusses memories as

fictions (26) created in the present, and when Anne embellishes her memories with

imagined elements, she retells her own past in a new present, a present within which she

feels safe and happy. Anne is thus forming a new self every time she narrates her

memories:

When we got on the train I felt as if everybody must be looking at me and

pitying me. But I just went to work and imagined that I had on the most

beautiful pale blue silk dress—because when you ARE imagining you might as

well imagine something worth while—and a big hat all flowers and nodding

plumes, and a gold watch, and kid gloves and boots. I felt cheered up right away

and I enjoyed my trip to the Island with all my might. (Montgomery, Anne 17)

Kennedy 48

While experiencing an uncomfortable ordeal, Anne imagines it to be different than it

actually is. It is possible that this coping mechanism may alter the way in which Anne

then stores these memories as autobiographical memory. Anne is narrating the event to

herself as she is living it, but her narration deviates from reality. Since we know that

memory is in its essence constructed from narration, it is possible that Anne’s imagined

scenarios do more than just help her cope. She may actually alter the negative

connotations of a situation in her own memories. Anne tells Matthew a little of her

experience at the asylum, and even then, she mentions her ability to imagine the

situation to be different than it was in reality: “It was pretty interesting to imagine things

about them—to imagine that perhaps the girl who sat next to you was really the

daughter of a belted earl, who had been stolen away from her parents in her infancy by a

cruel nurse who died before she could confess. I used to lie awake at nights and imagine

things like that, because I didn’t have time in the day” (Anne 16). Another instance of

Anne’s imagining connects to being skinny: “I guess that’s why I’m so thin—I AM

dreadful thin, ain’t I? There isn’t a pick on my bones. I do love to imagine I’m nice and

plump, with dimples in my elbows” (Anne 16). Much like before on the train, Anne

imagines away her past or current reality, and in its stead, she imagines herself exactly

as she hopes and wants to be. Anne also uses this coping mechanism in instances when

coping is not necessary. It has become part of her thought vocabulary, a way in which

she plays with the world around her: “When I don’t like the name of a place or a person

I always imagine a new one and always think of them so. There was a girl at the asylum

whose name was Hepzibah Jenkins, but I always imagined her as Rosalia DeVere”

(Anne 21). Anne’s literary form of narrating her own life story carries over to the people

and places surrounding her. The coping mechanism of imagination, thus, seeps into a

larger mechanism surrounding Anne’s life story—her desire to live like the heroine in a

novel, which is ironic since that is exactly what she is in the eyes of the reader.

In Emily, there is a similar instance of Emily imagining herself looking a certain

way:

And she unpinned from the wall and stowed away in her pocket the picture of

the ball dress she had cut from a fashion sheet. It was such a wonderful dress—

all white lace and wreaths of rosebuds, with a long, long train of lace flounces

that must reach clear across a room. Emily had pictured herself a thousand times

Kennedy 49

wearing that dress, sweeping, a queen of beauty, across a ballroom door.

(Montgomery, Emily 51-52)

Emily does not so much imagine new scenarios for herself, but she does use her

imagination in a different way in order to cope with her situation. Emily’s imagined

scenario is held within the picture she keeps on her wall, and when she knows she is

leaving her home for good, she takes this memory keepsake with her. Much like Anne’s

imagined alternate Anne, wearing beautiful dresses and possessing auburn hair, this is

Emily’s imagined alternate Emily. The girls do not only imagine alternate versions of

themselves; they also create imaginary friends for themselves with whom to

communicate.

Social isolation affects the brain in such a way that one may use self-narration to

keep one’s identity intact (Eakin 39). In their times of semi- or full isolation, both Emily

and Anne create make-believe friends with whom to discuss their troubles. Anne’s first

imaginary friend is Katie Maurice:

One of the doors was broken. Mr. Thomas smashed it one night when he was

slightly intoxicated. But the other was whole and I used to pretend that my

reflection in it was another little girl who lived in it. I called her Katie Maurice,

and we were very intimate. I used to talk to her by the hour, especially on

Sunday, and tell her everything. Katie was the comfort and consolation of my

life. We used to pretend that the bookcase was enchanted and that if I only knew

the spell I could open the door and step right into the room where Katie Maurice

lived, instead of into Mrs. Thomas’ shelves of preserves and china. And then

Katie Maurice would have taken me by the hand and led me out into a

wonderful place, all flowers and sunshine and fairies, and we would have lived

there happy for ever after. When I went to live with Mrs. Hammond it just broke

my heart to leave Katie Maurice. (Montgomery, Anne 61)

Katie Maurice is Anne’s reflection. Anne imagines that Katie is a real little girl, maybe

another version of Anne, one who lives in a nicer place. Through Katie, Anne can see

herself as “living happily ever after.” When she is adopted by Mrs. Hammond, she feels

she has to leave Katie behind in the bookcase, but she quickly finds another imaginary

friend:

Kennedy 50

just up the river a little way from the house there was a long green little valley,

and the loveliest echo lived there. It echoed back every word you said, even if

you didn’t talk a bit loud. So I imagined that it was a little girl called Violetta

and we were great friends and I loved her almost as well as I loved Katie

Maurice—not quite, but almost, you know. The night before I went to the

asylum I said good-bye to Violetta, and oh, her good-bye came back to me in

such sad, sad tones. I had become so attached to her that I hadn’t the heart to

imagine a bosom friend at the asylum, even if there had been any scope for

imagination there. (Anne 62)

Anne’s second imaginary friend also stems from herself. This time it is not her own

reflection; it is the echo of her own voice that turns into Violetta. Katie and Violetta are

reflections and echoes of Anne—they are versions of herself to whom she can narrate

her self, thus keeping her self intact. These imaginary friends may aid in keeping

Anne’s feeling of self intact, but they also provide her with much-needed listeners. Irene

Visser discusses the “significance of listening as part of the healing process of trauma”

(151). Anne narrates her experiences and feelings to her imaginary friends, thus

providing herself with both a means of narrating and a confidential listener.

Anne is not alone in finding imaginary friends to cope with whatever her current

situation is. Emily also has two imaginary friends:

“I’m going for a walk with the Wind Woman, dear,” said Emily. “I wish I could

take you, too. Do you ever get out of that room, I wonder. The Wind Woman is

going to be out in the fields to-night. She is tall and misty, with thin, grey, silky

clothes blowing all about her—and wings like a bat’s—only you can see through

them—and shining eyes like stars looking through her long, loose hair. She can

fly—but to-night she will walk with me all over the fields. She’s a great friend

of mine—the Wind Woman is. I’ve known her ever since I was six. We’re old,

old friends—but not quite so old as you and I, little Emily-in-the-glass. We’ve

been friends always, haven’t we?” (Montgomery, Emily 4-5)

Emily’s imaginary friends are Emily-in-the-glass and the Wind Woman. Emily-in-the-

glass, like Anne’s Katie Maurice, was Emily’s first imaginary friend, stemming from

her own reflection, while the Wind Woman is of nature, much like Anne’s Violetta.

Kennedy 51

Emily’s Wind Woman is not connected to Emily through an echo of herself. Emily can

sometimes hear her, but she can also feel her. Anne’s Violetta was a little girl calling

back to Anne, while the Wind Woman is a natural entity that can soothe Emily. Emily

knows the Wind Woman will be there at New Moon: “She did not say good-bye to the

Wind Woman, for she knew the Wind Woman would be at New Moon, too; but she said

good-bye to the little window and the green hill she had loved, and to her fairy-haunted

barrens and to little Emily-in-the-glass. There might be another Emily-in-the-glass at

New Moon, but she wouldn’t be the same one” (Emily 51). Returning to Schönfelder’s

idea of the fictional worlds of trauma writing offering “nuanced engagements with the

subject of trauma” (29), it may be that Emily’s letters and poems, Anne’s imagined

worlds and characters, and both of their imaginary friends offer them this experience of

a nuanced engagement with their own traumatic memories and the difficult times they

have to deal with in their present.

Anne imagines the trees outside the orphan asylum to be in a similar situation to

her own:

They just looked like orphans themselves, those trees did. It used to make me

want to cry to look at them. I used to say to them, “Oh, you POOR little things!

If you were out in a great big woods with other trees all around you and little

mosses and Junebells growing over your roots and a brook not far away and

birds singing in you [sic] branches, you could grow, couldn’t you? But you can’t

where you are. I know just exactly how you feel, little trees.” (Montgomery,

Anne 18-19).

Anne finds a connection with her own unhappy situation in the trees outside. She pulls

parallels with her own needs and those of the trees in order to grow. If the trees cannot

grow here, then how could she possibly do so? Both Emily and Anne give names to

trees: Anne names an apple-scented geranium “Bonny” and a cherry tree “Snow Queen”

(38), while Emily names the two trees in front of her father’s house “Adam” and “Eve”

(Emily 1).

The girls’ connection to nature, however, does not stop at naming trees. Many of

their new memories at New Moon and at Green Gables are made outside, playing in

Kennedy 52

nature. The games the girls play and the stories they imagine with their new friends

predominantly happen outdoors. Emily plays in the Tansy Patch with Ilse and Teddy:

they had found the Tansy Patch a charming place and were glad to go again. For

the rest of the vacation there was hardly a day when they did not go up to it—

preferably in the long, smoky, delicious August evenings when the white moths

sailed over the tansy plantation and the golden twilight faded into dusk and

purple over the green slopes beyond and fireflies lighted their goblin torches by

the pond. Sometimes they played games in the tansy patch, when Teddy and

Emily somehow generally found themselves on the same side and then no more

than a match for agile, quick-witted Ilse … (Emily 130)

The three children spend almost every day of that summer outside, playing in the Tansy

Patch. There is also mention of Emily telling stories to her two friends: “Teddy and Ilse

sang school ditties, and Ilse recited, and Emily told stories; or they sat in happy silence,

each anchored in some secret port of dreams” (131). Emily’s enjoyment of nature is

connected to her new friends and the copious amounts of time they spend together

outside. Anne also spends her time outside with her new friend, Diana:

I wish time went as quick sewing patches as it does when I’m playing with

Diana, though. Oh, we do have such elegant times, Marilla. I have to furnish

most of the imagination, but I’m well able to do that. Diana is simply perfect in

every other way. You know that little piece of land across the brook that runs up

between our farm and Mr. Barry’s. It belongs to Mr. William Bell, and right in

the corner there is a little ring of white birch trees—the most romantic spot,

Marilla. Diana and I have our playhouse there. We call it Idlewild. (Anne 95)

For Emily and Anne, this interconnectedness of their pre-existing love of nature with

their new-found friends offers them a space where they feel safe and happy, both in

their surroundings and their choice of company. In their article “Nature Playscapes as

Contexts for Fostering Self-Determination,” Leslie Kochanowski and Victoria Carr

state that “natural environments in early childhood education can instill both

competence and a sense of overall well-being in children” (146). The girls’ natural

environments instill a feeling of well-being, even though they are not necessarily

connected to their education. Emily and Anne both relish the beauty of the natural

Kennedy 53

environment surrounding them, which provides a safe space for the girls to play and

interact with their friends. For Emily, it is in nature that her Wind Woman resides,

connecting Emily’s new surroundings at New Moon to those of her father’s house. It is

in nature that she, with her two best friends, can carve out her own space unattached to

the adults in her life and unattached to her orphan narrative. Anne, too, carves out her

own space—Idlewild—which she shares with Diana. Emily and Anne have some

measure of control in their chosen natural spaces: the naming of the space, the trees, the

alleys, and the brooks, the choice of company, and the imagined games and stories they

play and act out. In their natural environments, the girls establish a measure of control

and choice in their lives that they do not have in their orphan narratives.

In her article “Fairy Tale and Trauma in Toni Morrison’s ‘Home,’” Irene Visser

discusses “the possibility of healing and integration through acts of will and courage”

(157). Emily’s and Anne’s storytelling, writing, and imagining, along with their

imaginary friends, and the comfort they both find in nature with their friends are the

girls’ mechanisms for coping with the trauma of becoming and being orphans. All of

these acts contain elements of will and courage in the face of the girls’ difficult

situations, and it is through these acts of will, determination, and courage that the girls

find their redemption narratives, wherein they transform their suffering into individual

growth.

Kennedy 54

CONCLUSION

In analysing Lucy Maud Montgomery’s autobiography, The Alpine Path, and the two

novels, Emily of New Moon and Anne of Green Gables, I found that one of the ideas

connecting all three texts is autobiographical memory, specifically two forms of

autobiographical memory: Montgomery’s memories, which she used as building blocks

for Emily’s and Anne’s social worlds, and the girls’ fictional autobiographical

memories, surrounding the trauma of becoming and being orphans. Through exploring

autobiographical memory itself and its role in creating an individual’s sense of self, I

observed that some of Montgomery’s memories in The Alpine Path are mirrored in the

two novels, placing a few of Montgomery’s building blocks of life into Emily’s and

Anne’s lives, thus creating parts of the girls’ social worlds. Language and narrative aid

in the formation and reconstruction of memory and stories play a large role in the way

we frame our memories. For children, stories and narrative form the building blocks of

learning how to construct and store autobiographical memory; consequently they play a

large role in every individual’s creation of their own life story. Emily and Anne love

words, narrative, stories, and the two develop their own forms of narration, and,

subsequently, their own means of forming memory. Emily likely learned her memory

narrative style from her father, while Anne has two distinct narrative styles concerning

memory: her literary style, and narratives she has learned from the adults in her life. For

Emily and Anne, the social narrative of orphanhood slowly transforms into a

redemption narrative, which again transforms into the girls being fully themselves,

leaving behind the original social narratives they fell into as young children without

parents. The girls possess enough determination and imagination to grow into their own

versions of themselves irrespective of their beginnings.

A clear connection emerges between narrative, autobiographical memory, and

healing from trauma. The girls’ love of words and narrative—written, spoken, and

thought—ties in with ideas pertaining to the base formation of autobiographical

memory, as well as with ideas on healing from trauma. Here, narrative is the great

multi-tasker, acting as a coping mechanism in two forms; as a way to alter and improve

memories before they are stored as autobiographical, and as a way to put trauma into

words.

Kennedy 55

Memories are tied to the present time within which they are narrated. As Emily

and Anne grow farther away, in time and in self, from becoming and being orphans,

their current realities at the time of remembering alter the narratives surrounding their

traumatic memories. If memories are “plausible fictions,” we can understand them

doubly: as fictions that also correlate to a person’s present. The orphans’ rehabilitation

through imagination and narrative aids in creating a different time and place in which to

reconstruct their plausible fictions, thus manipulating their traumatic memories into

something more bearable. This nuanced engagement with trauma and the girls’ use of

imagination and narrative aid in their process of healing. Again, the key word here is

“narrative.”

Emily and Anne create new selves when they alter the narratives of their

memories, but this is not their only method of coping with trauma. The girls’ imaginary

friends also help them to cope with their situations. These imaginary friends are

versions of Emily and Anne, reflections and echoes of the girls, and they are also much-

needed listeners. The girls provide themselves with sensitive listeners, to whom they

can divulge their troubles and with whom they can imagine new worlds within which

they dream to live. Emily and Anne each have one imaginary friend connected to

nature; one is the Wind Woman, and the other is Violetta, an echo in a valley. This

connection to nature, which the girls exhibit early on, grows in their new environments.

Emily and Anne, together with their new-found friends, carve out their own spaces in

nature and imagination, wherein the girls gain a means of controlling a part of their

lives. They cannot control their socio-cultural orphan narratives, but they can control

their writing, imagining, storytelling, and their natural playgrounds, thus controlling

their narratives of self.

Montgomery’s ideas pertaining to memory, trauma, and coping mechanisms

were ahead of her time. Many of her ideas surrounding the girls’ mechanisms for living

through the trauma of becoming and being orphans strikingly resemble a more current

psychological and literary understanding of trauma and coping mechanisms. In time, the

girls’ orphan narratives, their socio-cultural orphan narratives and their individual

narratives of self, turn into redemption narratives. Emily’s and Anne’s adoration of

words, language, writing, and imagining turns out to be a complex coping mechanism

Kennedy 56

for deep feelings of trauma and loss. In the connection between narrative, imagination,

and nature lies Emily’s and Anne’s means of healing.

In future, I would expand on this topic to include Montgomery’s later-released

letters, her other novels, and other biographies. Similar themes of trauma, orphanhood,

and coping mechanisms can also be found in other novels, such as The Secret Garden

and A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Matilda and The Witches by Roald

Dahl, and The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis. Elements of Montgomery’s two novels

almost read like adaptations of her autobiography, and all of these novels have also been

adapted into films and television series, an examination of which could offer a new

perspective on the portrayal, adaptation, and remembrance of autobiographical memory,

orphan trauma, and coping mechanisms.

Kennedy 57

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