This week the BBC launched Family Wanted – a campaign to raise awareness of adoption and fostering. With good reason, for few know much about the process, and fewer still take on any of the thousands of children waiting.
Anne of Green Gables (1908) is a story of adoption. Though written long before the psychologist John Bowlby developed his theories of attachment and loss, Lucy Maud Montgomery had a forward-thinking take on the issues. Her mother died when she was 2, and she was raised by her grandparents on Prince Edward Island.
If Montgomery’s adoption came through necessity, the circumstances of Anne Shirley’s (above, played by Megan Follows in the 1985 TV version) are built on the facts of turn-of-the-century Canadian life. Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert – the quiet, God-fearing brother and sister – decide that they need a boy to help on the farm. Finding that an acquaintance is on her way to an orphanage to get a girl to help in the house, they ask her to pick a boy for them. This is the essence of the opening chapter, “Mrs Rachel Lynde is Surprised”.
In the second chapter, “Matthew Cuthbert is Surprised”, we discover that she has misunderstood and chosen a little girl – a girl with red hair and a way with words. The first thing we hear Anne say – reported by the stationmaster, is that she prefers to sit outside because “there is more scope for the imagination”. The stationmaster declares that Anne is “a case”.
Matthew cannot bring himself to explain the error. So follows Anne’s journey via what she christens “The White Way of Delight” and the “Lake of Shining Waters” to the place that she thinks will be her first real home.
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Of course it all works out well. What Marilla takes on as a “duty” becomes a blessing. Adoption is different today, but the needs of children like Anne are just the same.
Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
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Visit bbc.co.uk/familywanted, call 0800 888809 or text PACK to 63399