"Living Epistles"

Today I was looking at Anne of Green Gables pins on Pinterest, because that’s the sort of geeky thing I like to do.  One link led to another, and I ended up reading the comments on an article, which is generally not a very good idea, since most are often ignorant and/or stupid.  However, this time it turned out well, because now I have something to write about!  I don’t remember what the actual article was about, but I remember the comment.  It was a woman complaining that in the first books of the Anne series, there are feminist ideals, and Anne seems to have a career.  She was lamenting the fact that in the later books, Anne’s career fades away and she seems stuck “doing her duty” taking care of her children.  She seems to imply that Anne would have been happier if she could have just stuck to her career and not have to be burdened by taking care of children.

 I agree with this anonymous commenter that Anne’s focus does shift from writing to children part way through the series.  However, I do not agree that this change of focus is sad or is unwanted by Anne.  Although Anne’s desire to write is prior in time to her desire to be a wife and mother, it is the latter which truly makes her happy and which is her true vocation.  This is clear in the books dealing with Anne’s life after her marriage, but particularly in Anne of Ingleside.  Throughout the book, Anne is continuously thinking about how much she loves her children and how she delights in taking care of them.  Not that she is always perfectly, unnaturally happy—the last chapter where Anne thinks Gilbert no longer cares for her shows that even the happiest of people have bad times and gives the whole book a more realistic quality. 

  In light of the reality present in the books, the commenter’s remark seems pretty ridiculous, but it is, unfortunately, indicative of the mindset of our times.  Modern generations seem to have lost a few very important ideas: that vocations exist, that women chose to be wives and mothers, and that doing so is not being repressed.  With these concepts forgotten, purposely or otherwise, it is no wonder that this woman was disappointed in Anne in the later books.  But I pity her, not being able to see of understand the beauty I see and understand in Anne’s joy in her “living epistles,” as she calls her children once, and in living her vocation to the fullest.