Philosophy and Film: Hope and Aesthetics in Anne of Green Gables

When deciding which movie I should use as a vessel for the discovery of philosophic content in films, I reflected upon the films that have most shaped and molded my philosophic views and reflections. Anne of Green Gables has undoubtedly been one of the defining forces of my thought and world-view, and it is my goal in this paper to tease out the philosophic content that I believe lies within this film. I believe the proper way to do this, although philosophic content lies strung together throughout the entire film, is to concentrate on two or three specific scenes in which two themes I have chosen, hope and aesthetics, among others, are most evident.

"Tomorrow is always fresh...with no mistakes in it." (Megan Follows as Anne in Anne of Green Gables)

I am convinced that the bulk of the philosophic weight of this film is located within the above quote from Anne of Green Gables. The statement is simultaneously one of hope and aesthetics. Despite the vast amount of pathos that occurs as a results of the backfiring of Anne's best intentions, somehow she manages to remain hopeful and true to the conviction that tomorrow always has the potential to be both better than today and pure, as if it carries along with it a rebirth of the soul. This continual, daily rebirth and rejuvenation of hope is reminiscent of Ancient Greek Stoicism, minus the emotional detachment, of course. The stoic notions of predestination, inevitability, and the eternal recurrence of all things, are surprisingly similar to Anne's reactions to the pathos within the film. The eternal recurrence of the purity and hopefulness of each new day fits nicely within the framework of the "emotional stoicism" that I believe is being expressed in Anne of Green Gables.

Anne's character is not the only character in the film for whom hope is a crucial element. Gilbert Blythe's endless pursuit of and faith to Anne is undoubtedly an expression of hope, for he remains faithful to her and confident that she is the woman that is meant for him, despite all her assurances to the contrary. This is not only an expression of hope, but of obligation to pursue that hope and not to allow setbacks from one's goals to discourage him/her from them. The above mentioned notion of predestination is also a crucial element to Gilbert's character, for he firmly believes that there truly is a proverbial "meant to be," and that the person who will fulfill that is Anne. However, there seems to be somewhat of a paradox associated with Gilbert's notion of predestination. For if, as he seems to believe, fatalism is true and Anne really is meant for him, why must he constantly feel compelled to actively pursue her if she truly is a part of his own destiny? Thus there is in Anne of Green Gables a paradoxical representation that is akin to several problems within the philosophical debate of free-will/determinism. This paradox is surprisingly similar to the one discussed in Strawson's paper entitled, "Freedom and Resentment.," in which he argues that human reactive attitudes (such as Gilbert's pursuit of Anne, I suppose) are a necessary part of human existence. Therefore, even if determinism/fatalism should be true, we would have no choice but still to have reactive attitudes like appreciation, resentment, love, etc., just as Gilbert has no choice but to actively follow Anne, i.e., his own destiny.

I shall now turn my attention to the aesthetic content in Anne of Green Gables and attempt to discover exactly how this film has shaped my views of aesthetics. It was Anne's continual devotion and attention to beauty that first spawned my own conception of beauty. I was taught by the Anne films not to exclude beautiful things from daily life, but rather to include them in the things that I hold dearest to my being. The question now remains whether the standards that I use to judge the things I find beautiful had their roots themselves in the Anne films. I get the impression that the characters in the film have a very modernist conception of beauty and art. By this I mean that there seem to be universal standards by which things are judged to be beautiful. One has only to look at the scene in which Rachel Lynde, the town matriarch, so to speak, puts down Anne's appearance: "Well her looks are nothing to consider; she's terribly skinny and homely, Marilla. Lawful heart! Her hair's as red as carrots!" Even after Anne is able to win the hearts of the citizens of Avonlea, the people don't restructure their conception of beauty into something relativistic. They simply admit that they were mistaken, but the concept of beauty nevertheless remains a modernist one throughout the film, with definite standards.

I must admit that I have always viewed beauty and aesthetics in general in a very modernist way. Some things have always struck me as having intrinsic beauty, e.g., mountains, the human form, etc, and it does not seem to be an unreasonable position to say that I inherited those ideas from feeling such a strong connection to the Anne films.

A central theme of the Anne films that has connections to my own philosophic musings is romanticism. A sense of wonder and romance is arguable a necessary component of Anne's existence, a formula that I have tried to incorporate into my own philosophy. For example, I am currently doing my Senior Thesis on Free-Will/Determinism, and I find myself constantly drawn towards determinism as an end to the debate, not because of reason or logic, but because of the grand view of the universe that such a thesis presents. This romantic view of the universe was inherited mostly, if not entirely, from the romantic idealism presented in Anne of Green Gables. This romanticism also tends to explain why I am drawn to the more radical philosophies of philosophers such as Baudrillard, Heidegger, etc., i.e., philosophers who have had a profound or far reaching effect on the discipline of philosophy.

After our in-class viewing of Fight Club I found myself reflecting on the issues of personal identity that occur within Anne of Green Gables. For one of the key conflicts in Anne's character is her inability to accept her own uniqueness in the face of continual criticism from her peers. Thus, Anne must constantly force herself to ask the question of her own identity, who she is, who she wants to be, and how she will become that person. The depth of that probing is obviously not as deep as that required of Tyler in Fight Club, due mainly to his schizophrenia, but both Tyler's searching and that of Anne share identical, or at very least, similar, roots.

One of the deeper questions that Anne of Green Gables addresses is the concept of place. Throughout the film, it is quite clear that Anne feels what could be described as a metaphysical connection with the country farmhouse known as Green Gables. While the nature of this connection is not explicitly stated, it is obvious that it is meant to be a connection that is transcendent. In the recently released third and final installment of the Anne series, Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story, Anne returns to Green Gables for the first time since Marilla's death to find Green Gables in shambles. The blow to her could be viewed as the equivalent of having her own personal shrine desecrated. My reflections on the nature of Anne's connection to Green Gables leads me to inquire into the nature the "place" in general. Most people have places that they have adopted as their own, that they identify with, that they come to for strength, the connection with which cannot be easily explained. I would certainly like to think that I am somehow metaphysically connected with the places and people that I hold most dear, and I believe it is this desire that is expressed quite clearly in Anne of Green Gables.

While it has been difficult to find anything that is philosophical, per se, in Anne of Green Gables, much of what I have described here in the film is probably best taken as an impetus for philosophical thought, rather than as philosophical thought itself. However, whether the content of the Anne films is genuinely philosophical is less important than to note that it shares a common root with philosophical thought that can lead one to have philosophical insights via another means than the canonical and traditional way of doing philosophy.