Kindred Spirit

What is a Kindred Spirit? Most Anne of Green Gables Fans would know. According to a blogpost by a girl with the pen name of Miss Dashwood, Kindred Spirits are friends who always know what to say, but don't need words to know how you feel. A friend with whom you can feel safe and mirrors your own thoughts. You understand each other and have that special connection. Essentially, your souls are made of the same stuff. In Anne of Green Gables, Anne finds 'Kindred Spirits' in unique places. They don't always start out liking each other, but eventually Anne's way of seeing the world wins people over. The  digital age, and in particular, blogging, is just a new way for people to form Kindred Spirits. When we blog about our ways of seeing the world, and our own perceptions, it puts our ideas out into the universe. Instead of having to wait to meet someone in order to become friends, you can find friendship with people from all over.

While commenting on blogs dedicated to Anne of Green Gables, I have found camaraderie with many people outside of my world in Provo. While I am still working on getting them to comment on my own ideas, I find it that our shared love of the characters in Anne's story is a great place to start. 

Influence on the World

Today, while reading a literary criticism of Anne of Green Gables, https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/mchen6/www/collection/514A/eva.htm, a certain quote stood out. It reads, " Our perception of reality often becomes the blueprint for our lives." In Anne's case, her imaginings affected her everyday life. She was a dreamer, constantly trying to form her world to fit the way she saw things  inside her head. She had so many ideas that she formed a story club in order to 'cultivate her imagination.' Anne influenced so many people because she dared to dream big and spoke of the things in her imagination unabashedly. People today are still dreaming, and imagining things that they want to happen in their own lives. In the digital age, we are now capable of spreading our thoughts and ideas to the entire world. The hope is that our own perceptions of reality influence someone else and their own perceptions. We aren't speaking to ourselves, but to the entire world. The only problem is everyone wants to be unique and to put their every thought and feeling out there for everyone to see. Like Dr. Burton said, a lot of content on the internet is inert and doesn't really have a point. However, the digital media has the potential to act as a medium for our own ideas to become the blueprint for other people's ideas about the world. 

The World behind the Characters

"They had driven over the crest of a hill. Below them was a pond, looking almost like a river so long and winding was it. A bridge spanned it midway and from there to its lower end, where an amber-hued belt of sand hills shut it in from the dark blue gulf beyond, the water was a glory of many shifting hues- the most spiritual shadings of crocus and rose and ethereal green, with other elusive tintings for which no name has ever been found."

In 1908, L.M Montgomery was looking to capture the feeling and inspiration of Prince Edward Island. The Island has pastoral landscapes, with rolling hills, shadowed forests and red sandy beaches. There has been a preservation act passed so the landscape looks much the same today, as it did then. This landscape also inspired, L.M Montgomery's main character, Anne. She would often be found outside, imagining the flowers to be souls, and trees to be dryads. In a way, this book perfectly matches the environment it was written in. Prince Edward Island is a real place and some of the cities in Anne of Green Gable are real, but the Town of Avonlea and its characters are fictional. This is the perfect connection to Anne's character, for she is such an interesting mixture of real and imagined things. Her imagination influenced who she was and what she believed in. 
The imagination of the town of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery has actually influenced the real Prince Edward Island. There is a thriving Anne of Green Gable community there. Along with the Anne of Green Gables House, there is a musical, museums devoted to L.M. Montgomery and her character Anne. 

The more you know about the beautiful place of Prince Edward Island and its background, the more you understand about the characters and their way of thinking.