Emily Of New Moon

Montgomery, born in 1874 on Prince Edward Island, Canada, wrote 20 novels, over 500 short stories and poems, and 30 essays. Most of her novels feature a heroine, and many of the titles have the following format: “‘Heroine’s Name’ of ‘Specific Home or Location,’” such as Anne of Green Gables, Emily of New Moon, Pat of Silverbush, and Rilla of Ingleside.

Montgomery’s heroines have a lot of qualities and life experiences in common with each other and with Montgomery. For example, many of the girls are orphans living with distant family members or, in Anne’s case, with strangers she’d never met before. They are intelligent, imaginative, and sensitive, often very connected to the natural world, and prone to inventing imaginary friends.

Montgomery has stated that she is like Emily from the Emily of New Moon series because of her explicit desire to be a writer. In 1917, before writing the Emily series, Montgomery wrote an autobiographical essay called The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career. “The Alpine Path” is a symbolic concept in Emily of New Moon representing her path to becoming a writer. Montgomery published her first book, Anne of Green Gables, in 1908 at age 32. This novel and those that followed it made Montgomery the most successful Canadian author of all time.

Montgomery began writing Emily of New Moon in 1921, years after her Anne series made her famous. While the two heroines are both plucky and resourceful orphans around the same age, they are not exactly the same. While Anne is imaginative, intelligent, and ambitious, she does not have specific career goals in her story; she was employed as a teacher before she married her childhood sweetheart, Gilbert Blythe. Emily is more like Montgomery herself because she is determined to become a writer, and one primary thread in the series is how she develops her writing skills and reaches her goal. In the novel, Emily experiences “The Flash,” a specific sensation of inspiration that she feels when trying to capture the essence of something in words. Montgomery took that idea from her own experience of what inspiration felt like for her.

Though she enjoyed considerable recognition and fame for her stories, Montgomery’s adult life was not very happy. She fell in love with a man that her family did not approve of, so she ended up marrying a preacher instead, whom she did not really love. In Emily of New Moon, Emily’s parents took the risk that she never did; her mother’s family disapproved of Emily’s father, so they ran away together instead of breaking off their relationship like Montgomery did. Montgomery and her husband both suffered from depression and struggled through World War I and the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. As an older woman, she identified more with her last heroine, Patricia, or Pat, Gardiner of her two-book series Pat of Silver Bush (1933). Pat is less ambitious than the characters of Anne and Emily, and she stays in her family home her whole life. In 1920, Montgomery’s uncle tore down the house she grew up in, which greatly upset her, so her character Pat is particularly devoted to taking care of her home.

Montgomery’s heroines have qualities in common with each other and their creator. Montgomery herself has described the ways each of them contains some of herself. However, Emily is the only one with a passion for writing, described in a way that can only come from the author’s personal experience.Montgomery, born in 1874 on Prince Edward Island, Canada, wrote 20 novels, over 500 short stories and poems, and 30 essays. Most of her novels feature a heroine, and many of the titles have the following format: “‘Heroine’s Name’ of ‘Specific Home or Location,’” such as Anne of Green Gables, Emily of New Moon, Pat of Silverbush, and Rilla of Ingleside.

Montgomery’s heroines have a lot of qualities and life experiences in common with each other and with Montgomery. For example, many of the girls are orphans living with distant family members or, in Anne’s case, with strangers she’d never met before. They are intelligent, imaginative, and sensitive, often very connected to the natural world, and prone to inventing imaginary friends.

Montgomery has stated that she is like Emily from the Emily of New Moon series because of her explicit desire to be a writer. In 1917, before writing the Emily series, Montgomery wrote an autobiographical essay called The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career. “The Alpine Path” is a symbolic concept in Emily of New Moon representing her path to becoming a writer. Montgomery published her first book, Anne of Green Gables, in 1908 at age 32. This novel and those that followed it made Montgomery the most successful Canadian author of all time.

Montgomery began writing Emily of New Moon in 1921, years after her Anne series made her famous. While the two heroines are both plucky and resourceful orphans around the same age, they are not exactly the same. While Anne is imaginative, intelligent, and ambitious, she does not have specific career goals in her story; she was employed as a teacher before she married her childhood sweetheart, Gilbert Blythe. Emily is more like Montgomery herself because she is determined to become a writer, and one primary thread in the series is how she develops her writing skills and reaches her goal. In the novel, Emily experiences “The Flash,” a specific sensation of inspiration that she feels when trying to capture the essence of something in words. Montgomery took that idea from her own experience of what inspiration felt like for her.

Though she enjoyed considerable recognition and fame for her stories, Montgomery’s adult life was not very happy. She fell in love with a man that her family did not approve of, so she ended up marrying a preacher instead, whom she did not really love. In Emily of New Moon, Emily’s parents took the risk that she never did; her mother’s family disapproved of Emily’s father, so they ran away together instead of breaking off their relationship like Montgomery did. Montgomery and her husband both suffered from depression and struggled through World War I and the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. As an older woman, she identified more with her last heroine, Patricia, or Pat, Gardiner of her two-book series Pat of Silver Bush (1933). Pat is less ambitious than the characters of Anne and Emily, and she stays in her family home her whole life. In 1920, Montgomery’s uncle tore down the house she grew up in, which greatly upset her, so her character Pat is particularly devoted to taking care of her home.

Montgomery’s heroines have qualities in common with each other and their creator. Montgomery herself has described the ways each of them contains some of herself. However, Emily is the only one with a passion for writing, described in a way that can only come from the author’s personal experience.