Prince Edward Island example essay topic

Lucy Maud MntgomeryThe author of the famous Canadian novel ' ANNE OF GREEN GABLES', Lucy Maud Montgomery was born in Clifton (now New London), Prince Edward Island, 30th November, 1874. When she was two, her mother died of tuberculosis. Her father, who was a merchant, remarried, and moved away. Montgomery was raised by her maternal grandparents in Cavendish. The place was isolated and her childhood was not particularly happy: she grew up in an atmosphere of strict discipline and punishment for the slightest reason. She joined her father briefly in Prince Albert, but they soon returned to Prince Edward Island.

At an early age Montgomery read widely. She started to write in school and had her first poem published in a local paper at the age of fifteen. In 1895 Montgomery qualified for a teacher's license at Prince Wales College, Charlottetown. During the 1890's she worked as a teacher in Bideford and at Lower Bedeque, both on Prince Edward Island. From 1895 to 1896, Montgomery studied literature at Dalhousie University, Halifax. She returned to Cavendish to take care of her grandmother and worked at a local post office.

On July 5th, 1911 after her grandmother died, Montgomery married the Reverend Ewan MacDonald, to whom she had been secretly engaged since 1906. Prior to her engagement to Macdonald, she had two romantic involvements: an unhappy engagement to her third cousin Edwin Simpson, of Belmont, and a brief but passionate romantic attachment to Herman Learn, of Lower Bedeque. After their marriage, Montgomery and Macdonald moved to Leaskdale, Ontario, where Macdonald was Minister in the Presbyterian Church. She bore three sons, Chester (1912), Hugh (stillborn in 1914), and Stuart (1915).

She assisted her husband in his pastoral duties, ran their home, and continued to write best-selling novels as well as short stories and poems. She faithfully recorded entries in her journals and kept up an enormous correspondence with friends, family and fans. Maud Montgomery Macdonald did not live on Prince Edward Island again, returning only for vacations. While caring for her grandmother, she wrote the first book of the Anne series. It drew on her girlhood experiences. The idea was based on a notebook entry from 1904, "Elderly couple applies to orphan asylum for a boy.

By mistake a girl is sent to them". Anne of Green Gables was the story of a talkative, red-haired orphan, Anne Shirley. She had big green-grey eyes and a narrow, freckled face. Matthew Cuthbert and his sister Marilla, have adopted her from an orphanage in Nova Scotia.

The book became hugely popular, although The New York Times critic (July 18, 1908) wrote: ". ... there is no real difference between the girl at the end of the story and the one at the beginning of it. All the other characters in the book are human enough". The sequels followed Anne's life from childhood to adulthood-she marries Gilbert Blythe, a doctor, loses her first child but her life is then fulfilled with the birth of Little Jem. The initial volume has been filmed several times, adapted for stage and translated into some 40 languages. Montgomery's success was shadowed by her husband's bouts of melancholy and a nine-year dispute with her publisher. In 1925, the family moved to Normal, near Toronto, and then in 1935, after her husband's retirement they moved to Toronto.

ANNE OF INGLESIDE (1939), the last volume in the Anne series, reflected Montgomery's disappointments in life. During the late 1930's Montgomery suffered a breakdown, and remained despondent until her death on April 24, 1942. At the time of her death she left 10 volumes of unpublished personal diaries (1889-1942). Publications began on these diaries in 1985.

Montgomery never lived on Prince Edward Island again after her marriage in 1911. Yet, she immortalized this tiny province through her wonderful descriptions of life, nature, community and people on Prince Edward Island. All but one of her 20 books are set on Prince Edward Island. Each year, hundreds of thousands of people, directly or indirectly influenced by the way of life she depicted in her writing, visit Prince Edward Island to see the place she loved so much. Montgomery wrote several collections of stories and two books for adults. The other characters in her series include Emily, who appeared in three novels and Pat, who was in two novels.

Montgomery's heroines are frequently motherless, but adventurous, imaginative and determined. Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables had a fiery temperament which was attributed to her red hair. When she married Gilbert, she abandoned her career as a teacher and was often in an irritable mood". It's all very well to read about sorrows and imagine yourself living through them heroically, but it's not so nice when you really come to have them, is it?" Montgomery wrote in Anne of Green Gables. After becoming tired of Anne, Montgomery created Emily Byrd Starr, who had dark hair, loved nature and loved to write.

Anne's imagination led her into conflict with her surroundings, but Emily used her imagination to compose poems and stories. In the third part, EMILY'S QUEST (1927), Emily publishes her first book, is confused by reviews of the book which are conflicting, and marries Teddy Kent, an artist.