Just so that you are all aware- I know some wonderful people. Don't believe me? Meet two of my brilliant classmates and their two favorite novels. And my thesis topic!! All in one blog post!! They've so kindly agreed to guest feature for a day, providing extra insight on my chosen topic of confession vs. concealment. Though I look at the topic through the lens of The Scarlet Letter, Makenna Phillips and Sam Jenkins see it a bit differently. Here is what they have to say.
Makenna Phillips- Anne of Green Gables (See her blog here)
"Today in class, Erica and I were talking about her topic of confessions and how it related to the Scarlet Letter. Then, I realized that it also related to my own novel of Anne of Green Gables. In this story, Anne wants to go to a picnic in order to make her neighbors acquaintance and hopefully meet her new "bosom friend" and kindred spirit. Unfortunately, right before the picnic, Marilla finds that her amethyst brooch is missing, and is quick to blame Anne for its disappearance. Infuriated, Marilla tells Anne that she is not to go to the picnic until she confesses her crime. Anne was desperate to get to the picnic, and she had to think of some way, any way to make Marilla let her go. So she comes up with a plan. She finally goes up to Marilla and tells her this charming story:
"I took the amethyst brooch," said Anne, as if repeating a lesson she had learned. "I took it just as you said. I didn't mean to take it when I went in. But it did look so beautiful, Marilla, when I pinned it on my breast that I was overcome by an irresistible temptation. I imagined how perfectly thrilling it would be to take it Idlewild and play I was the Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald. It would be so much easier to imagine I was the Lady Cordelia if I had a real amethyst brooch on. Diana and I made necklaces of roseberries but what are roseberries compared to amethyst? So I took the brooch. I thought I could put it back before you came home. I went all the way around by the road to lengthen out the time. When I was going over the bridge across the Lake of Shining Waters I took the brooch off to have another look at it. Oh, how it did shine in the sunlight! And then, when I was leaning over the bridge, it just slipped through my fingers-- so--and went down--down--down, all purply-sparkling, and sank forevermore beneath the Lake of Shining Waters. And that is the best I can do at confessing, Marilla."
