Archives and Algorithms: Analyzing Anne’s Monologues, presented by Dr. Marah Gubar and Funing Yang
Channel: Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies
Date: 26/06/2020

Although L.M. Montgomery would later poke fun at literary characters who talk on and on, never letting anyone else get a word in edgewise, her own Anne indulges in extraordinarily long monologues. Why, then, does Anne appeal so strongly to so many people? Why doesn’t she seem objectionably narcissistic? This keynote talk explores how Montgomery's representation of Anne in 1908 builds on but also departs from the nineteenth-century cult of the charming, talkative child. Sigmund Freud's theory of narcissism (published in 1914) was partly inspired by one of these child characters. But ultimately, Gubar reads Anne's monologues – and even the moment when she sees a reflection of her own face and kisses it – less as a sign of narcissism than as a crucially sustaining form of self-love. Seeing yourself as lovable when no one else regards you that way is a quietly defiant act of radical self-care.

The joint video presentation below by Gubar and Funing Yang is "a work-in-progress report" on this research. Gubar introduces her original hypothesis about Anne's monologues, and then Yang shares the data that she’s compiled in the form of graphs and charts. Gubar concludes by showing materials from the Lincoln Center theatre archives about the 1937 dramatization of Anne by Wilbur Braun (aka “Alice Chadwicke”), which seems to have been the first dramatization of Anne. This joint discussion about data gathering and archival research reflects Gubar's and Yang's evolving hypotheses about Anne's monologues. 

Copyright: Marah Gubar and Funing Yang, 2020. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

https://journaloflmmontgomerystudies.ca/vision-forum/archives-and-algorithms