Mr. Phillips

**Mr. Phillips** was a teacher at the Avonlea school who had a secret relationship with Prissy Andrews. He is a recurring character in *Anne* and was portrayed by Stephen Tracey. After a brief engagement, he was left by Prissy at the altar and left town.

## Appearance and Personality

Mr. Philips is a young man in his thirties with dark hair, black mustache and hazel eyes. He is tall, with a thin body type. Very strict with his students, Mr. Phillips uses tactics to humiliate and inflict corporal punishment on students he considers unruly — namely, Anne Shirley Cuthbert and Cole Mackenzie. Outside of the school environment, Mr. Phillips is a man full of contradictions and self-loathing behavior that prompts Cole to speculate with Anne that he is repressing his homosexuality.

Engaged to one of his students, Prissy Andrews, after months of secret grooming, Mr. Phillips had planned to settle down with a marriage and a new job in Toronto. His plan is marred when his cruelty and oppressing views of marriage become clearer, leading Prissy to abandon him at the altar. During the courtship, Mr. Phillips shows a softer side of his character, but it is clear that he will not provide the kind of life she wants.

He is particularly intolerant with students who show strong imagination and a desire to learn in creative ways, possibly as a reflection of his own feelings of confinement in his repressed sexual orientation. This is one of the reasons why Mr. Philips had a dislike for both Anne, Cole and Gilbert Blythe, who at times defies his teacher's authority and refers to his teacher as "apathetic".

## Story

Mr. Phillips' teaching style is strict, with focus on memorization and repetition. He tries to keep a quiet classroom, and reacts with a raised voice when the students are noisy. After an awkward and intimate moment with Cole, Cole begins to speculate that Mr. Phillips is gay and feels deep shame and hatred toward his own sexuality. He keeps a switch in his desk, which he threatens Cole Mackenzie with after an altercation that results in a broken window at the school.

Mr. Phillips develops a secret relationship with one of his older students, Prissy Andrews. As she is nearing the end of her time in school and preparing to attend Queens College, Mr. Philips asks her father for permission to marry her. After the wedding, he plans for them to settle in Toronto, where he will work as with his brother at the stock exchange. After the engagement is public, he tells her privately that he will need her to give her full devotion to her role as his wife so that they can progress socially, telling her that it is her duty as a wife. On the day of their wedding, she leaves him at the altar. He moves on to Toronto after being jilted.

## Notes

* Gilbert asked him for extra help after school so that he could achieve his dream of becoming a doctor, but Mr. Phillips shut him down, telling him that his time is more worthwhile than that. In this moment, he is insensitive about the death of Gilbert's father, but doesn't apologize.
* He purposefully misgenders Anne to make fun of her in front of the class after she has to cut her hair.
* When Sebastian comes to the schoolhouse, Mr. Phillips tells him to stay in the coatroom, revealing his prejudice and support for racial segregation.

## Episode Appearances

**Season 1**

* Ep, 3: But What Is So Headstrong as Youth?
* Ep: 4: An Inward Treasure Born
* Ep. 5: Tightly Knotted to a Similar String

**Season 2**

* Ep. 2: Signs Are Small Measurable Things, But Interpretations are Illimitable
* Ep. 4: The Painful Eagerness of Unfed Hope
* Ep. 5: The Determining Acts of Her Life
* Ep. 6; I Protest Against Any Absolute Conclusion
* Ep. 7: Memory Has as Many Moods as the Temper
* Ep. 8: Struggling Against the Perception of Facts

## References

1. ↑ https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6591383/