Okay, I've lost track of what exactly your point is. You've admitted people could be happy in any time period, married or not, children or not. So Lois could be happy in her middle age and on, easily.
Are you simply saying that Anne might have been happy all her life, but because she wasn't in the last book, it means she wasn't?
Well, Ann, no, all it means is that the focus was now on Rilla and not on her. Comparing it to a movie is not fitting - they're two very different mediums. If you insist, it's more comparable to an 8-part mini-series, where the last episode featured the previously-main character minimally, focusing instead on her daughter. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. I can't make you accept it, obviously - it's fair enough that you were disappointed. I love Anne as a character as well.
But assuming Anne had nothing to do after her children had grown up simply because it wasn't explained in detail is jumping to conclusions. Like it was said in the beginning of this thread - someone else's happily-ever-after is just not as interesting to other people.
Montgomery was not writing about an "ideal society". She was writing about the patriarchal society she lived in because she knew nothing different. She wrote a brilliant main character and made her an integral part of her community, someone valued by her husband, family, and neighbours, and someone satisfied with life.
I would say there is nothing more she could have done to convey Anne's happiness. If all that was missing, for you, was her participation in Rilla of Ingleside, well, I can't really argue with that... the truth is that she wasn't a huge part of that book.
But it does not mean that she wasn't happy "offscreen." I guess Montgomery assumed that after 7 books, we could conclude on our own that Anne would keep her personality and go on as she did without having to state it.
You keep insisting that if Anne was a man, it would not have happened. I'm not sure where you get this impression and in fact have to argue against it. Montgomery could have chosen to shift the focus of the main book on one of Anne's sons, but she didn't. Ruby and Joy (Anne's firstborn) may have died, but so did Matthew, Captain Jim, and other males to balance it out.
You act as if female deaths are more tragic than male deaths and should not be written about because somehow it automatically makes the author a chauvinist (or at leasts reflects the fact that the author values a woman's life less).
Well, Ann, "male chauvinism" refers to the world view of male superiority. Chauvinism in itself is a word that originally meant any sort of discrimination. And I'm going to say that you are being chauvinistic in your claims that female deaths should never be depicted in fiction, because they are somehow more tragic.
Julie
