Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Playing “Anne”: Red braids, Green Gables, and literary tourists on Prince Edward Island

Playing “Anne”: Red braids, Green Gables, and literary tourists on Prince Edward Island For nearly a century, literary tourists have sought the settings of L.M. Montgomery’s novel Anne of Green Gables on picturesque Prince Edward Island, Canada. As tourism infrastructure on the Island developed in the latter twentieth century, tourists’ whimsical wearing of red braids to emulate the novel’s girl protagonist became a popular practice. Playing “Anne,” while certainly a different experience depending on whether one is a little girl, an adult woman, or an adult man, is today a widely practiced performance of tourist identity. Through close readings of visitor comment cards, tourism promotions, souvenir hats, and the Green Gables Heritage Place historic site operated by Parks Canada, this article argues that the desire to play “Anne” rehearses themes of Anne’s anticipation, arrival, child-like wonder, and outsider status, all of which resonate with a touristic perception of place. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Tourist Studies: An International Journal SAGE

Playing “Anne”: Red braids, Green Gables, and literary tourists on Prince Edward Island

Loading next page...
 
/lp/sage/playing-anne-red-braids-green-gables-and-literary-tourists-on-prince-UrR223epy7

References (35)

Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2016
ISSN
1468-7976
eISSN
1741-3206
DOI
10.1177/1468797615618092
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

For nearly a century, literary tourists have sought the settings of L.M. Montgomery’s novel Anne of Green Gables on picturesque Prince Edward Island, Canada. As tourism infrastructure on the Island developed in the latter twentieth century, tourists’ whimsical wearing of red braids to emulate the novel’s girl protagonist became a popular practice. Playing “Anne,” while certainly a different experience depending on whether one is a little girl, an adult woman, or an adult man, is today a widely practiced performance of tourist identity. Through close readings of visitor comment cards, tourism promotions, souvenir hats, and the Green Gables Heritage Place historic site operated by Parks Canada, this article argues that the desire to play “Anne” rehearses themes of Anne’s anticipation, arrival, child-like wonder, and outsider status, all of which resonate with a touristic perception of place.

Journal

Tourist Studies: An International JournalSAGE

Published: Dec 1, 2016

There are no references for this article.