ABSTRACT
Accomplished young women throughout the nineteenth century were expected to travel abroad. However, despite the importance of transatlantic travel, it was impossible for women who lacked the means and social support to embark on such a voyage. In Anne of Green Gables (1908), Anne finds a way to enrich her cultural identity, not by physical travel but through her remarkable and vivid imagination. The source of Anne’s cultural realization is her reading and play, which effectively function as a substitute for the act of transatlantic travel. By exploring the works of literature that Anne reads, reenacts, and draws from as inspiration for her own writing, we can see that she is embarking on a mental voyage as culturally significant as any journey through Europe. Furthermore, this exploration recognizes that the novel offers readers an analog to the benefits of travel and extensive reading.
