Character Connection: Rilla Blythe

We all have characters we love. Let’s spotlight these fantastic creations! Whether you want to be friends with them or you have a full-blown crush on them, you know you love them and want everyone else to love them too!

Most of you will probably post about how much you love each character, but this is a great place for the more creative ones among you to let go and have fun! Write a love letter to Captain Wentworth. Write yourself into a scene with Anne and Diana. Draw a picture of yourself in Jamie’s arms. The possibilities are endless.

Be sure to post the book’s title and author, and be very careful not to give away spoilers while talking about how much you love your characters.

Mr. Linky will be posted here on The Introverted Reader every Thursday.

Anne is by far my favorite of L.M. Montgomery’s characters, but there’s just something special about Rilla, her daughter, too. Luckily, Rilla gets her own book, Rilla of Ingleside, the last book in Anne’s series.

Rilla was the “baby” of the Blythe family and was in a chronic state of secret indignation because nobody believed she was grown up. She was so nearly fifteen that she called herself that, and she was quite as tall as Di and Nan; also, she was nearly as pretty as Susan believed her to be. She had great, dreamy, hazel eyes, a milky skin dappled with little golden freckles, and delicately arched eyebrows, giving her a demure, questioning look which made people, especially lads in their teens, want to answer it. Her hair was ripely, ruddily brown and a little dent in her upper lip looked as if some good fairy had pressed it in with her finger at Rilla’s christening. Rilla, whose best friends could not deny her share of vanity, thought her face would do very well, but worried over her figure, and wished her mother could be prevailed upon to let her wear longer dresses. She, who had been so plump and roly-poly in the old Rainbow Valley days, was incredibly slim now, in the arms-and-legs period. Jem and Shirley harrowed her soul by calling her “Spider.” Yet she somehow escaped awkwardness. There was something in her movements that made you think she never walked but always danced. She had been much petted and was a wee bit spoiled, but still the general opinion was that Rilla Blythe was a very sweet girl, even if she were not so clever as Nan and Di.

In the beginning of the book, Rilla is a little spoiled and flighty, thinking only of how she can have a good time and dreaming of her first dance, her first kiss, and her first love. She’s just sort of a typical teenage girl, where every emotion is magnified and italics are in heavy use.

Then World War I starts and Rilla starts to grow. At first she just joins the junior societies that are knitting socks and collecting money and supplies for the war effort because all her friends are doing it and she wants to be with them and have a good time. Somewhere along the way, though, Rilla realizes that these are important jobs and her only real way to contribute to the war that has taken so many of her community’s young men so far from home. She grows, and learns responsibility and how to be a true friend. She moves on from flirting with everyone to learning what it’s like to truly love, and not just in ways you would expect. She learns about grief as she mourns with her community when they learn that yet another young soldier has been lost.

At the beginning of the book, Rilla is someone that I would probably find amusing in real life but I wouldn’t really want to spend much time with. She’s come so far by the end that she becomes someone that I would love to call a friend.

Who did you connect with this week? If you post on a day other than Thursday, please leave a comment so that I know to check in on your post!

I changed Mr. Linky’s style this week. Your links were being hidden after a week the old way, so I decided to try this out and see if I could avoid that. Just click the Mr. Linky sign and you should be able to add your link and see everyone else’s in a new window. Let me know if it doesn’t work or if you prefer the old way despite the hidden links. I want to do whatever works best for you guys!

If you love Jane Austen and you’re thinking of posting about one of her characters, you might want to wait until June. I’m planning something around Character Connection and Book Rat’s Jane in June event.
Hint: I spent the earlier part of the evening tooling around the ‘net, searching for cool international giveaway items. 😉