Matthew Cuthbert

Matthew dies of a sudden heart attack triggered by the news that the Abbey Bank has collapsed, wiping out the Cuthberts' savings. His death is the novel's sharpest emotional blow; because he is so undemonstrative in life, his absence devastates Anne and the reader alike. It is also the event that leads Anne to sacrifice her Redmond scholarship in order to stay at Green Gables.

Matthew's most attributed line is "She is an orphan girl, and she has had a very hard time of it" (Chapter 3 – Marilla Cuthbert Is Surprised), spoken in Anne's defence. The restraint of the line is the point: Matthew is a man of almost no words, so this quiet plea on Anne's behalf carries enormous weight, revealing how swiftly and completely Anne has claimed his loyalty.

Matthew buys the puffed-sleeve dress because he notices at the Christmas concert that Anne is the only girl there without the fashionable sleeves all the others are wearing. Rather than mention it to Marilla, he privately endures the ordeal of entering a dry-goods store — a social arena that terrifies him — and commissions the dress as a Christmas gift, an act Montgomery frames as the purest expression of attentive, unglamorous love.

Matthew and Marilla are brother and sister, lifelong co-owners of Green Gables, and complementary partners in Anne's upbringing. Marilla provides discipline and practicality while Matthew supplies quiet warmth. He rarely contradicts her but gently and persistently nudges her toward leniency with Anne — most consequentially when he persuades her to let Anne stay at Green Gables rather than return her to the orphanage.

Matthew is habitually deferential toward his opinionated neighbour Rachel Lynde; he typically tolerates her pronouncements without pushback. That makes it all the more significant that he privately bristles when Rachel criticises Anne harshly at their first meeting. His silent indignation in that moment signals how quickly his protective instincts for Anne override his usual passivity, marking Anne's unique place in his heart.

Matthew decides Anne should stay because he is enchanted by her during their buggy ride home from Bright River station, where her lively chatter and imaginative naming of the landscape quietly wins him over. The expected disappointment at finding a girl instead of a boy never truly arrives; by the time they reach Green Gables, he has already resolved that she belongs there, leaving the harder task of persuading Marilla to himself.

Matthew is profoundly shy, especially around women; he struggles to speak to a female shopkeeper and retreats from most social situations with near-comical discomfort. Yet for Anne's sake, he repeatedly overcomes this shyness, most notably by entering a dry-goods store alone to commission her puffed-sleeve dress. Montgomery uses this pattern to argue that his love for Anne is proven by how much it costs him, making each small act of bravery significant.

Matthew quietly champions Anne's right to pursue her studies, standing up to Marilla on the question of Anne's goals at Queen's Academy and her broader scholarly ambitions. He takes silent pride in her academic results, including her scholarship performance. His support reflects a belief in Anne's potential beyond domestic expectation, notable for a man of his era and his own limited formal world.