Character Clues
Character Analysis
Direct Characterization
L.M. Montgomery doesn't beat around the bush. She straight-up tells readers what her characters are like. Matthew is "the shyest man alive" (1.5). Josephine Barry is "rather a selfish old lady" (29.33).
The informal expressions she uses to drop these nuggets of characterization make it feel like she's an Avonlea insider, someone who knows everyone's business, like Mrs. Lynde, which creates that feeling that readers are in the know too. To read this book is to almost become part of Avonlea.
Location
In the beginning of the novel, you're introduced to a body of water that flows between the Cuthbert's land and the Lynde's. While in the Cuthbert woods, it's "an intricate, headlong brook…with dark secrets of pool and cascade" (1.1) and at the Lynde's, it's a "quiet, well-conducted little stream." (1.1) We haven't met the characters yet, but already we're getting clues about Marilla and Matthew's deep inner lives and the order and rules Mrs. Rachel Lynde tries to impose on everyone around her.
This is Montgomery's M.O. She's constantly telling her readers about Avonlea characters by describing their parlors, gardens, or buggies. And she uses her descriptions of Anne's room in different ways throughout the book: to show how Anne has changed Green Gables, and later, to show how she has grown up.
Speech and Dialogue
Many of the scenes of this story aren't shown in real time. They're instead recapped afterward by Anne, so we get to hear what happened through her voice. This strategy does the double work of making each scene funnier because of Anne's overly romantic description and by further showing Anne's character, as well as the other characters in how they respond.
When Anne describes to Marilla how another girl almost fell in the water at the Sunday school picnic, she says,
"I wish it had been me. It would have been such a romantic experience to have been nearly drowned." (14.69)
This reinforces Anne's love of romance and storytelling, plus it foreshadows the later scene where she almost drowns. Karma? Turns out near-death experiences are more terrifying than romantic.