Walter Cuthbert Blythe is a fictional character in the Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Green Gables is a bestselling novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery published in 1908. Set in 1878, it was written as fiction for readers of all ages, but in recent decades has been considered a children's book...

Series, mentioned in Lucy Maud Montgomery

Lucy Maud Montgomery

Lucy Maud Montgomery OBE , called "Maud" by family and friends and publicly known as L.M. Montgomery, was a Canadian author best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908. Anne of Green Gables was an immediate success...

's Anne of Ingleside

Anne of Ingleside

Anne of Ingleside is a children's novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery. It was first published in August 1939 by George G. Harrap & Co Ltd. It is the sixth book in the chronology and the final book to be published....

(book 6 of the Anne

Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Green Gables is a bestselling novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery published in 1908. Set in 1878, it was written as fiction for readers of all ages, but in recent decades has been considered a children's book...

series, published in 1939

1939 in literature

The year 1939 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*December 25 - A Christmas Carol is read before a radio audience for the first time....

), Rainbow Valley

Rainbow Valley

Rainbow Valley is the seventh book in the chronology of the Anne of Green Gables series by Lucy Maud Montgomery, although it was the fifth book published...

(book 7 of the Anne series, pub. 1919

1919 in literature

The year 1919 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Winifred Holtby and Vera Brittain return to Somerville College, Oxford, to complete their education following war service.*Two paintings by E. E...

) and Rilla of Ingleside

Rilla of Ingleside

Rilla of Ingleside is the final book in the Anne of Green Gables series by Lucy Maud Montgomery, but was the sixth of the eight "Anne" novels she wrote. This book draws the focus back onto a single character, Anne and Gilbert's youngest daughter Bertha Marilla "Rilla" Blythe...

(book 8 of the Anne series, pub. 1921

1921 in literature

The year 1921 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Edgar Rice Burroughs – Tarzan the Terrible*James Branch Cabell – Figures of Earth*Hall Caine – The Master of Man*Willa Cather – Alexander's Bridge...

).He is the second son of Gilbert

Gilbert Blythe

Gilbert Blythe is a fictional character in Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series of novels.In the CBC Television film adaptations of the 1980s, Gilbert Blythe is portrayed by Jonathan Crombie. For the 1934 film adaption, Gilbert is portrayed by Tom Brown. In the Japanese anime...

 and Anne Blythe

Anne Shirley

Anne Shirley is a fictional character introduced in the 1908 novel Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Montgomery wrote in her journal that the idea for Anne's story came from relatives who, planning to adopt an orphaned boy, received a girl instead...

.He has six siblings: eldest sister Joyce (died as an infant), older brother James Matthew, nicknamed "Jem", younger sisters Anne and Diana, twins also known as "Nan" and "Di" respectively, younger brother Shirley; and youngest sister Bertha Marilla, or "Rilla".

Walter loves poetry and aspires to one day become a famous poet. Unbeknownst to him, he will one day fight and die in one of the world's most terrible wars. In Rilla of Ingleside, Walter joins World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 along with his brothers, Jem and Shirley Blythe and neighbours, Kenneth Ford, Thomas Carlyle "Carl" Meredith ,Gerald "Jerry" Meredith and Miller Douglas. He dies in the war, while the others survive with wounds and scars. However, he is survived by a poem that goes on to become beloved across Canada after his death.

His death is "foreshadowed" in Chapter 41 of Anne of Ingleside, published 18 years after the book in which he dies:

Walter was smiling in his sleep as someone who knew a charming secret. The moon was shining on his pillow through the bars of the leaded window ... casting the shadow of a clearly defined cross on the wall above his head. In long after years Anne was to remember that and wonder if it were an omen of Courcelette ... of a cross-marked grave "somewhere in France."

"The Piper"

Walter's poem, written in the trenches during the first World War, is called "The Piper" and alludes to Walter's prophetic vision of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. The Piper refers to the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin and the call of his pipe which sweeps the children away. The idea of the piper calling the boys to war is introduced in Chapter 8 of Rainbow Valley

Rainbow Valley

Rainbow Valley is the seventh book in the chronology of the Anne of Green Gables series by Lucy Maud Montgomery, although it was the fifth book published...

:

"Some day," said Walter dreamily, looking afar into the sky, "the
Pied Piper will come over the hill up there and down Rainbow
Valley, piping merrily and sweetly. And I will follow
him--follow him down to the shore--down to the sea--away from you
all. I don't think I'll want to go--Jem will want to go--it will
be such an adventure--but I won't. Only I'll HAVE to--the music
will call and call and call me until I MUST follow."

The poem is a tribute to In Flanders Field by John McCrae

John McCrae

Lieutenant Colonel John Alexander McCrae was a Canadian poet, physician, author, artist and soldier during World War I and a surgeon during the Second Battle of Ypres...

 and, though never fully written out in the novel, is implied to mimic the poem in content and form:

"The poem was a short, poignant little thing. In a month it had carried
Walter's name to every corner of the globe. Everywhere it was copied--
in metropolitan dailies and little village weeklies--in profound
reviews and "agony columns," in Red Cross appeals and Government
recruiting propaganda. Mothers and sisters wept over it, young lads
thrilled to it, the whole great heart of humanity caught it up as an
epitome of all the pain and hope and pity and purpose of the mighty
conflict, crystallized in three brief immortal verses. A Canadian lad in
the Flanders trenches had written the one great poem of the war. "The
Piper," by Pte. Walter Blythe, was a classic from its first printing."

L.M. Montgomery eventually wrote a poem called "The Piper" and included it in The Blythes Are Quoted

The Blythes Are Quoted

The Blythes Are Quoted is a book completed by L.M. Montgomery near the end of her life as the ninth book in her beloved Anne of Green Gables series...

, the intended ninth book in the Anne series.

External links

The Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...

ebook of Rainbow Valley