Mrs. Harris: A Character Study

I listened to this while writing this post, so I thought you may want to listen while reading.

She's the one on the right ;)

Mrs. Harris was played by Dame Wendy Miller and appeared in Anne of Avonlea in 1987

I'm not even going to get into the character from the books named Mrs. Harris...oh wait, even if I wanted to it would be impossible. Because she doesn't even exist.

 Now, I'm going to try to keep the ranting down to a minimum. I know that strictly speaking Mrs. Harris isn't in the books, but her character is the compilation of several characters. And while I don't appreciate that people can't seem to stick to a book whenever they make a movie, I do want this post to be full of positive things rather then negative. So I'm just going to move on now....

At first glance Mrs. Harris is an invalid old lady, who, while not being outright cruel, is seemingly unkind to her family at times. Upon further inspection we find that she is extremely manipulative and self centered.

 It is only when we reach the third layer that we discover her seeming cruelty is an act. We have on or hands a mother trying to inspire her daughter to grow a backbone. She is mistaken in the way to go about it (there is hardly a contradictory or disrespectful bone in her body). But because this method of reverse psychology (because yes, that is all it is folks)  worked with her son, she refuses to admit that she is wrong about her daughter and is too stubborn to change her ways at this point.

 I think she is relieved when Anne comes along and sees through what she is doing. Especially when Anne doesn't call her out on it, but instead plays along, helping Polly (for those of you who aren't aware, Polly is Mrs. Harris's daughter) finally stand up to her mother where she should.

What are your thoughts on Mrs. Harris? are you able to look past the fact that she is a character completely made up for the movie adaptation? Do you love to hate or hate to love her? Or somewhere in between?