Importance of Paul Irving

Paul Irving is Anne's favorite student at the Avonlea School, a true kindred spirit who shares her poetic, vividly imagined view of the world. Paul reinforces Anne's bad habit of equating looks with personality: Paul is described as a beautiful child with "chestnut curls" and big blue eyes; his physical attractiveness mirrors the magnetism Anne feels toward his "beautiful" soul. Paul grew up in Boston but his father recently sent him to live with his grandmother on P.E.I. following the death of Paul's mother. He is inadvertently instrumental in reuniting his father with his former fiancée, Miss Lavendar, when he mentions her in a letter to his father. Paul approves of Miss Lavendar as a replacement mother to the dear American mother who died too young.