Search Results

Photograph of Màiri Mhòr with her spinning whorl. 1 January 1890. Wikipedia Commons. < https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mairi_Mhor_nan_Oran.jpg > [accessed 18 December 2024] Ma thog neach eisir ann an cliabh, No maorach ann am meadhon mara, Théid an cur fo ghlais ‘s fo dhìon, Le laghan diongmhalt’ dìon an fhearainn. If someone lifts a creel with an oyster, or in the open sea they find a clam, they’ll be apprehended and locked away, under the law protecting the land. -Brosnachadh nan Gaidheal / Incitement of the Gael In the mid-eighteenth century, an Enlightenment-driven push for economic progress and agricultural 'improvement' swept through Scotland, dramatically altering the Highland way of life. The concept of dùthchas , the inalienable right of clansmen to protection, security, and a share of ancestral land, was forsaken as chiefs, who had once acted as custodians of communal land, became commercial landlords focused on profit. The first phase of the Highland Clearances (1780-1825) saw clan chiefs adopt new agricultural practices to maximise estate income. Prior to ‘improvement’, the social structure of Highland township, called the baile , had consisted of common land and the traditional run rig system. This was where arable land was divided into strips and rotated among tenants, and families took collective responsibility for agricultural work and survival. However, this system was abandoned as common grazing land was fenced off, the baile was dismantled, and crofting communities were established alongside large-scale sheep farming.  Land became the clan chief’s personal property, and their clansmen became their tenants. These tenants, known as crofters, were assigned small landholdings insufficient to sustain their families. Forced to take on supplementary employment in local industries, like fishing or kelp, to survive, they were further disadvantaged by short-term leases that provided no guaranteed access to land, leaving them vulnerable to evictions and displacement by sheep farming. The region was further strained by the second wave of clearances (1825-1855), which was marked by recurrent famine, the decline of the kelp and fishing industries, widespread evictions, and mass emigration to industrial centres such as Glasgow, and beyond.  The daughter of a crofter and one of the most influential and celebrated Gaelic poets of all time, Màiri Mhòr nan Òran (‘Big Mary of the Songs’) was born Mary MacDonald at Skeabost on the Isle of Skye in March 1821. She witnessed the devastating effects of the Clearances on her community and, at age 50, became a key political voice in highlighting the Highlanders’ struggles, especially those displaced by the Clearances. Her poetry and songs, as this article will highlight, sought to preserve the endangered Gaelic language and culture, galvanised a sense of identity, protested against unjust rents and land practices, and incited support for the Crofters’ Wars of the 1880s.  In place of a formal education, her childhood on Skye equipped her with ‘ample experience in the management of cattle and all that pertains to the conduct of a house in the olden days, from cooking to cloth making, and, further, in storing her mind with the lays and lyrics of her native isle’. Poetry and song were intrinsic to Gaelic society and village bards remained important figures and spokespersons for their communities until after the Second World War. They recorded ‘the human experiences of the Gaels… they react to every major event affecting the lives of their community, and their songs mirror their folk-history’. These songs, which were passed down orally through generations, relied on use of ‘formulae, fugitive passages, runs, [and] stock characters’, and, most importantly, the acceptance of the piece by the community to survive. In many ways, Bateman explains, Màiri’s compositions were ‘an extension of the 18,000 lines of traditional poetry she knew by heart’. Although she could read English and Gaelic, she was never taught to write and relied on existing rhyme schemes to compose her songs- blending new words with old tunes. However, it wasn’t until 1872, when she was 50 years old, that Màiri began to share her poetry. Amidst the Great Highland Famine of 1846, which blighted potato crops for a whole decade and initiated a momentous surge in emigration, Màiri relocated to Inverness to marry a shoemaker called Isaac Macperson at the age of 27. Upon his death in 1871, she was pushed to find employment to support her four surviving children, and found work as a domestic servant. Unfortunately, this was short-lived as Màiri was accused of stealing clothing by her employer. Despite claims of her innocence, she was charged and sentenced to forty days of imprisonment. It was this humiliation and miscarriage of justice which changed the course of her life as she later claimed: S e na dh’fhulaing mi de thamailt a thug mo bhàrdachd beò  (‘It’s the injustice I suffered that brought my poetry to life’).  This mortifying experience lent her poetry an ‘unrivalled emotional drive’ and an abiding resentment of the establishment which encouraged her to link her sense of personal injustice to that of the crofters. Bitterly, in Tha mi sgìth de luchd na Beurla  (I'm tired of the English speakers), she expressed frustration, lamenting that if she was ‘in my own land, where I was first raised, there was not any English-speaker in the service of the Crown, who would look on me unjustly’.  The same year, Màiri joined the waves of mass emigration which served as a safety valve in the Highlands for the ‘rurally impoverished, hungry and evicted’, and relocated again to Glasgow, and then Greenock in 1876. In Glasgow she enrolled at the Royal Infirmary and studied nursing and obstetrics at the Royal Infirmary for five years before practising as a midwife. Here she was welcomed by a vibrant community of Highlanders, regularly participating in Gaelic music hall culture and performing at social gatherings and cèilidhs. In 1892, she competed at the first ever National Mòd in Oban, a celebration of Gaelic language and culture which gave poets another platform to showcase their talent, though she did not win a medal. Màiri’s poetry played a significant public function for her newfound community of displaced Highlanders for whom her songs were created to be nostalgic and comforting.   In ‘When I Was Young’, she painted a highly romanticised image of her childhood on Skye and mourned the modernisation of the island where lies ‘Andrew’s croft, overgrown with nettles’, and the steamship which carried her away: Nuair chuir mi cùl ris an eilean chùbhraidh, ‘S a ghabh mi iùbhrach na smùid gun seòl, Nuair shéid i ‘n dùdach ‘s a shìn an ùspairt, ‘S a thog i cùrsa o Thir a’ Cheo; Mo chridhe brùite ‘s na deòir le m’ shùilean, A’ faibh gu dùthaich gun sùrd, gun cheòl When I turned my back on the fragrant island, And boarded the steam-ship with has no jib, when she blew her horn and began her churning and made her way from the Isle of Mist, my heart was broken, my eyes tear-filled, leaving for a land without cheer or song By reminding emigrants of their endangered way of life and promoting Gaelic culture in urban centres, Màiri’s music helped foster a growing ‘migrant Gaelic cultural consciousness’ which, in turn, contributed to the ‘politicisation of crofter unrest’. As Newby highlighted, a surge in temporary migration brought urban Highlanders into direct contact with radical reform philosophies, such as Irish Land Agitation.  As a result, second-generation Highlanders in urban Scotland became some of the most enthusiastic supporters of the crofters agitation in the 1880s. Furthermore, Gaelic songs and poetry served as a powerful medium for distributing information to Gaelic speakers who couldn’t read English and, therefore, were marginalised by the printed press. As such, poets could wield significant political influence. This tradition stemmed from medieval Gaelic Scotland where, through the public praise or ridicule of clan chiefs, skilled poets were tools for the endorsement of the social and political status quo. With the decline of traditional Gaelic learning throughout the 17th century, the role of poets developed. Poetry was increasingly written by less formally educated, largely unpaid, or even illiterate poets, who shifted their focus from clan chiefs to celebrating the common man and leaders as heroes. By the 19th century, as Meek illustrates, every community in the Highlands possessed its own poet. As the struggle for land rights gained momentum after 1874, poets emerged as spokespersons for their communities.  While this role was not exclusive to male poets, as Gaelic culture has a strong tradition of female poets, women were often challenged by a paradoxical ‘threshold’ status. There are many examples of women possessing a high status within Gaelic oral tradition, such as Màiri nighean Alasdair Ruaidh and Mairghread nighean Lachlainn, and Ò Baoill has advocated that the better-known women poets after 1600 were ‘public poets’ in the sense that their work dealt with political rather than personal or lyrical subjects. However, it is also true that their gender made them vulnerable to suspicion, and even accusations of witchcraft. For example, both Màiri nighean Alasdair Ruaidh and Mairghread Nighean Lachlainn were reportedly buried face down. Ò Baoill linked this to a Norse tradition for burying witches, suggesting that these two female poets may have been viewed ‘by the tradition-bearers as wielders of sinister supernatural powers’. McKean likewise has identified these traditions as acknowledgment or punishment for their bardic activities. As a result, women were often confined to composing lullabies and wool-felting songs, rather than the male-dominated grand panegyrics dedicated to clan heroes. In this light, Màiri’s accomplishments can be read as exceptional as her commentary on the Highland clearances transformed her into an icon of Gaelic poetry. On the other hand, however, older women were often assigned roles as ‘storytellers, teachers, and advice-givers’. It should be considered that the highly emotional nature of the clearances, along with the role of women as preservers of family and tradition, may have enabled Màiri to assume this matriarchal poetic role, gaining widespread societal approval, and becoming a powerful voice in defence of the Highland people. Her exceptional success and status within Gaelic tradition can then be partly attributed to societal upheaval which created a space for women’s voices within public and politicised discourse and allowed her to break through barriers that typically confined women to domestic genres. Màiri’s poetic and political voice was recognised and harnessed by Highland politicians. During her trial in 1872, Màiri was offered support by John Murdoch, the editor of the Highlander  newspaper, a high-profile advocate for land reform, Gaelic education, and Scottish home rule. Support was also offered by Charles Fraser Mackintosh, the Liberal MP for Inverness and a proponent of land reform, who acted on Màiri’s behalf during the trial. Whilst likely that Mackintosh's actions were elicited by Murdoch’s influence, the nature of Mackintosh’s interaction with Màiri remains unclear. What is certain, however, is that their relationship continued as two years later, during his campaign for the Inverness Burghs, Mackintosh enlisted Màiri’s help to create a sympathetic image among his constituents. This involved composing songs in support for land reform, such as  Nuair a chaidh na ceithir ùr oirre which named Mackintosh alongside other leading land campaigners. As Meek noted: ‘The power of poetry was no romantic delusion; it could help to make or break the prospective candidate.’ Unlike other ‘township bards’ or ‘community poets’, such as Alexander MacLean of Glendale, Skye, and John MacLean of Balemartin, Tiree, Màiri’s allegiance was not confined to a single district. Her mobility- from Skye to Inverness to Glasgow- and her active role in rallying support for Mackintosh elevated her profile and allowed her to cultivate a ‘greater bardic persona’. As McKean notes, her village, ‘if she were to be called a village bard, would have to be the entire Gàidhealtachd [Gaelic region], wherever Gaels were downtrodden’. Màiri’s most famous works, ‘The Song of Ben Li’ and ‘Incitement of the Gaels’ were composed upon her return to Skye in 1882 at the age of 61. This coincided with the outbreak of the Crofters War at the Battle of the Braes. Despite Richard’s findings that there were approximately fifty known instances of Highland resistance between 1780 and 1855,  historians of the Highland clearances have long puzzled over the Highlanders’ failure to actively resist landlord policies before the 1880s. Resistance was typically ‘highly localised, sporadic and uncoordinated’, and were often desperate, spontaneous responses to the threat of eviction that easily crumbled in the face of police or military intervention.  The first example of direct action by Skye crofters occurred in Valtos, Skye, 1881, in the form of a rent strike against their landlord’s high rent and threat of eviction. The success of this altercation, as Newby highlights, had two crucial short-term consequences: it sparked significant publicity which spread unrest throughout the island, creating a ‘siege mentality’ and an ‘air of confrontation’; and it was widely publicised through the wider British and Irish press. The scene was then set for the famed ‘Battle of the Braes’ which kicked off other widespread acts of protest on Highland estates.   In the decades preceding the battle, evictions had caused serious overcrowding of the land in the township of Braes. The landowner, Lord MacDonald, exacerbated the situation when he denied the crofters access to common grazing land, instead leasing it to a sheep farmer. Despite being forced onto smaller, less fertile plots, the crofter’s rent was not reduced. When the tenancy for the land came up for renewal in 1881 due to the new tenant’s inability to pay rent, a petition was sent to ask for the restoration of former pastures. This was staunchly denied. In retaliation, the crofters proactively organised a movement to regain the grazing rights they had lost 17 years prior, and defiantly grazed their livestock on Ben Lee and withheld rent payments until their right was redressed. On rent collection day, the 8th of December 1881, none of the Braes tenants paid their rent and were threatened with eviction.  Màiri described the events in ‘Incitement of the Gaels’. In contrast to elegies, such as ‘When I was Young’, which lamented the social and physical changes on Skye, this song followed the tradition of stirring the bravery of warriors before battle, and aimed to incite crofters to engage in acts of land agitation. In response to the rent strikes, the landowners: Sgrìobh iad àithne dhaingeann dhian, Do’n ionad air nach dèan sinn labhairt, Na h-aingle is am fear nach b’fhiach A thighinn a riaghladh lagh an fhearainn. They wrote an urgent pressing letter, to the accursed angels and that scurrilous man, stationed at the place we will not mention to come and enforce the law of the land The ‘scurrilous man’ in question was Sheriff William Ivory. In April 1882, a sheriff officer left Portree with witnesses to serve eviction notices to eleven tenants identified by the landowner as ringleaders. On the way, however, they were met by a large crowd of protestors who chased them back to Portree and burnt the papers. Having obstructed the officer from fulfilling his legal duties, the protestors committed the crime of deforcement. In response, the authorities contacted Sheriff Ivory, instructing him to gather 50 officers from Glasgow and Inverness to apprehend the guilty parties. Nuair leugh Ivory an àithne, Chùnnt e chuid a b’fheàrr d’a aingil Ivory counted out the best of his angels, having read all that was in the demand While the arrests themselves were not disputed, as officers passed through the township of Gedintailor on their return journey to Inverness, riots started when it became clear that the men were being removed from Skye. As the officers traversed a narrow gorge and crossed the burn, Allt nan Gobhlag , a crowd gathered and the Battle took place.  Nuair a ràinig iad na glinn, ‘S ann bha na suinn nach dèanadh mearachd Air an crioslachadh le fìrinn, ‘S cha robh innleachd air am prannadh. When Ivory and his army reached the glens, before them stood the men that wouldn’t falter girded about with righteousness, Evil had not made them slacken. In addition to praising the brave men who stood against Sheriff Ivory and his forces, Màiri highlighted the role of women in the ‘Song of Ben Li’, thanking ‘ The kind women who carry themselves so courteously, their skulls were broken on the slopes of Ben Li ’. While the vivid imagery arguably delivers a shock value and capitalises off sensitive attitudes which would be disgusted by the violent treatment of up-standing women, it also accurately reflects female agency. As Richards later recognised, ‘Highland riots were women’s riots’.  The Scotsman reported on 20 April 1883: ‘one poor woman, said to be enceinte, was seriously hurt- cut terribly about the head with a stone or baton. She was left bleeding and fainting on the road side. Another old woman said to be about seventy years of age, was hurled down a steep hill and badly injured’. Despite the violence of the account, It was also largely thought that women could protest with impunity and were less likely to be injured by constables and army troops compared to their male counterparts.  Praising the community’s courage, the poem is an active appeal to crofters on Skye to resist their landlords’ extractions. Significantly, Màiri lays the blame on Ivory. Nicknamed ‘the Satan’ in the ‘Song of Ben Li’ Màiri exhibited a vendetta against the man, who she perceived as a threat against her local community, and celebrated his sudden death in 1886 with a mock elegy which held him up to public censure and ridicule. Most poets craved the preservation of the traditional Gaelic community and even after the clearances, the concept of dùthchas  remained entrenched. The Napier Commission, in 1883, observed that the poor still held  ‘much reverence for the owner of the soil’. Typically, nineteenth century Gaelic poets blamed tenants, tacksmen, sheep-farmers, and even sheep for the Highland plight; they rarely singled out individual landowners, and criticisms of the landed class were often anonymous.   Màiri was not immune to this trap and was guilty of romanticising a ‘golden age of kindly cooperation and harmony’ by not critiquing land-owners or referencing the 1846 famine. However, this is perhaps less surprising due to the fact that the Laird of Skeabost, Lachlan MacDonald, provided Màiri with a rent-free cottage upon her return to Skye.  She often blamed the English for the conditions on Skye, as Tanner highlights, ‘though it was very plain that not one clearance had been made in Skye by anyone who had not a name as Gaelic as her own’. Instead of traditional hardships or natural disasters, as Devine highlights, it was the intrusion of a new, foreign, economic order, imposed from the outside that threatened the local community, and alarmed the poets. The presence of lowland shepherds, officials, and gunboats, and the removal of people, were a perceived violation and infringement of the traditional system of mutual support between tenants and landlords. Following the battle, five crofters were found guilty and charged with ‘deforcing an officer of the law in the execution of his duty’ before the Sheriff Court in Inverness Castle in May 1882. However, the crofters continued to protest, and tenants continued to graze their stock on Ben Li. Further writs were issued in 1882, with deforcement committed again when the sheriff officers attempted to serve summonses on the 2nd of September and the 24th of October 1882. Finally, at the end of 1882, Lord MacDonald compromised and the crofters were victorious, able to graze their sheep on Ben Li. Although the Battle of the Braes did not directly lead to immediate legislation protecting crofters’ rights,  it coincided with the emergence of ‘an effective political campaign for crofters rights’ and was instrumental in the establishment of the 1883 Napier Commission. Throughout 1882, authorities became increasingly cognisant of the parallels of the Highland and Irish land questions. Irish agrarian protest had pressured the British government into passing the 1881 Irish Land Act and critics of land reform were increasingly highlighting the growing influence of ‘Fenianism’ among crofters. More than any other factor, such as growing public support for the crofters’ cause and the determination of the Highland League which was formed in 1884 (who advocated security of tenure, fair rents, and the redistribution of land to crofters, and were instrumental in raising public awareness and widespread support),  Macoll argues that it was the anxiety of the governments to stem the rise of Highland agrarian and political discontent before it reached Irish proportions that pushed them to establish the Commission, and forced government legislation on the crofters’ behalf.  Indeed, Cameron similarly posited that the formation of the Commission and following legislation was the first time that the British government acknowledged the persistent and unique nature of the Highland issue and paid sustained interest in the region. This culminated in the drafting and passing of the Crofters’ Holding (Scotland) Act of 1886. This was a major victory for the movement as it limited the powers of landlords to evict their tenants and granted several key rights to all crofters, regardless of their rent. These included: security of tenure, the right to fair rents (determined by impartial bodies), and compensation for land improvements. It also recognised their right to use natural resources like common grazing land and materials like peat, seaweed, and heather. While it did not fully resolve the crofters’ demands (for example, it failed to protect the needs of landless cottars or redistribute land), it was a significant step forward and set the stage for further land reform. As Cameron explained, ‘it did not give the crofters the world, but it made them secure in their own little patch, and that was no small gain.’ The land agitations of the 1880s were perceived to be a series of battles by contemporary poets and the public, beginning with the first documented legal victory for Highland crofters at the Bernera Riot of 1874 in the Outer Hebrides; the Battle of the Braes in 1882; and the General Election of November-December in 1885. When the Voting Act of 1884 extended suffrage to many crofters, Màiri was called upon again to support parliamentary election campaigns, particularly for Land Law Reform Association candidates in the 1885 and 1886 elections. The Crofters Movement had nominated candidates in all the crofting counties and northern burghs, and five were successfully elected for parliament-including her friend, Charles Fraser Mackintosh. As Devine stipulates, it would be wrong to see a causal relationship between the general election of 1885 and the 1886 legislation as the main clauses had been drafted the previous year with minimal involvement by the five candidates. However, Gaelic poets had a remarkable involvement in this victory because they empowered people to discriminate between candidates and participate in elections. In doing so, the franchise was portrayed as a weapon no less effective than the sword, with the ballot box as a battleground.  Màiri Mhòr nan Òran remained on Skye until her death on the 7th of November 1898, aged 77. It is thanks to Lachlann MacDonald that her prose was preserved as he paid for the transcription of some 8000 lines of Màiri’s poetry, which was published in 1891 in a volume entitled Gaelic Songs and Poems . Due to her involvement in ensuring the success of the crofter candidates in the 1885-6 elections, Màiri has been crowned the Bard of the movement. Through her works, which functioned both as tools for cultural preservation and incitement and galvanised the crofters’ fight for land reform, she remains an iconic figure in Gaelic literature. As Batemen argued, the political forthrightness evident in her work would not be seen in a published form by Scottish women poets until the 1980s. In 2022, she joined the only three Gaelic (and male) writers to be honoured in Makars’ Court in 2022, where Scottish wordsmiths have been honoured since 1998. Here, her words continue to inspire Gaelic speakers to protect their cultural heritage, as her commemorative flagstone reads: Cuimhnichibh gur sluagh sibh/ Is cumaibh suas ur còir (Remember that you are a people / And stand up for your rights). Màiri Mhòr nan Òran’s commemorative flagstone at Makar’s Court - Pickering, Dave.Màiri Mhòr nan Òran is the latest addition to Scotland’s literary greats at Makar’s Court.October 2022. Photograph. North Edinburgh News. < https://nen.press/2022/10/13/mairi-mhor-nan-oran-is-the-latest-addition-to-scotlands-literary-greats-at-makars-court/ > [accessed 18 December 2024] Bibliography Bateman, Meg, ‘Women’s Writing in Scottish Gaelic Since 1750’, in A History of Scottish Women’s Writing , eds. by Douglas Gifford and Dorothy McMillan (Edinburgh University Press, 1997),  pp. 684-701 Bloomfield, Morton W. and Charles W. Dunn,  The Role of the Poet in Early Societies  (Cambridge and Wolfeboro: D. S. Brewer, 1989) Boos, Florence, “We Would Know Again the Fields…’: The Rural Poetry of Elizabeth Campbell, Jane Stevenson and Mary Macpherson’, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature , 17.2 (1998), pp. 325-347 Cameron, A. D.,  Go Listen to the Crofters: The Napier Commission and Crofting a Century Ago  (Acair, 1986) Cameron, Ewen A., ‘Journalism in the Late Victorian Scottish Highlands: John Murdoch, Duncan Campbell, and the ‘Northern Chronicle’’, Victorian Periodicals Review,  40.4 (2007), pp. 281-306 Cameron, Ewen A., ‘Politics, Ideology and the Highland Land Issue, 1886 to the 1920s’, The Scottish Historical Review , 72.193 (1993), pp. 60-79 Devine, T. M., Clanship to Crofters’ War: The Social Transformation of the Scottish Highlands (Manchester University Press, 1994) Highlife Highland, ‘Battle of the Braes: Agitation at Braes’ (n.d) < https://www.highlifehighland.com/archives-service/highland-archive-service-online-exhibitions/battle-of-the-braes/battle-of-the-braes-agitation-at-braes/ > [accessed 18 December 2024]  Highlife Highland, ‘Battle of the Braes: The Battle and Trail’ (n.d) < https://www.highlifehighland.com/archives-service/highland-archive-service-online-exhibitions/battle-of-the-braes/battle-of-the-braes-the-battle-and-trail/ > [accessed 18 December 2024] Highlife Highland, ‘Battle of the Braes: The Legacy’ (n.d) < https://www.highlifehighland.com/archives-service/highland-archive-service-online-exhibitions/battle-of-the-braes/battle-of-the-braes-the-legacy/ > [accessed 18 December 2024] Hunter, J., The Making of the Crofting Community  (Edinburgh, 1976) Kerrigan, Catherine, An Anthology of Scottish Women Poets  (Edinburgh University Press, 1991) Lodge, Christine, ‘The clearers and the cleared: women, economy and land in the Scottish Highlands’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Glasgow, 1996) < https://theses.gla.ac.uk/819/#:~:text=Lodge,%20Christine%20(1996)%20The%20clearers%20and%20the%20cleared :> [accessed 6 October 2024] MacColl, Allan W., Land, Faith and the Crofting Community  (Edinburgh University Press, 2022) MacPherson, Hamish, ‘Màiri Mhòr nan Òran: Celebrating one of our greatest Gaelic poets’, National , 9 March 2021 < https://www.thenational.scot/news/19145415.mairi-mhor-nan-oran-celebrating-one-greatest-gaelic-poets/ > [accessed 6 October 2024] McKean, Thomas, ‘A Gaelic Songmaker’s Response to an English-speaking Nation’, Oral Tradition , 7.1 (1992), pp. 3-27 McLeod, Wilson and Michael Newton, The Highest Apple/An Ubhal as Àirde: An Anthology of Scottish Gaelic Literature  (Francis Boutle Press, 2019), Meek, Donald E., Tuath Is Tighearna = Tenants and Landlords : An Anthology of Gaelic Poetry of Social and Political Protest from the Clearances to the Land Agitation, 1800-1890  (Scottish Academic Press for the Scottish Gaelic Texts Society, 1995) Newby, Andrew G., ‘Land and the ‘Crofter Question’ in Nineteenth-Century Scotland’, International Review of Scottish Studies, 35 (2010), pp. 7-36 Ò Baoill, Colm, “Neither Out nor In’: Scottish Gaelic Women Poets 1650-1750’, in Women and the Feminine in Medieval and Early Modern Scottish Writing, eds. By Sarah C. Dunnigan, Marie Harker and Evelyn S. Newlyn (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 136-152) ‘Òran Beinn Lì (Song of Ben Li)’, The People’s Voice, n.d.< https://thepeoplesvoice.glasgow.ac.uk/song-ben-li-cathy-ann/ > [accessed 6 October 2024] Orr, Willie, Deer Forests, Landlords and the Crofters  (John Donald, 1982) Richards, Eric, Debating the Highland Clearances  (Edinburgh University Press, 2007) Tanner, Marcus, The Last of the Celts  (Yale University Press, 2004) Withers, Charles W. J., Urban Highlanders: Highland Lowland migration and urban Gaelic culture, 1700-1900  (Tuckwell Press, 1998)

Lee Miller (1907-1977) US Army official photograph. Lee Miller initially rose to fame as a model and surrealist, notably through her close working and personal relationship with artist Man Ray. However, Miller’s most profound work was created during her time as a war journalist and photographer. She spoke of this time so rarely that it was completely unknown to her only son, Anthony Penrose until he uncovered boxes of manuscripts and negatives in the attic of their family home after her death in 1977.   Born in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1907, Lee Miller’s relationship with the camera began at home. Her father was an amateur photographer and she often modelled for him throughout her early years. At just 19 years old, Miller began her modelling career through extraordinary circumstances. Whilst living in New York, she was almost hit by a car and was saved by none other than Conde Nast, publisher of Vogue  magazine. It was not long before she appeared on the cover of Vogue , and soon became interested in becoming a photographer herself. Her career as a model however was quickly derailed when Kotex, a period product company, used her image without consent. With little work available for a model who was the face of a period product brand, Miller decided to move to Paris and pursue photography. In Paris, Miller sought out Surrealist artist Man Ray and the pair would quickly become lovers and collaborators. They worked so closely together during this time that it is hard to decipher which artist made what work. Man Ray introduced Miller to the Surrealists, whose philosophy would profoundly influence Miller for the rest of her career. A key theme of surrealism that reoccurs in Miller’s work was the idea of the found object, where easily accessible objects are reconfigured or combined to create something new and interesting. For instance, whilst Miller was living in Paris she also worked as a medical photographer. On one occasion, after a mastectomy procedure, Miller asked the surgeon if she could take the woman’s breast that had been removed and place it on a dinner plate so that she could photograph it.   After she left Man Ray and Paris behind, Miller returned to New York to start a photography studio, which she also abandoned when she decided to move to Cairo in 1934 to marry Egyptian businessman Aziz Eloui Bey. Although she was not formally working at this time, she continued taking photographs, which are considered some of her best work. Growing bored of her life in Egypt, her husband suggested that Miller take a trip back to Paris to catch up with her many friends and intellectual circles. During this trip, she met artist Roland Penrose, who Miller would leave her husband for and move to London with.   While residing in London with Roland Penrose, Miller supported herself by working as a fashion photographer for Vogue. When the Blitz started in London in 1940, Miller began photographing the ruined remnants left behind by the bombing. In true Surrealist fashion Miller’s photographs captured comedic and absurdist elements of the bombed city, once again through the lens of the found object. The title of her photograph Bridge of Sighs refers to the bridge in Venice of the same name, where crossing prisoners would sigh at their last view of Venice before being sent to their cells. Miller’s interpretation comes in the form of a bridge created through the hollowed out remains of a bombed out apartment building. This version perhaps echoes the sentiment of the prisoners in Venice, with the citizens of London looking out at the city as the sun sets, not knowing what a night of bombing could destroy next. This photograph, like many others that Miller took during the war, highlights her ability to capture the absurd leftovers of the carnage of war without losing any sense of pathos for the tragedy. Lee Miller, Bridge of Sighs, 1940.    As an American citizen, Miller was prohibited from contributing to the British war effort. Instead, she captured the activities of women serving in the British royal navy, known as Wrens. Miller highlights the uncanniness of modern warfare by placing women behind fire safety masks and machinery as if they are a fashion accessory. In her 1944 image Behind the Sight ,  she photographs a woman standing in front of a mounted gun. This playful image blurs the woman into the gun and her smile perfectly aligns with the mesh of the gun sight. The metal below this appears like two breasts, perhaps commenting on the boundaries being crossed by men and machines during the war. Lee Miller, Behind the Sight, 1944. Just days before D-day at the suggestion of her friend, David Scherman, Miller signed up to be a war correspondent for the US forces. She soon found herself on Omaha Beach, covering a story about an evacuation hospital. Her first story was published in Vogue in August 1944 entitled 'Unarmed Warriors', where she captured pictures of nurses doing their daily tasks, surgeries in progress and the many wounded men waiting for treatment or waiting to be sent back to the UK. One burn victim asked Miller to take his photo because he wanted to see how funny he looked. Miller later said that it was “pretty grim and I didn't focus good.” Lee Miller, 1944. Initially, Miller was confined to the field hospital, as female journalists were prohibited from venturing to the front lines. However, Miller unintentionally broke this rule when she arrived at St Malo in Brittany, for a story that was supposed to cover 'how the Civil Affairs team moved in after hostilities to get things running smoothly again'. The press had published that St Malo had been 'captured but not occupied'. In reality, the Germans had just been isolated from the mainland and had to be driven back into the fortress. Due to heavy machine gun fire, Miller was not allowed near the action and instead joined a group of soldiers to watch from a hotel window, where she captured incredible images of distant artillery explosions as Allied forces laid siege on the German fortress. Lee Miller, 1944. Miller covered the Allied forces in France all the way through to the campaign’s success. She became the first female journalist present during the liberation of Paris and travelled extensively in Europe throughout the rest of the war, covering the German retreat through Luxembourg, and eventually into Germany itself. Towards the end of the war, with her friend and fellow journalist, David Scherman, Miller visited the recently liberated Nazi concentration camps Buchenwald and Dachau. Many of the photos she took of the camps were later destroyed but she saved enough that the horrific events would not be forgotten. Shortly after visiting Dachau, Miller and Scherman went to Munich and were staying at Hitler's apartment when the news of his suicide was announced. On that same day, the pair decided to stage a photoshoot in Hitler’s bathtub. In the picture, the bathroom’s white carpet was soiled by the dirt of Dachau on the photographer's shoes. Nearly a whole roll of film was used on pictures of Miller in the bath. However, one of the most poignant images is one of the last, with a skinny looking David Scherman, uncomfortably sitting in the bath looking at the camera. Scherman was Jewish, and the carefully aligned shower over his uncomfortable body holds a different meaning considering that days before the pair had witnessed the horrors of the concentration camps and the gas chambers. When the war ended, Miller struggled to return to England, emotionally shaken and angered by what she had witnessed. She continued to wander around Europe living on a diet of amphetamines, coffee and alcohol. She somehow ended up in a children’s hospital in Vienna. Her last photographs as a war correspondent were of children in this hospital, who were well taken care of with the cruel paradox of the complete lack of medicine available. She wrote to her editor, “for an hour I watched a baby die… this tiny baby fought for his only possession, life, as if it might be worth something.” Miller was haunted by what she had seen during her time in the war and was permanently changed when she returned to England, and was prone to alcoholism and periods of depression. She continued being a photographer for Vogue until completely giving it up in the mid 1950s, where her passion for photography turned to the kitchen and she became a gourmet cook. Lee Miller strongly believed her war photography simply documented the war - she claimed “I’m busy making documents not art”. Despite this, without her time as a fashion model and Surrealist, her wartime work would not have shown the war as brutally and honestly as it was. Her son wrote that 'being a Surrealist artist must be the only possible training to enable a person to retain their objectivity in the face of the total illogicality of War - to make sense of the nonsensical.' The images she captured are arguably some of the most important and poignant images of the last century, let alone the war itself. The full extent of her impact has only emerged after her death with the efforts of her son, Anthony Penrose and their relationship is explored in the excellent film, Lee (2023)   starring Kate Winslet that focuses on Miller’s time during the war.   Further Reading: Davis, Caitlin S. (2006) ‘Lee Miller’s Revenge on Culture: Photojournalism, Surrealism, and Autobiography.’ Woman’s Art Journal  27, no. 1, pp. 3–9. Hessel, Katy. (2019) ‘Ami Bouhassane on Lee Miller.’ The Great Women Artists Podcast.   How Lee Miller became such an influential force in Surrealist Britain  (2018) The Independent . Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/lee-miller-surrealism-uk-photo-man-ray-avant-garde-a8409826.html   Liu, J.-C. (2015) ‘Beholding the feminine sublime: Lee Miller’s war photography’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society , 40(2), pp. 308–319. Penrose, Anthony. (2005) Lee Miller’s war . London: Thames and Hudson. Salvio, P.M. (2009) ‘Uncanny exposures: A study of the wartime photojournalism of Lee Miller’, Curriculum Inquiry , 39(4), pp. 521–536. Sliwinski, S. (2011) ‘Air War and dream: Photographing the London blitz’, American Imago , 68(3), pp. 489–516. The big picture: Lee Miller’s Sphinx-like Blitz spirit  (2021) The Guardian . Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/mar/28/the-big-picture-lee-miller-self-portrait-with-sphinxes-vogue-blitz-second-world-war

‘Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents’ is the memorable opening line to Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (1). Beginning with Alcott’s 1868 novel and considering nineteenth century gender roles for women more broadly, I am picking up threads of the experience of ‘girlhood’ through the festive period. My particular focus is on Christmas traditions of piety and theatrical performance, exemplified by the March sisters’ representation as both moral daughters and artistic performers. The so-called confines of girlhood as experienced by a nineteenth century girl to the home is questioned by the theatre world created by the sisters, which I view as a positive construction of girlhood and shaping ideas of coming of age. I will also turn to how nineteenth century girlhood has been depicted in adaptations of Little Women by Gillian Armstrong (1994) and Greta Gerwig (2019), as they imagine the female-centric world of the girls and their relationship to the festive period. By examining young women’s relationship to the festive period in the nineteenth-century, one can see how modern-day adaptations recall the nostalgia and sisterly world of the novel, and equally how Little Women  represents a particular experience of being a young woman coming of age through the moral codes and types of performance they engaged in. What is girlhood? It is important to define the concept of girlhood as Alcott and her contemporaries would have understood it. Girlhood is part of our modern-day vernacular, widely documented on social media, a celebration of the female experience, the good, the bad and the ugly. First documented in literature in Samuel Ricardson’s Clarissa in 1748, and for a 19th century audience, the title itself, Little Women , offers one perspective of the role middle-class teenage girls held in society ( OED ). They are women in training, with a somewhat diminutive adjective ‘little’ to denote youth and inexperience. Frances Armstrong has described the period of the novel as significant to understanding the coming of age of the sisters: ‘"Little womanhood" is a stage on the journey to greatness… Their memories of girlhood can remind them of the advantages of the real littleness of childhood, which provided a safely contained space for the direct and physical acting out of desires’ (Armstrong 454). Armstrong posits coming of age for these girls as a an ultimately positive experience, these formative years leading them to ‘greatness’ in the adult world (454). She draws out a contrast between this nurturing and nostalgic view of childhood and the adverb ‘littleness’, denoting the social and physical limitations to the girls’ world living in Civil War America. They are restricted by their economic situation, the conflict at home and their gender, which limits their education, and yet they find joy in each other as sisters able to express their desires. Turning to Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women  in 2019, she connects girlhood with memory, delineating the female-centric world of the characters. Her first flashback sets up the theme of memory and girlhood as she brings the viewers to Christmastime 1861. The script reads: ‘the sisters, all together again in the past, in the snowglobe of girlhood and memory that is ever present but forever gone, are in a flurry of getting ready for a holiday party’ (Gerwig 11). The nostalgia that pervades the audience’s mind is encapsulated in Gerwig’s stage direction. Their home is ‘a snowglobe of girlhood and memory’, a festive metaphor for girlhood itself, a glistening, beautiful landscape of comfort and a flurry of movement. It is a contained space, and Gerwig poignantly adds that this memory is ‘ever present but forever gone’ (11). The girls are grown up, but the memory of Christmas is what transports us to the past, to the first scene with the sisters all together as a pure moment of joy and coming together that holidays bring. The use of flashbacks in Greta Gerwig’s 2019 adaptation of the novel serves to enact this idea of both reminiscing on the safety and comfort of childhood as well as expressing frustrations about their economic and physical limits. Gerwig’s non-linear film shifts from childhood to adulthood, perhaps suggesting that the girls never truly leave this behind. Gerwig’s thematic style as a filmmaker is preoccupied with young women escaping their social world, as seen in Lady Bird  and Barbie , but this dream of flight also leads to an acknowledgment of the beauty of their childhood and relationships with women. Critics Dr. Niña Jen R. Canayong and Ms. Rey-ann C. Matalines underline that ‘the matriarchal circle of the family stays completely self-contained and entirely female’, which shapes our reading of the novel as it is an exclusive world (7). The harmonious world of the sisters is not without disputes and family pressure, particularly around their class and lack of mobility, but my focus within this self-containment of the March sisters is the element of fantasy which moves them outside of their social sphere. It may be unfair to say that Alcott confines her March sisters to a conservative narrative. Their options of free time would be limited, and the experience of childhood for women was much shorter than men’s as they reached marriageable age much sooner, as young as twenty for Amy. Girlhood as encapsulated by the title ‘Little Women’ is only small inasmuch as society judges women’s lives to be small, and Alcott (and later Gerwig) resists this in portraying a rich world of sisterly troubles and triumphs, socially and morally confined and yet artistically rewarding, as we will see next. Morality and the festive period for girls I am now turning my focus back to Alcott’s novel and how Christmas represented the pinnacle of expectations of charity and piety for young women in nineteenth century America and England. Beginning with the March sisters’ Christmas celebrations and then considering Christian celebrations through music and the work of Christina Rossetti (Alcott’s contemporary), there is a trend to be found in the moral and domestic role women occupied. The enigmatic, independent Jo March complains about their lack of money in the festive opening chapter of the 1868 novel. It soon transpires that the four sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, are in no need of material gifts: they are the heart and soul of each other’s worlds in their warm yet simple home. The wintery scenes which open the novel and famous cinematic retellings of Little Women  are iconic in cultural imagination, especially the Christmas play that the sisters put on and their candlelit singing in an intimate moment of sisterhood. In the iconic opening to the novel, Alcott declares the lack of agency that these young women have in the same moment as marking Christmas as a pivotal moment in a Christian child’s calendar. Specifically for young girls then, Christmastime plays a key part in their social formation and, as we will see later, creative freedom.      Alcott provides a domestic social commentary where Christmas is a key season, accented by joy, childhood, and loss by writing the experience of Christmas for four girls somewhat confined to their home and small town in Massachusetts. Alcott has furnished readers with a lifetime of comfort in the fireside of the sisters’ attic and snowy escapades. The intersection between domesticity and religious teaching is significant in the novel, as Alcott represents the wider societal views of young women educated to be virtuous and moral. So how do 19th century girls spend their Christmas morning? First by reading Pilgrims’ Progress , the religious allegory by John Bunyan which was extremely popular in Protestant households (1678). The presence of this book speaks to the religious education that children undertook at this time, thus the domestic experience of Christmas is intrinsic to understanding girlhood for the March sisters in 19th century society. The Christian values taught by their mother are lucid throughout the novel, and her instruction on Christmas day is a potent metaphor for the piety expected of young women. Marmee instructs her daughters to ‘Look under your pillows on Christmas morning, and you will find your guidebook’, hinting to the spiritual book they will receive as a gift (13). The choice of a religious gift is telling of the teaching of daughters, and their goodness is received from their mother, emphasising the traditionally female role in a household. Importantly, in late 19th century America, celebrating Christmas was normalised, and Alcott was one of the first to depict a middle-class family Christmas in her novel (Murfin). When Marmee asks the girls about giving food to the Hummels, they obey immediately, their daughterly duty foregrounded as the sisters are completely devoted to their mother. Rachel Canayong and Rey-ann Matalines have noted that Beth symbolises the ‘ideal’ model of girlhood: ‘Out of the four sisters, Beth has been the best example in showing the normative behaviour of female sex at that time’ (60). Adding to Canayong and Mataline’s judgement of Beth, her portrayal is the most aligned with stereotypical expectations of femininity as she is devoted, quiet and self-sacrificing. As the pinnacle of the ‘dutiful daughter’, she is the first to agree to give food to their poorer neighbours, and the sisters do this heartily. Indeed, the capturing of this scene in the 1994 film adaptation is beautiful and light, rather than this moment serving as a doctrine, it becomes jubilant as they all break into an acapella rendition of ‘Here we come a-wassailing’. Director Gillian Armstrong’s interpretation focuses on the joy of the festive season and the message of goodwill that the sisters represent. ‘Wassailing means going door-to-door singing in exchange for food and drink and it is thought the tradition pre-dates Christianity and formed a mid-winter tradition’ (BBC Music). This song was popular in the mid-19th century and the lyrics reflect the good deed they are doing in offering their Christmas breakfast. This picture encapsulates girlhood and sorority, four sisters walking in the snow with food and a whistling hot kettle, singing joy and welcoming in a snowy day. The author however does not shy away from presenting the desires and vanity of the sisters in their childhood arguments and mishaps. One such example can be seen in Amy’s reluctance to give up her breakfast orange, offering a complication to the notion of being a kind and giving young woman. The presence or absence of food reveals a lot about social status, and here oranges are a luxury, as they had only just begun to be widely traded in civil war America. The symbol of the orange and the world beyond the March home is significant, as Shana Klein wrote that ‘Depictions of fruit were not just an accessory to the dining room. They were an accessory to the American empire and a device to endorse America’s growing territorial and economic gains’ ( Southern Cultures ). Situating the female world of Little women within its Civil war context of a plantation economy and the slave trade offers a glimpse at the world outside of the female characters, which they seemingly engage with very little. Here, Amy’s childish desire to keep the orange represents more the process of becoming a ‘good’ girl as stipulated by charitable and pious characteristics expected of American women. Therefore, Alcott outlines the transformation of these young women as they display piety and thus align with nineteenth century Christian expectations. Mrs Hummel describes them as ‘good angels’ in their Christmas offering of goodwill and although they do not attend church, the girls are portrayed in this angelic light through their good actions (17). They are described as ‘good’ and this adjective represents the god fearing behaviour expected of young women. The expectation of sacrifice, goodness and virtue at all times is seen in Coventry Patmore’s Victorian model of the ‘Angel in the House’, a moral woman who populates the domestic sphere (Melani). In fact, a contemporary of Alcott, Christina Rossetti’s, was painted by her brother in a similar fashion to the ‘good’ little women of Alcott’s novel. Her Christmastime hymn, ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ portrays ideal femininity through religious devotion. The speaker, despite their low status, offers their ‘heart’ as a gift, and this may also be found in the unconditional love taught by Marmee in Little Women and learnt by the sisters through their trials and tribulations. Marmee acts as a role model for the Christian, nurturing woman the sisters are expected to become, and this is intrinsic to their social formation as young women. Christina Rossetti in fact modelled for her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s painting entitled ‘The Girlhood of Mary Virgin’ (1848-9), encapsulating the projection of girlhood in 19th century society. The religious lesson and meek pose of Mary, shown as a saint and accompanied by an angel, fits in with the reading of the novel as a wider commentary on expected gender roles that women struggle with as they grow up and express their desires. However, as we have seen, the sisters are more complicated than stereotypes of traditional moral femininity, and we will next see how the theme of performance both aligns the characters with expectations of young ladies and also resists such narrow societal roles as they experiment through theatre. Performance and spectacle: the pinnacle of girlhood? The theme of performance creates a space for girls to be whoever they desire, and travel far beyond their home. Girlhood in the society of Alcott is delineated by a heteronormative view of womanhood, and another mode of performance which shows the sisters’ inclusion and exclusion is through fashion and class. As a series of ‘repetitive acts’, Judith Butler’s seminal model of the repeated performance of gender asserts that the identity of ‘woman’ is never fixed, but that clothing is one mode of establishing a normative gender appearance (Butler 2543). In the instance of growing up and desiring to leave girlhood behind, Little Women ’s focus on performing being a ‘grown-up’ woman reflects the nineteenth century beliefs of what a woman should look like. Here, the focus on hair and costume to achieve what the young girls consider an ideal woman’s fashion is telling of their youth and act of being a ‘grown-up’ woman. They aspire to the lifestyle of a wealthier middle-class society woman. One comic example of this is when the older March sisters are getting ready for a Christmas ball. Alcott brings humour to the moment where Meg’s hair is burnt, as they are imitating how a grown-up woman would act. There is irony behind the so-called ‘all-important business of `getting ready for the party'’, which connects the performance of girlhood for the March sisters to contemporary readers who see the pressure to get ready for an event (Alcott 25) The desire to grow up and attend these parties is a desire that reveals the eve of womanhood, and perhaps this is a timeless wish. For example, Gerwig phrases Amy’s complaint to her sisters comically as she asks ‘Why can’t we all go to the party?! It’s not fair!’, suggesting her position as a girl wanting to be older and able to join her sisters (alas the youngest sister’s curse!) (Gerwig 11). She is excluded due to her age, class, and gender, but the tension here relates back to Butler’s useful model of performativity around gender roles. Amy’s wish is to conform and grow up, as she sees in her sisters’ participation in the grown-up world of dresses and ballgowns the model of womanhood. Alcott subverts the normative performance of girlhood however through Jo’s characterisation. She subverts codes of ‘proper’ behaviour for girls, exemplified at the party, where she observes the dancing as an outsider. She intentionally looks on from the curtain, symbolising her desire to not fit in and to not become another society woman. She meets Laurie, and in their first dance, another joyous experience of youth is captured by Gerwig’s script: ‘Laurie bows, Jo awkwardly curtsies and then they go dancing wildly up and down a wrap-around porch’ (16). They dance ‘wildly’, another image of youth and unbridled emotion which is much more natural that Jo’s ‘awkward’ curtsey (Gerwig 16). Alcott describes their dance as equally spontaneous and liberating, where Jo is ‘full of swing and spring’ (Alcott 31). This moment is crucial in establishing Jo’s journey to womanhood is non-traditional, as she rebels against the social circle represented by the ball. A harsh truth is made lucid by Canayong and Matalines, as they state that: ‘Following the norm receives acceptance and being deviant becomes a social outcast’, suggesting that Jo becomes a pariah in this resistance to the norm(59). Alcott’s representation of both traditional gender roles, particularly in the moral behaviour we have already seen, and the unconventional Jo, posits a new interpretation of nineteenth century girlhood that is more imaginative than Canayong and Matalines suggest. As the sisters both participate in the world of dressing as young women and following society events, but also keep a critical distance, the novel offers a reading of an alternative girlhood.  Furthermore, re-examining the space of the home repositions it as a place of escapism from the stereotypes of girlhood that I have outlined. The primary way in which the sisters occupy themselves at Christmas is through their acting . The theatre, or attic, is a space reserved for play and imagination, a world which the sisters define and control. As children, the Christmas show that they create is evidently a way to overcome class and gender limitations which prevent them from going out into society to see shows and spend money. We admire their ‘clever’ design of ‘antique lamps made of old-fashioned butter boats covered with silver paper, gorgeous robes of old cotton, glittering with tin spangles from a pickle factory’, (17). Evoking the glittery and colourful set design, Alcott underlines the second-hand nature of their set, costumes and props, but adopts a tone of admiration which reinforces how creativity is an incredible gift that marks sisterhood. Through their resourcefulness and imagination, they can make tin into glitter, and such a magical description places Christmas as a font of nostalgic memory for sisters. This spectacle and theatrical space for the sisters offers a wider view of girlhood as a creative time. Indeed, this is shared with other local girls, as Alcott describes their home becoming a theatre: ‘On Christmas night, a dozen girls piled onto the bed which was the dress circle, and sat before the blue and yellow chintz curtains in a most flattering state of expectancy’ (18). Readers are invited to share in the revelry and the homemade nature of their show. Theatre offers a creative outlet which is fulfilling and much more diverse than the stereotype of dutiful obedience in young girls. The message of the novel and its reflection on the role of young women in society may be to upkeep virtue and goodness, but, as I have shown, the portrayal of girlhood as purely pious is too narrow to describe the rich and colourful lives of the March sisters. The novel engages with societal trends where Christmas is a female centric celebration, following the Christian nineteenth century traditions of goodwill and morality. Equally, Little Women offers an alternative model of girlhood through the creative freedom to perform and experiment with the grown-up world of women as well as in their attic theatre. As the film adaptations have shown, the festive joy is a key facet of childhood memories and encapsulates their love and formative period coming of age as young girls. Alcott reflects on gender roles propagated by society and the performance of the girls, through the shared experiences of the sisters, effectively represents the 19th century experience of girlhood as a multidimensional and creative time in their lives. Coupled with the adaptations, the anxieties and joys of girlhood in Little Women  maintains the timeless experience of sisters which resonates with a modern-day audience, even if readers today are often much less restricted by their gender. Bibliography Primary Sources Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women . Vintage, 2012. Armstrong, Gillian. Little Women . Columbia Pictures, 1994. Gerwig, Greta. Little Women, in ‘Read Greta Gerwig’s ‘Little Women’ Screenplay’. Variety Magazine , 2019. https://variety.com/2019/film/news/little-women-screenplay-greta-gerwig-full-script-1203447712/ . Gerwig, Greta. Little Women . Sony Pictures, 2019. Rossetti, Christina. ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’, Poetry Foundation , https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53216/in-the-bleak-midwinter   Secondary Sources Armstrong, Frances. ‘‘Here Little, and Hereafter Bliss’: Little Women and the Deferral of Greatness’, American Literature , Vol. 64, No. 3, Duke UP, pp. 453-474, Sep. 1992. JSTOR , https://www.jstor.org/stable/2927747 BBC Music Magazine. ‘Here we come A wassailing lyrics’, Classical Music , 30th Oct. 2022. https://www.classical-music.com/articles/here-we-come-a-wassailing-lyrics Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity . London: Routledge, 2006. Canayong, Niña Jen R. and Matalines, Rey-ann C. ‘Gender Behaviour and Class Envy in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women ’, Asia Pacific Journal of Educational Perspective , Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 55-63, May 2022. Lyceum of the Philippines University , https://research.lpubatangas.edu.ph/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/7-APJEP-42-Canayong.pdf . Estes, A., & Lant, K. ‘Dismembering the Text: The Horror of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women ’ Children's Literature ,   John Hopkins UP, vol. 17, no.1, pp.98-123, 1989. Klein, Shana. The Fruits of Empire: Art, Food, and the Politics of Race in the Age of American Expansion. California UP, 2020. Melani, Lilia.   ‘The Angel in the House’, The Nineteenth Century English Novel , March 2nd 2011. Brooklyn College , http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/thackeray/angel.html Murfin, Patrick. ‘Those Little Women Showed an Early Glimpse of the American Christmas’, Heretic, Rebel, a Thing to Flout , 18th Dec. 2015. https://patrickmurfin.blogspot.com/2015/12/those-little-women-showed-early-glimpse.html