The Luckiest Girl in the School

Angela Brazil was an extremely popular children's book author who wrote over fifty novels from the 1900s to the 1930s, and her books remained popular with girls well into the 1960s. And, of course, nearly all of her books are set in all-girl schools.

Brazil popularized and is best known for the escapist boarding school story, but The Luckiest Girl in the School is about as little escapist as a children's book could be in the early twentieth century. Written at the height of World War I, it's full of patriotic, do-your-bit sentiment. The school isn't a marble mansion with manicured gardens but a modest, academic high school. There's really little plot - just our friend Winona working her hardest at her studies, sports, and patriotic knitting. Yeah, it's pretty much entirely propaganda. And I loved it.



The novel opens with Winona, this particular incarnation of well-adjusted, energetic Brazil heroine, and her family wondering how they might be able to save money in the tight war economy. Her mother writes a letter to her aunt and the old woman decides that the best thing to do is to have Winona live with her and apply for a scholarship at the nearby girls' high school. Lest the story end on the fifteenth page, I'm sure you gathered that Winona ends up winning the scholarship - although she thought she did very badly.

The rest of the novel rambles on mostly episodically, with each chapter being a little story in which Winona learns more about taking care of herself and doing her best - despite her being a girl in the early twentieth century. I was pretty impressed by the amount of girl-power sentiment in this novel. It encourages girls to work hard in both school and sports, go to college, get careers, and be self-sufficient. The only male mentioned is Winona's older brother Percy. A lot of this is explained by the lack of able-bodied men due to the war. Winona acknowledges that there won't by as many opportunities for her once the war is over.



But the most fun is Brazil's writing style. She'll spend a page and a half describing some autumn leaves, two pages describing a cherry tree under which the girls are having tea. Despite the war, everything is pleasant and perfect and untouchably wholesome. And she uses the word "idyllic" nearly as often and incorrectly as I do!

Madchen in Uniform 1931

Madchen in Uniform 1931

Madchen in Uniform, or Maidens in Uniform, tells the story of a motherless girl enrolled a strict, austere all-girl boarding school by her aunt. There, she is welcomed into the close-knit community of girls struggling to retain their individuality in the stifling school and develops an obsessive love for her teacher and dorm supervisor, Fraulein von Bernburg.



On the surface, Madchen in Uniform is a pretty standard 1930s weepy marketed toward teenage girls. Yeah, there's lesbianism (the first example of it in film, in fact), but such attachments were often considered a matter-of-course in girls' schools of the time. Love between girls was something harmless and inconsequential, a fake love that would fade after graduation. That aspect of the story doesn't seem to ever have been very controversial.

What did make it controversial for a while was what it is under the sapphic surface - an allegory on fascism. After the Nazi party gained power, the film was banned and an attempt was made to destroy all copies of it. Obviously, they failed, and Madchen in Uniform remains a cult classic today.

I was more interested in the view the film has on female sexuality. The school, like society, attempts to repress the girls, to make them both emotionless and desireless, but fails utterly. They giggle over beefcake magazines in the dorms. They smuggle smutty books. They admire each other's figures in the dressing room. The film is full of erotic imagery in chaste situations.



But you don't need to be an analysis fanatic to enjoy Madchen in Uniform. It's a timeless story of unrequited love, friendship, and coping with oppression.