The Little Match Girl Strikes Back

A cleverly reimagined reworking of Hans Christian Andersen’s literary fairy tale in which Carroll brings some grounded research and pertinent insight into her telling. Bridie Sweeney, the match-girl herself, tells wonderful stories as she sells matches. After experiencing a series of dreams seen through the light of her final matches, she turns her talents to stand up for the rights of female workers, including her mother, at the East London, Bryant and May Match Factory. Carroll has created a fine short piece of historical fiction that speaks of empowerment for change. 

Opening with Bridie’s lamentation that the Danish storyteller himself probably never met a real match girl, Carroll’s narrative begins with the protagonist introducing her immediate family and poverty-stricken situation. Bridie’s own mother suffers from phossy jaw and her brother, Fergal, chooses to work at the factory instead of getting the education that is offered to him. With a real gift for illuminating the past, Carroll guides us through Victorian London’s East End through the eyes and mind of Bridie whose family are struggling to survive.

Weaving both a modern, feminist retelling into Andersen’s original whilst still maintaining many of the plot elements could have been a challenge, but Carroll does well. Instead of being a looming, abusive threat at home, father is cast off to sea for work whilst the urchin who stole her slippers plays a greater part near the close. Powerful, narrative anchors from the original, such as the visions she received when lightning the matches occur and are reworked to tell a different story.  

Whilst Andersen’s tale closes with a despairing note, Carroll uses Bridie’s visions to empower her, drawing together hopeful possibilities and gifting Bridie with the tenacity to help her mother and fellow workers to take a stand and make a change. As with much of Carroll’s work, careful research informs the tale and Bridie’s story finds itself interwoven with the real Bryant Match Factory Strike in 1888. 

Throughout the telling are Child’s immediately-recognisable illustrations. Her multimedia pictures, created with cut-out patterns and red and black ink are a perfect choice for capturing the fire within Bridie. Key events, in which the typography is also in the control of the illustrator, shed light on those powerful moments for change. 

Whilst Andersen, in 1846, may have seen the ending of his short tale as a happy one (the girl freezes to death but finds herself with God and her grandmother having escaped suffering), Carroll and Child ignite something far more empowering for the current-day reader – a story in which the match girl fights to change life’s circumstances and argues for a revolution in the way women and children in these factories were treated. However, I do wonder whether something is lost in choosing to shy away from Andersen’s darker exploration of the emotional and domestic challenges faced by families like Bridie’s. Whatever the case, Bridie remains Carroll’s empowered and gifted storyteller and she will inspire her readers to stand against what they believe is wrong too.