Doll Play and the Performance of Girlhood in Fin de Siècle Spain

Drawing on selected works of children’s literature and visual culture in fin de siècle Spain, this article explores the ways in which girlhood was scripted and codified through doll play. Despite being popularised as pivotal figures for girls and their education in late nineteenth-century Spain, dolls and their fictional representation remain understudied. This article adds to this body of work through a close examination of such stories and images, demonstrating how they sought to instil moral values, either by seeking to instruct girls in appropriate conduct, or, conversely, by discouraging deviant behaviour. Whether serving as models of feminine propriety or a vehicle for classed understandings of society, dolls in these stories played multiple roles as surrogates for daughter, mistress, best friend, or indeed as a site of curiosity, violence and repair. This article shows how such cultural representations of girls and dolls reveal an interplay of ideas about gender and childhood that was constitutive to the very definition of girlhood itself.