The Dark Truth Behind the ‘Madeline’ Books
In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines
Lived twelve little girls in two straight lines.
The smallest one was Madeline.
At first her life seems perfectly fine.
Her many adventures are so divine!
But read it close, and the truth aligns…
Who really is Miss Madeline?
Just a girl with red hair that shines?
Or…?
Have you ever noticed that Pepito has a guillotine in his backyard? Or that when Genevieve goes missing, the girls look for her in a graveyard, of all places? This disconcerting imagery that is omnipresent in all of the Madeline books is more than just a coincidence.
Between the repeated discussion of fearlessness and death, the characters falling ill centering the plot of nearly every single book, the hospital being a recurring setting, and of course, the trope that Madeline is small yet brave, it’s easy to decode what Madeline’s true reality must be: Madeline is sick patient in a hospital, Miss Clavel is a nurse, and all of Madeline’s adventures — which are…
