“We Are Bound for the Promised Land”
“We Are Bound for the Promised Land” is a novel which is written by A.E Watterson. The story is about relationships within a family and finding your own way to live. The main character is called Eilean MacLeod, who is a girl that lives on a farm with her mother, father and her two elder sisters, Fiona and Mary. The moral of the story is finding your own identity and to not let others control your life that might have a bad influence which can affect your behaviour.

The story starts out with Eilean feeding some animals. She has a good relationship with the animals and we see that, because she let one of the chickens eat from her hand. She also talks with a cow as if the cow understands her, and this shows us the fact that she is a little girl with a young mind and has not learnt yet that animals do not understand human-beings. Her family is very religious as her father is a priest. Eilean is the youngest one of all her siblings. The father decides everything in their house. Her family follow the old tradition of the mother being the housewife and the father being the head of the house. Eilean wants to live her life by her choices and not by the rules her father has given. She gives the impression of being independent and having her own dreams on living in the city where there are a lot of shops, escaping her life in a small town with her old fashion minded family.

Eilian is also described as a boyish girl. She has two good friends, Agnus Munro and Lewis Campbell. The father does not like the whole point of playing with the opposite sex, as her father states “Katie MacInnes and her friends are lovely girls, you should try to be a bit more like them”. But Eilean does not want to listen to him and instead she tries to explain him that they are her friends. This shows us that she is rebellious. The father slaps her across the face and she falls down. She was supposed to obey what her father was saying, because he knows what is good for her. Eilean is not afraid of her father like her two sisters, and mostly she dares to show that she does not care about her father’s will and speaks against him. Her two sisters are always helping at home with cooking, knitting and feeding the animals as well as their mother. The father has his own duties to do in his church. The family is not pitch perfect as there’s not a lot of love between the parents and the children, but neither between the father and the mother. The family is a very patriarchal family which means the fact that the father is always the head of the family. However the consequences are harsh as the father slaps Eilean in the face and she falls down, this illustrates that the children of the house can not have their individual freedom and it also seems like they are not allowed to express their opinions about anything at all. The father is always right. Her mother is more intelligible and understands very well, but as the father is the head of the house and is always right, nothing is up for discussion. It is all right with her when it comes to Eilean playing with boys.
We see that when her friends discuss about why she is late.
“Do you think it was her mother, Agnus?”
“I don’t know, she’s never stopped her before”
And the mother also asks Eilean politely if she will take the spool of thread to Mrs MacIver without any threats. Eilean does it without complaining. We also get to know that Eilean’s ribbons in her hair would not sit right.
“I don’t understand it, those ribbons never stay in your hair”. This can be compared to Eilean’s life with her parents. She does not want to be tied to her parents, she want to be free.

The story takes place in a small town, probably in Scotland. At first, I thought the story took place in the olden days. But from the description of the town Glasgow; streets full of shops, people, cafes and cinemas. It indicates that it is probably set in a modern time. The setting is very boring, because it seems like they are living in the middle of nowhere. Eilean gives us the impression of there is no shops, cafes etc. where she lives. The story lasts about 1 day, it is on a Sunday and her family goes to church on Sundays. The social circumstances are that she is not free to be herself, and she must do everything what her father says. The story has a third person narrator, and is told from Eilean’s perspective. Their lives are based on old traditional values. For instance the mother, Mary and Fiona are more likely to do the housework and it is obvious that there is a male domination in the family.

The story ends with a final comment “We are bound for the promised land, we are bound for the promised land. Oh who will come and go with us”. The meaning of the sentence is finding a place filled happiness, for instance a paradise or something reasonable like so. The religious family and the congregation are looking forward to be in that place God has promised them. The father understands the promised land is heaven and Eilean understands it as a place like Glasgow and another life with her friends, without her parents. In the text, we see her imagine about the place Miss MacLeod was talking about, during the church service.
“It had a whole street of shops that Miss MacLeod said was longer than the pocket of houses in Europie”
It can be concluded that the story is obvious a criticism for families who would not let their children to live according to the way they want. It also shows us how the roles between men and women are in patriarchal families. The message is, do not be afraid to break norms and values of the society you do not like.