I had never heard of Katherine Mansfield until JoAnn of Lakeside Musings reviewed her short story, The Doll’s House. I am always on the lookout for new to me classic authors, so I couldn’t resist checking this story out for myself.
It opens with the Burnells’ receiving the gift of a Doll House for the children from Mrs. Hay.
We learn a lot about the doll house and of all the things in it.
“the smell of paint coming from that doll’s house (“Sweet of old Mrs. Hay, of course; most sweet and generous!”) — but the smell of paint was quite enough to make any one seriously ill, in Aunt Beryl’s opinion. Even before the sacking was taken off.”
“There stood the doll’s house, a dark, oily, spinach green, picked out with bright yellow.”
There is also furniture and a lamp in the doll house.
“The father and mother dolls, who sprawled very stiff as though they had fainted in the drawing-room, and their two little children asleep upstairs, were really too big for the doll’s house. They didn’t look as though they belonged. But the lamp was perfect. It seemed to smile to Kezia, to say, “I live here.” The lamp was real.”
The children were thrilled with the gift and could hardly wait to tell their friends all about it.
“I’m to tell,” said Isabel, “because I’m the eldest. And you two can join in after. But I’m to tell first.” “And I’m to choose who’s to come and see it first. Mother said I might.”
Two by two the other children at school were invited to go home with the Burnell children to see the doll house. However, the Kelvey children were not invited. Kezia wanted to invite them but her mother said, “certainly not.”
“They were the daughters of a spry, hardworking little washerwoman, who went about from house to house by the day. This was awful enough. But where was Mr. Kelvey? Nobody knew for certain.”
The children accept the social hierarchy of their parents without question. They know they are not to talk with the Kelveys’ and they don’t. Except for Kezia. The Kelyveys’ don’t seem to belong to the community, just like the dolls don’t seem to belong in the doll house.
This is a gem of a short story. At just about 9 pages, Katherine Mansdfield makes the story of a doll house a social commentary of caste. This would make for an excellent book club discussion. You can read the story,
here.
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