"The Doll House" by Katherine Mansfield

"The Doll House" by Katherine Mansfield  (1922, 5 pages)


Greetings to all our visitors from Muscat-please feel free to make a comment or just say hello-Mel U

"The Doll House" is third short story by Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923-New Zealand) that I have read this month.   Obviously I like her a lot.   I first read "Miss Brill" and then what some do consider her best work, "The Garden Party".   I was pondering what to read next when I saw that Joann of Lakeside Musings really liked Mansfield's "The Doll House" so I decided to read that next.    I can begin to see that one of the themes of Mansfield's work is the blindness of the upper classes to the humanity of those below them.   In "The Garden Party" the central female character has the very nascent near Buddha leaving the palace moment when she visits a poor family but she seems to pull back from opening a door that was there for her briefly.

The action in the story is quite simple.   A neighbor gives a fancy doll house to the Brunell children and they enjoy showing it off to their friends and school chums.   The story seems to me set in a rural part of New Zealand (though it might be anywhere) where there is only one school so sadly the children from elite families must mix in with children of the lower classes.    There is one problem at the school.   I will let Mansfield tell it as I love her prose:

For the fact was, the school the Burnell children went to was not at all the kind of place their parents would have chosen if there had been any choice. But there was none. It was the only school for miles. And the consequence was all the children in the neighborhood, the judge's little girls, the doctor's daughters, the store-keeper's children, the milkman's, were forced to mix together. Not to speak of there being an equal number of rude, rough little boys as well. But the line had to be drawn somewhere. It was drawn at the Kelveys. Many of the children, including the Burnells, were not allowed even to speak to them. They walked past the Kelveys with their heads in the air, and as they set the fashion in all matters of behaviour, the Kelveys were shunned by everybody. Even the teacher had a special voice for them, and a special smile for the other children when Lil Kelvey came up to her desk with a bunch of dreadfully common-looking flowers.

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. But everybody said he was in prison. So they were the daughters of a washerwoman and a gaolbird. Very nice company for other people's children! 

Everybody hears at the wonderful doll house and everyone wants to see it.   One of the Brunell sisters decides the Kelvey's are not worthy to see the doll house.    One of the sisters and two of her friends begin to make fun of the Kelvey children for their low social status.   We know they got this from the adults in their lives and we know it is the class structure perpetuating itself.  One of the daughters sort of realizes there is something not right in refusing to allow the Kelvey girls to see the doll house.   Mansfield's description of the interaction of the children with each other and their real fear of the Kelveys (after all who knows what diseases they could have) is perfect.     In the hands of a lesser writer, the story might have come to a definite conclusion.   

I will read more of her stories regularly and post on them.   I think I will also read a couple more short stories by Kate Chopin (1850 to 1904) also.   Of the two, I see Mansfield as the greater artist but I also like Chopin a lot.     Nearly all of Mansfield's short stories can be read on line.    

If anyone has any suggestions as to good short stories please leave them in a comment.   I prefer stories I can read on line.   Thanks

Mel u