It is at school the reader is introduced to the Kelveys. Importantly, it is Kezia who gradually comes into focus more than the other children she is the heart of the story and it is she that notices the lamp – ‘It seemed to smile at Kezia”, which only Kezia would know. Yet the third paragraph, beginning ‘But perfect, perfect little house!’ expresses the view of one of the Burnell children and a similar effect is achieved with the question ‘Why don’t all houses open like that?’ While maintaining a third person perspective, Mansfield’s narrative is fluid, reflecting the consciousness of different characters at different times. This story starts with a relatively detached third person narrative – note that the view of a member of the family is inserted in brackets and speech marks in the first paragraph. One of Mansfield’s key features of her short stories is her use of a shifting narrative perspective.
The Burnell children, of course, are eager to show off about the house at school. Other aspects of the house are more appealing, like the door which ‘was like a little slab of toffee’ and the ‘solid little chimneys’, but the real delights are inside, with ‘papered’ rooms, ‘Red carpet’, ‘plush chairs’, ‘a dresser with tiny plates’ – it is a replica of a very solid, respectable, upper middle class house. There are other signs that the house is not quite so special, like the unappealing ‘dark, oily, spinach green’ paint, and ‘big lumps of congealed paint hanging along the edge’ of the porch. It is an important undercurrent for the reader, though, signalling that impressive though the doll’s house is, something is amiss. The features of the house confirm this – they are so special that the ‘smell of paint, which is strong enough to make anyone seriously ill’, becomes unimportant to the family. It is important too that it is a house, representing and ideal of family solidity, wealth and a firm position within society. It generates enormous excitement among the Burnell children, and then among the children at their school, amplifying its significance and status. It is a grand and expensive plaything, large and imposing, gifted to a well-to-do family.
The doll’s house itself is clearly an important device within the story. A number of her stories feature the Burnell family and their social pretensions, issues which are important in The Doll’s House. New Zealander Katherine Mansfield was a prolific short story writer and remains one of the finest exponents of the genre.
0 kommentar(er)
