As I explore in my Acorn Tops Blog, The Universal Toy, dolls, within a historical context, were a source of companionship. They were discovered in graves across countries, a sign that they were thought of as precious. They can be seen as an aspect of innocence and childhood, as they were dedicated to goddesses when outgrown. Dolls were used to display clothes, such as the Bartholomew Babies in England. They were used to promote and prepare for socially acceptable roles and expectations. There’s a lot of meaning one could derive from just the historical context of this toy. What I find in writing, though, is it is not just the research of the outside world that contributes to play of symbols in stories. It is our personal connection and experience. Dolls remain an ever-popular toy of choice today. Plenty of children have had or played with dolls growing up, from brands such as Barbie to American Girl to Cabbage Patch. My favorite doll growing up was a hard plastic Molly doll from the children’s show, The Comfy Couch, and she’s been so well loved that my mother had to use nail polish to fix the red of her nose and sharpie to fix the black of her shoes. Another hugely influential doll in my own life is named Edna. She is one of the few possessions my great grandfather was allowed to keep of his mother, for who I am named, after she passed away. She’s been this incredible touch stone of connection and family history that has survived house fires and multiple moves, including one across the country. Perhaps then, given these personal ties, it is no surprise that dolls and character’s relationships to the toy become an ongoing symbol throughout my Be book series. This was something, I, as the author, did not fully realize until @DailywriterQ on twitter asked about symbolism in author’s stories. It starts in Be with Ari and Peter’s niece, Rosy, and a cloth doll with yarn hair named Emily… He forced himself to smile, fist curling tight. “I still believe in fairy tales, even after everything.” He hesitantly whispered, but a breath of hope left within him. “I know you don’t. I know you think it’s foolish.” Childhood is often denied to children where Ari, Peter, and Rosy are from. It was something denied to Ari, who makes it a point to ensure others receive what she never had. For Rosy when she receives Emily, it is hope and wishes coming true. It would be her equivalent of Santa Claus. As my mother always said, it was something to believe in that was bigger than ourselves. It is something magical in a world that does not offer children like Rosy much magic. For Peter, who was doing everything he could to try to get Rosy a doll, it is connection and community. Which carries over to when Rosy lends Emily back to Ari in a moment where Ari is feeling very isolated and alone. It then transforms for Ari into a type of companionship, comfort, and touch stone of that same hope she gave to Rosy. I would not say there is a larger cast of characters in An Impossible Dream than in Be, but where Ari feels very isolated as a young woman surrounded by men, as I explore in my interview with Jenn Romano in The AjennDa Blog, Sare in An Impossible Dream is surrounded by other young women, allowing for more of a comparing and contrasting of circumstance and symbolic meaning. “Every lil’ girl needs a dolly.” Gilly said like it was a simple matter of fact. For Sare, who has been a servant her whole life, the very notion of a doll confounds her. She associates it with pretend work, rather than play. As her conversation with, one of “the ladies,” Gilly progresses and she tries to riddle out this popular toy, dolls become a look into the divide of haves vs. have-nots, as she “would argue only certain little girls ever had a doll,” and even then, what those dolls come to mean within those varied circumstance.
Sare does not know if her friend, Gracelynn, had a doll growing up, but imagines, knowing what she knows of her home life, that it would have been treated the way Gracelynn was treated: “to sit on a shelf out of… reach, as a means to have something else to brag about.” In that same vein, both Be and An Impossible Dream, discuss the row of unblemished porcelain perfection sitting in the princess, Rochelle’s, windowsill. In Be, Henry compares it to his mother’s books which he calls “well loved” and looked it. In comparison to the cloth doll like Emily or Elsbie’s unnamed rag doll, Rochelle’s dolls, too would have been expensive and rarely played with. She is another girl who is seen as little more than an object by those in her life, a comparison Sally, another of “the ladies,” later makes about how Elsbie was treated by one who should have loved her most. Even as Sare comes to recognize a more positive benefit of the doll, beginning to see what her friend, Elsbie, saw in her doll specifically, companionship, it acts as another layer of a metaphor for Elsbie and a bit of foreshadowing when thinking about why Elsbie never took such a precious thing back with her when given the chance: “It was safer where it was.” Ultimately, for Sare, the doll comes to represent the ever foreign and elusive “before” she alone among her peers does not have, the love, family, and memories of a time before she donned an apron and scrubbed chamber pots, as this unnamed rag doll was made specifically for Elsbie by Sally and Gilly keeps it and the rest of Elsbie’s childhood treasure safe. What do dolls symbolize for you? Did you have a favorite doll growing up? If you are a storyteller, do dolls make an appearance in your story?
0 Comments
|
AuthorGathering dust in the depths of my mind, random thoughts dusted off and put out there for the world to see... Archives
July 2023
Categories
All
|
Ellie Lieberman |