Sarah Morrow
Academic 10
Ms. Byrne
5 December 2008
The Doll’s House
Everywhere you go, you will find many examples of biases, especially in schools
worldwide. There are so many things in schools that are examples of being bias, for
example, the separation of social classes. There are many things that can lead to the
separation of social classes, such as, if there is a majority of upper class students in
one school, the few children that are part of the lower or even middle class, may be
unable to participate in things that the upper class students are allowed to participate
in. In the short story, “The Doll’s House”, Katherine Mansfield uses the conflict,
characterization, and symbolism, of “The Doll’s House” to demonstrate this type of
bias in this time period.
The main conflict in this story is that the Kelvey girls cann ot see the Burnells’
doll’s house because of the Kelveys placement in social class. The Burnell girls are
from a middle class family, and the Kelvey girls are from a lower class family. The
Kelvey girls are not respected by the other children and parents in their school
because of the Kelvey parents; Mrs. Kelvey was a washerwoman, and nobody really
knew about Mr. Kelvey, but everybody said that he was in jail. So, one day, Mrs. Hay
sent the Burnell children a doll’s house after she left the town afer staying with the
Burnells. The doll’s house was big, and spinach green picked out by yellow. It had two
chimneys, a roof, and four, real windows. The doll’s house was beautiful, and the
Burnell girls could not wait to show it to the other children. Every day, the children
would huddle together at recess time to take a look at the doll’s house. People also
came the Burnells’ house to look at the doll’s house, but except of course the Kelvey
girls. This is the main conflict because the Kelvey girls wanted to see the beautiful
doll’s house just like the other children, but they couldn’t, all just because of their
social class.
The main character in The Doll’s House is Kezia Burnell. Kezia has two other
sisters, Isabel and Lottie. Isabel is the oldest. Isabel is the bossy one and is the one
who is always right. She practically speaks for her other two sisters. Kezia is the
middle child. She is the most sympathetic sister of the three because she is the only
one who doesn’t understand or agree with the fact that the Kelvey family is excluded
from everyone. She is also the only one who invites the Kelvey girls to come see the
doll’s house. Lottie is the youngest of the three, but the author doesn’t really say too
much about her. Then there are the Kelvey girls, Lil and Else. Lil is the older one, and
the narrator describes her as “stout and plain with big freckles”. She comes to school
wearing a dress made from a green art serge tablecloth. The author says that she looks
like a guy because of how she dresses. The younger sister, Else always follows Lil
around. Else wears to school a long white dress and a pair of little boy boots. The
author describes her as a “tiny wish-bone child”. She also has cropped hair and
enormous eyes.
In “The Doll’s House”, there are two main symbols. The first symbol is the Burnell
girls’ doll’s house. This is one of the main symbols because the doll’s house can relate
to the theme and the conflict of the story. The doll’s house symbol is also the most
important symbol because the doll’s house is the one of the reasons for the separation
of the Kelveys from the other children in the school. The doll’s house represents the
separation of social classes, but it also represents the bringing together of the other
children because all of the children come together to see the Burnells’ doll’s house.
The next symbol is the lamp inside the doll’s house. The lamp is an important symbol
in “The Doll’s House” because it is Kezias favorite part of the doll’s house. Else
Kelvey was also fascinated by the little lamp. Kezia “frightfully” liked the lamp
because it seemed so real. When the narrator describes the lamp, she says, “It stood in
the middle of the dining room table, an exquisite little amber lamp with a white globe.
It was even filled with lighting, though, of coarse, you couldn’t light it. But there was
something inside that looked like oil and that moved when you shook it”
(Mansfield181). The significance of the lamp to “The Doll’s House” is that it brings
the Kelv ey girls and the Burnell girls together in a way because Kezia, from the
Burnell family, likes the lamp, and Else, from the Kelvey family, also likes the lamp.
There is no specific resolution to the story. The only thing that the author gives
away at the end is the significance of the symbol, the lamp, to the story. In the short
story, “The Doll’s House”, Katherine Mansfield uses the conflict, characterization,
and symbolism of “The Doll’s House” to demonstrate this type of bias in this time
period. Throughout the story, you can see various examples of biases coming from
the idea of separation of social classes.