Summary of The Doll's House by Katherine Mansfield

The Doll's House

                -   Katherine Mansfield

The Doll's House is a beautiful short story written by Katherine Mansfield. Mansfield portrays the trivial activities of men. In this story she depicts the cruelty of grown up people in the society. She explores the cruelty of the society. She brings out the difference of opinion among children about rich, poor, higher and lower status of people.

In this short story there are five child characters.  They are the Burnell daughters and the Kelvey daughters, Aunt Beryl, Mrs. Kelvey, the school teacher and so on. In this story the small innocent children are poisoned by their rich parents about poor children. As a result of this the rich kids grow up with evil thoughts about the poor.

Mrs. Hay the aunt of Burnells children gifts a dolls house. The children are filled with gay by seeing the dolls house. The house looked more real and beautiful. The house had two bed rooms, living rooms, kitchen, chimneys, bedclothes, doll family, and lamp. It was unique and large. The house was wonderfully decorated and painted. It was kept in the courtyard for a few days as the smell of the paint retained.

The children were happy to see the rooms and furnitures. Kezia was attracted towards the lamp. She felt the lamp to be a real one. They were overjoyed to explore the dolls house. Burnells children reached  the school with great excitement. They were very much eager to narrate the story about the dolls house to their classmates. Burnells eldest daughter Isabela was given the liberty to narrate the story to her friends as she was the senior most child.

 Isabela told her friends about the dolls house during the lunch hour at the school. All the children gathered  except two of the girls. They were downtrodden and belonged to lower class. They were the daughters of Mrs. Kelvey. Kelveys husband was Mr. Kelvin and he was a jailbird. Mrs. Kelvey was a servant and worked in many houses. She got clothes from different masters and gave it to her daughters. Burnells mother has warned her children not to speak with the Kelveys. Every students in the school were given an opportunity to see the dolls house.  Only Else Kelvey and Lil Kelvey were left uninvited and no one spoke to them.

One day, Kezia, the youngest daughter of the Burnells asked her mother to invite Kelveys. Her mother scorned and  abused her. Kezia was silenced. Everyone disliked and avoided the Kelveys. But Kezia was the only child to shower sympathy towards them.

One day Kezia saw the Kelveys near her gate. She wholeheartedly invited them to see the dolls house. With much fear and hesitation they went into the courtyard and saw the wonderful house. Else saw the little lamp. The girls grew furious hearing to the harsh voice of Aunt Beryl. She shooed them off as if they were chicken. Both the sisters squeezed through the gate and fled away. Far off they sat on a drainpipe and the younger sister expressed her pleasure.

The younger sister admired the lamp which Kezia felt to be realistic. Kezia is the only child who saw no difference between one and another. The cause for this indifference is the elders who are trying to seed in the mind of Children.