caitlin-meehan

[caitlin-meehan]

“There was only one thing missing from the doctor’s otherwise perfect happiness. He noted that although he was aging, the youngest still kept that same firm porcelained skin she had had when he would call on her at the big house on the plantation. One night he decided to go into her bedroom to watch her as she slept. He noticed that her chest wasn’t moving. He gently placed his stethoscope over her heart and heard a distant swish of water. The the doll lifted her eyelids, and out of the empty sockets of her eyes came the frenzied antennae of all those prawns.”

- The Youngest Doll by Rosario Ferre

This is how the story ends. There is no explanation. The reader is left to determine where the doll came from and what happened to the youngest niece.  Throughout the entire story we are never given any names for the characters, which almost dehumanized them. The way that the youngest niece so eerily imitates the doll takes away from her humanity, or maybe it is the husband that takes away her humanity because he never really see’s her as a person. Through out the entire story the husband and his father have leached off of the doll makers family. First the doctor intentionally doesn’t heal the doll maker because he see’s the opportunity to leach himself onto her and suck the money from her for life, and then the son marries the youngest niece to leach of her prestigious family lineage. After the youngest is married she merely becomes a doll to her husband. It is unknown whether the doll in the bed is a sick joke, a cruel turn of fate, or if something supernatural happened. It could be that the youngest left the house with a doll in her wake, or it could be that the youngest has transformed into the doll. Either way it marks a transition in the youngest life. 

[caitlin-meehan]

“The youngest went on sitting in her rocking chair on the balcony, motionless in her muslin and lace, and always lowered eyelids. Whenever her husband’s patients, draped with necklaces and feathers and carrying elaborate canes, would seat themselves beside her, shaking their self-satisfied rolls of flesh with a jingling of coins, they would notice a strange oozing sweetsop.”

- The Youngest Doll by Rosario Ferre

I think that this is one of the most significant passages in the entire text. Right before this passage we doll mysteriously disappears, and the youngest niece says that the ants took the doll away because they found the honey. In this passage the youngest niece is really taking on characteristics of the doll: her eyes are lowered to the ground, mirroring the gaze of the doll was was found in the previous post, she is sitting motionless less wearing muslin, and she is oozing sweetsop which mirrors not only the injury of her aunt but also the honey inside the doll. What could be mere coincidence is too precise, it alludes to the rest of the story too much for me to brush it aside as a coincidence. The allusions to God, to a second life, and to creation make me think that the author is intentionally putting these details into the story, and that it leads to the conclusion (without being explicit) that there is something supernatural at hand.

In a strange way this lends itself to the theme of revisionism, but in a different way than what I would normally think of, instead of revising the past the youngest is revising her future even though it is not yet written.  

[caitlin-meehan]

“Motionless inside her cubical of heat, the youngest began to suspect that it wasn’t only her husband’s silhouette that was made of paper, but also his should as well...from then on the doll remained seated on the lid of the grand piano, but with her gaze modestly lowered.”

- The Youngest Doll by Rosario Ferre

It is significant that the husband is made out of paper. Although porcelain is delicate, it is stronger than paper and has longevity, but paper is weak. Paper is malleable, it can be crumbled, it can be drawn on, and it has no real substance. This is a great different from the life that we saw inside of the doll. The passage above says the the husband has a paper silhouette and a paper soul, implying that the husband is weak on the inside and out. The doll was warm, and the doll had a real face in between two dead faces. This passage is significant because the youngest niece is realizing who her husband is, and instead of creating a revisionist reality, she see’s the truth for what it really is. 

The husband removes the diamond earrings from the doll, and the doll’s eyes are forever lowered to the ground. This is significant because the youngest will take up with position later in the story.

[caitlin-meehan]

“On her wedding day, as she was about to leave the house, the youngest was surprised to find that the doll her aunt had given her as a wedding present was warm... In the doll's half-open and slightly sad smile, she recognized her full set of baby teeth. There was also another notable detail: the aunt had embedded her diamond eardrops inside the doll's pupils”

- The Youngest Doll by Rosario Ferre

The passage above comes when the youngest niece is married off to the doctors son and receives her doll from her aunt. It is important that the doll is warm because usually only living things are warm, and this almost personifies the doll, but it makes the reader aware that this doll is special somehow. The use of the youngest nieces baby teeth are import because it is a part of herself that is in the doll, and in sticking with the supernatural theme the teeth could almost be used as a talisman because they come from the youngest niece. It is also important to notice that the aunt put a piece of herself into this doll, not a part of her physical body, but something that she cherished, her diamond earrings. This passage speaks to the creation theme that is prevalent throughout the story, and it is significant this this passage differs greatly from the the time we saw a doll given to a niece as a wedding present. There is no mention of Easter Sunday, no real happiness in this passage, instead the doll is scene with a “sad” smile. 

[caitlin-meehan]

“They would carry a modest checkered cardboard suitcase in one hand, the other hand slipped around the waist of the exuberant doll made in their image and likeness, still wearing the same old-fashioned kid slippers and gloves, and with Valenciennes bloomers barely showing under their snowy, em- broidered skirts.”

- The Youngest Doll by Rosario Ferre 

The reason that this passage stood out to me was because of the biblical reference. The author made a very clear and distinct reference by saying that the dolls were made in the nieces “image and likeness”. It is a fundamental Christian believe that humans were made in the image and likeness of God, this biblical allusion appears in Genesis and in Corinthians. This also adds to the supernatural element of the doll because this passage comes almost immediately after the allusion to Easter Sunday. The Easter Sunday hints at a second life by reminding the reader of Jesus’s resurrection, but also because it implies an after life, so not only a physical second life but a spiritual second life. By using the phrase “image and likeness” Ferre really doubles down on the supernatural element and Christian allusions. I think this is furthered because the doll maker created the doll in the image and likeness of nieces appearance, thus showing the doll maker to be a near God-like figure in terms of creation, and if we see the doll maker as a God-like figure, and we accept the idea of a second life, the supernatural interpretation of the ending becomes more and more likely. 

[caitlin-meehan]

“The girls began to marry and leave home. On their wedding day, the aunt would give each of them their last doll, kissing them on the forehead and telling them with a smile, "Here is your Easter Sunday."

- The Youngest Doll by Rosario Ferre

I thought that this line was incredibly important when I read it the first time. I was struck by the imagery of Easter Sunday, and as a Catholic Easter Sunday has a very strong meaning and very vivid imagery. Easter Sunday is the day that Jesus rises from the dead, and I think that this adds a lot of meaning to the section of The Youngest Doll. Getting married is a very important event in a persons life, and is a big transition. It is the start of a new life. I think that this sentiment of starting over is exemplified in saying “Here is your Easter Sunday” because it marks the start of a new life. A second chance. I think that this diverges drastically from that I would normally think of revisionism, because with revisionism I always think of altering the past, or somehow trying to regain the past, but this Easter Sunday is looking towards the future. The mention of Easter Sunday, and the resurrection of Jesus, also plays into the supernatural and how the supernatural connects with the dolls. This also lays the ground work for a could-be supernatural ending of the story. 

[caitlin-meehan]

“They were mailed to her from Europe in all colors, but the aunt considered them useless until she had left them submerged at the bottom of the stream for a few days, so that they could learn to recognize the slightest stirring of the prawn's antennae.” 

The Youngest Doll by Rosario Ferre

This quotes talks about the eyes that the doll maker would use in her dolls. The eyes were the only part of the doll that that doll maker didn’t make, but it is significant that the doll maker does in fact make the eyes her own, she doesn’t just put them into the doll. Much like how a parent would want to teach their children, and have their children learn from their mistakes, the reader see’s that the doll maker does that in her own way. The dolls, being the children of the doll maker, are seen learning how to spot the prawns in the stream so they they wouldn’t be bitten like the doll maker. It is interesting that the eye balls come from Europe, and are then almost baptized into a new culture and a new family. The doll maker comes from a dwindling sugar plantation in Puerto Rico, and she creates everything used for the dolls at the plantation, and I think that the author was intentional with where the dolls come from. Instead of being from Puerto Rico they are from Europe, and instead of just putting them into the doll, they are cleansed in the stream, the same stream where the doll maker was bitten by the prawn. This action is almost a rite of passage. I think that by doing this the doll maker is attempting to make the eyes at one with the rest of the materials, by being in the stream they are being reborn into the Puerto Rican identity. Water is often thought to be a sign of rebirth, and whenever something is plunged into water or cleansed with water, it always is reminiscent of a baptism. 

This passage also allows for the materials to be humanized. It personified the eyes, and more broadly the dolls, which play the ground work for the end of the story, where the reader is left wondering if the doll in the bed has come alive, or if there is a natural explanation for it. 

[caitlin-meehan]

 “...She would make a wax mask of the child’s face, covering it with plaster on both sides, like a living face wrapped in two dead ones. The she would draw out endless flexed thread of melted wax through a pinpoint on her chin. The porcelain of the hands and face was always translucent: it had an ivory tint to it that formed a great contrast with the curdled whiteness of the bisque faces. For the body, the aunt would send out to the garden for twenty glossy gourds. She would hold them in one hand, and with an expert twist of the knife, would slice them up against the railing of the balcony, so that the sun and breeze would dry out the cottony guano brains. After a few days, she would scrape off the dried fluff with a teaspoon and, with infinite patience, feed it into the doll’s mouth.” The Youngest Doll by Rosario Ferre

What struck me the most about this passage, and why it reminded me of Toy Story 2 (beyond the obvious doll reasons) is that both doll makers act as if the dolls are people. In The Youngest Doll the reader can conclude that making dolls is how the doll maker copes with the fact that she doesn’t have children of her own. The line that really struck me was “...a living face wrapped in two dead ones.” This line stood out to be because it could be read with different interpretations. The first could simply be how she used a live person to create the doll, but the second interpretation I think is far more interesting, and that is that there is somehow a supernatural element involved in the making of the dolls, that the doll maker somehow captures a part of a soul and puts it into the mask, and there are other parts of the story (that I will discuss in later posts) that also show different supernatural elements in the story. The last interpretation goes beyond the scene that we see, and that it shows that anybody could be wearing a dead mask on the outside, but be alive on the inside. This is also creates a juxtaposition with the youngest nieces husband, who is dead on the inside, but wears a human mask. 

[caitlin-meehan]

She would unlatch the door and gently pick up each doll, murmuring a lullaby as she rocked it: 'This is how you were when you were a year old, this is you at two, and like this as three,' measuring out each year of their lives against the hollow they left in her arms.

The Youngest Doll by Rosario Ferre

In this quote the reader can see the effect that the dolls have on the doll maker. She was essentially robbed of a life of her own by the malpractice of a doctor, who thought it would be better to milk her for money for years than to heal her, and had to create a porcelain life for herself. While the doll maker loved all of her nieces the dolls seem to be a replacement for the children she never had. Instead of nurturing the life of a baby in the womb and raising that child, the doll maker has children of porcelain that she sings lullabies to. In this quote the reader gets a glimpse into the mind of the doll maker and the reader see’s how the doll maker is trying to recreate her own past, and her own life. The reader sees how the doll maker is creating a revisionist history of her own life and the people in it. 

[caitlin-meehan]

The Youngest Doll by Rosario Ferre tells the story of a nameless doll maker. As a young girl the doll maker was bitten by a prawn in a swimming hole, and the prawn then embedded itself into her leg, and the doctor was unable to get it out. This incident had a profound effect on the doll maker because of the prawn in her leg, her leg became disfigured, which caused her to lose all of her vanity and kept her from living her life. The doll maker never married, but she had many nieces whom she loved very much, and she began to make dolls for all of her nieces, they all got one doll a year no matter what age they were. It is then revealed when the doctor and his son are visiting to check on the doll maker that the doctor could have removed the prawn and fixed the leg from the very beginning, but the doctor didn’t because he decided the bleed the doll maker for money for years, and used that money to pay for the education of his son. The doctors son goes on to marry the youngest niece of the doll maker, and the youngest niece soon comes to realize that the doctor is an empty shell of a man that only cares for money. When every niece gets married they receive a a doll from the doll maker, and the doll that the youngest niece receives is special, it is filled with honey and has the nieces baby teeth, but one day it goes missing. The niece says that the ants figured out it has honey on the inside and took it away, but the reader is left to feel doubt about this because the husband wanted to take the doll away and sell it. The short story then ends on an ambiguous note, the husband goes in to look at his wife, the youngest niece, and instead of finding a human being he finds a doll, and the reader is left wondering whether the wife has turned into a doll, or if she replaced herself with the doll while she left.