Form and Content
Harriette Simpson Arnow’s The Dollmaker is a story of the displacement of a Kentucky hill family by the promise of a better life in the industrial, World War II North. Upon learning that he will not be called up for immediate military service, Clovis Nevels decides, without consulting his wife, Gertie, to seek employment in Detroit. When he finds a job, Clovis sends for his family and settles them in Merrie Hill Alley, a ghetto of transplanted industrial workers and their families.
Arnow opens The Dollmaker by introducing the reader to Gertie, the work’s large, rawboned protagonist. In the opening section, Gertie Nevels is riding alone on a mule with only a baby held securely in her arms as a companion. This surreal scene soon assumes meaning when Gertie flags down a car occupied by an Army officer and his driver and forces them to take her and her child into town. The desperate nature of Gertie’s trip becomes apparent when Arnow discloses that Gertie’s child has typhoid and will surely die if medical attention is not soon forthcoming. The strength of Gertie’s convictions and the delicacy in her large hands is demonstrated when, with only a pocket knife, a hairpin, and a poplar twig at her disposal, she performs a tracheotomy on her infant son Amos as the car speeds toward town.
For the next eight chapters, Arnow paints a naturalistic portrait of the Kentucky mountain world into which Gertie has been thrust, a world of hardships and unrecognized dreams. One dream, however, keeps Gertie going: She wants to own a small piece of land to which she and her family can belong. She saves a few cents here and there toward the day that she will be able to buy the land. When her brother Henley is killed in the war, Gertie learns that he has left her nearly three hundred dollars of his “cattle money.” With her newfound wealth, Gertie moves toward making her dream a reality. She buys a piece of land known as the Tipton place from her uncle and begins making her new purchase conform to her expectations.
Gertie’s dream is thwarted and the degree of the actual control she has over her life becomes clear, however, when Clovis sends word that he wants Gertie and his children to join him in Detroit. Instead of supporting Gertie in her quest for a personal identity, Gertie’s mother and uncle insist that she take back the money she gave her uncle for the farm and use it for the move to Detroit. Receiving no encouragement, except for passive acceptance from her reclusive father, Gertie gives in to the pressure.
Gertie’s dilemma introduces the theme of the mother-child rift that will appear again in the conflict between Gertie and Reuben. Gertie’s mother condemns Gertie for her sinful ways of playing cards and dancing, pleasures that she enjoyed with her father and brother. The unrelenting, fundamentalist concept of condemnation is apparent when Gertie’s mother declares that Henley was killed as a punishment for his sinful ways. Gertie refuses to accept this judgment and instead finds her spirituality in a transcendental relationship with the land on which she lives, leading to her need to own land of her own.
Arnow recounts Gertie’s move to and residence in Merrie Hill. Removed from their familiar surroundings and extended family, Gertie and Clovis’ immediate family begins to polarize and disintegrate. On one side is Clovis and several children who find adventure and a new identity in their new home. Each of them loses any emotional connection with the lives they had left...
(This entire section contains 1016 words.)
Unlock this Study Guide Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
behind; their speech takes on new connotations, and their attitudes come into line with their new cosmopolitan surroundings. In contrast, Gertie, Reuben, and Cassie refuse total immersion into the Promised Land of Detroit. Gertie and Cassie try to create worlds of their own, while Reuben gives up on his family and returns to Kentucky.
The move to Detroit offers Clovis more than simply a job: He finds a brotherhood based upon antimanagement sentiments and total disdain for the factory owner. Just as when he decided to move his family to Detroit, Clovis couches no interference with his union leanings. When Gertie questions the actions committed in the name of the union, he insists that she does not understand what is happening.
Detroit continues to destroy the things near and dear to Gertie. She loses the children most akin to her in spirit. Although she understands his reasons for leaving, Gertie is deeply hurt when Reuben blames her for the family’s removal from their home in Kentucky. It is Cassie’s death, however, that is most painful for Gertie. To reinforce the effect of Cassie’s death, Arnow creates an emotionally draining scene in which Cassie not only is killed but also is mutilated as her mother watches. The reader experiences the accident almost in slow motion. Each wound suffered by Cassie is witnessed by her mother and Arnow’s readers.
Although it is not as traumatic as Cassie’s death scene, Arnow creates another highly emotional scene in which Gertie demolishes her prized piece of cherry wood that she had preserved so long for her proposed carving of Christ. Her destruction of the piece of wood demonstrates her understanding that she will never be able to create an appropriate face for her statue. When Gertie strikes the cherry wood with the ax, she finally realizes that her ability to create as she wishes is gone.
Gertie Nevels’ resolution to her situation contrasts the situation in which she found herself at the opening of the novel. With baby Amos in her arms, Gertie had begun a quest to protect and deliver her family. In the end, she realizes that she and her family have been caught up in the vast sea of humanity being pushed by the ever-increasing needs of World War II. Like Gertie’s, most individuals’ needs were subordinated by the needs of the larger social structure of the country and the world.
Context
The Dollmaker made both a popular and critical splash when it appeared in 1954. The reading public rushed to read of the struggles of Gertie Nevels, and the critical establishment placed its stamp of approval on the novel when it came in second to William Faulkner’s A Fable for the 1955 National Book Award. The Dollmaker differs from other American migration novels, such as John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and James Still’s River of Earth (1940), by centering its plot and theme upon how such a forced move affected a woman.
Arnow’s intention is to show the second-class status in which many American women found themselves during the first half of the twentieth century. By drawing specific attention to the trials and tribulations of Gertie Nevels, Arnow intensifies her message regarding the greater scope of the work. She depicts a family which belittles the needs and dreams of a female member, much as society as a whole belittled the needs and dreams of the working class.
Arnow’s novel enters the canon of women’s literature alongside other works that show the indifference of society to its population as a whole through the treatment of women. One can discern parallels between The Dollmaker and Rebecca Harding Davis’ Life in the Iron Mills: Or, The Korl Woman (1861), Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899), and Willa Cather’s My Ántonia (1918) because they all depict the secondary roles that women’s dreams often play in society.
Literary Techniques
Arnow expertly structures Gertie's story around a significant symbol: a large block of cherry wood. Gertie carves this wood during moments of deep emotion, using it as a means of self-expression. The development of Gertie's ideas about what to sculpt from this wood, along with her uses of it throughout the novel, mirrors her entire life journey. Initially, she intends to carve the wood into the figure of a laughing Christ, which symbolizes her initially optimistic outlook on life. However, after moving to Detroit and feeling she has let down her children and herself, she changes her mind and decides to carve it into the figure of a repentant Judas. As her creative spirit weakens under the weight of her daily struggles, her control over the wood's destiny wanes. Eventually, she gives up on creating a unique and meaningful sculpture for herself and sacrifices the wood to meet financial needs. The striking image of the wood being chopped into pieces to make simple dolls she can sell to support her family brings Gertie's story to a somber conclusion.
Other significant symbols in the novel include Gertie's woodcarving knife and Cassie's imaginary playmate, Callie Lou. The knife initially symbolizes Gertie's vitality and bravery, as seen in the opening scene where she uses it to perform an emergency tracheotomy on her youngest child. In stark contrast, by the story's end, the knife represents her loss of strength. It is taken from her and used by Clovis in an act of murder, turning it into a tool of corruption and death. Similarly, Arnow's portrayal of Cassie's imaginary friend, Callie Lou, undergoes a meaningful transformation. While Callie Lou is accepted as part of the family in Kentucky, in Detroit, the family fears that her "existence" might lead others to think Cassie is odd. Tragically, Cassie dies shortly after Gertie mistakenly tells her to forget her playmate, not realizing she is asking her daughter to erase the last traces of her Kentucky identity.
In addition to symbolism, Arnow skillfully employs various narrative techniques typical of the naturalistic novel in The Dollmaker. The story unfolds chronologically, reaching multiple climaxes in highly dramatic scenes. It meticulously details the characters' motivations and reactions to significant events, uses extensive detail to create a sense of realism, and employs contrast to emphasize the main themes. Other notable features of Arnow's narrative style include the seamless integration of plot, character, and setting, as well as her ability to authentically capture the language of Kentucky mountaineers.
Literary Precedents
The Dollmaker is a distinctive piece of literature that is best appreciated when considered on its own merits, despite its connections to several significant traditions in American fiction. While it employs some techniques typical of naturalistic novels, The Dollmaker also shares thematic elements with this genre. Arnow, like naturalistic authors such as Frank Norris and Theodore Dreiser, emphasizes the influence of external forces on personal destinies, incorporates extensive sociological observations, and delves into the more somber facets of life. Additionally, because Arnow skillfully and effectively explores the literary potential of her deep understanding of Kentucky in this novel, The Dollmaker can be linked to the tradition of American regionalism.
Avoiding the comedic, melodramatic, sentimental, and sensational stereotypes of impoverished whites that often undermine Southern regional fiction, Arnow aims for the sweeping perspective characteristic of regional writing akin to that of Hamlin Garland and Ellen Glasgow. Consistent with trends seen in these authors, her portrayal of characters from Kentucky's backwoods and hills brings an authentic and nuanced understanding of the people and landscape of a particular area of the United States to a broader audience, while simultaneously illustrating how the lives and destinies of regional characters possess universal significance.
Ultimately, for its depiction of how the less privileged members of American society are undermined by the injustices inherent in the prevailing social, political, and economic systems of their era, The Dollmaker can be viewed as a novel of social protest. A comparison to John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath (1939), which highlights the struggles of a Southern family leaving the Oklahoma Dust Bowl in search of prosperity in California, is particularly fitting, even though, unlike Steinbeck, Arnow does not propose a solution to social injustice. Another suitable comparison can be made with socially aware fiction by women writers whose heartfelt empathy for the impoverished and oppressed includes a special, though not exclusive, focus on women's issues. Arnow's compelling portrayal of Gertie as a poor woman striving to raise a large family under challenging circumstances while maintaining her identity as an independent individual clearly connects her novel to Edith Kelley's Weeds (1923) and Tillie Olsen's Yonnondio (1971).
Adaptations
When Jane Fonda first read The Dollmaker in 1971, she imagined turning it into a film, casting herself as the character Gertie Nevels. By 1979, ABCTV had agreed to produce the project, which finally materialized in 1984. The television movie, adapted by Susan Cooper and Hume Cronyn and directed by Daniel Petrie, starred Fonda in the main role, with Levon Helm playing Clovis, and included several talented young actors from Tennessee as their children. The Appalachian scenes were filmed on location in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, while an abandoned steel mill in Chicago stood in for the factory and housing project in Detroit. The film aired on May 13, 1984, and received high praise for its outstanding performances, beautiful cinematography, and fitting soundtrack of traditional mountain music. However, some critics were unsettled by what they perceived as an overemphasis on capturing the distinct mountain dialect and by certain scenes they considered overly melodramatic. Despite the challenges of compressing such a lengthy story into a film version, the production maintained much of the novel's emotional depth. With one notable exception, it generally adhered to the original thematic and plot elements. This exception is the ending, which is less grim than in the book, as the scriptwriters allowed Gertie to return to her home in the Kentucky hills at the film's conclusion.
Bibliography
Baer, Barbara L. “Harriette Arnow’s Chronicles of Destruction.” The Nation 222 (January 31, 1976): 117-120. Baer shows how Arnow’s The Dollmaker is an intricate part of what is considered her “Kentucky trilogy.” Argues that although The Dollmaker can be read from the feminist view, it is an excellent example of a work which documents the initiation of American society into the modern, industrial age.
Chung, Haeja K., ed. Harriet Simpson Arnow: Critical Essays on Her Work. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1995. An excellent volume with which to begin a detailed study of Arnow’s life and writing. Chung has assembled twenty scholarly essays on Arnow’s life and career. Three essays are devoted to The Dollmaker. The volume also includes an interview with Harriet Simpson Arnow by Haeja Chung.
Chung, Haeja K. “Harriet Simpson Arnow’s Authorial Testimony: Toward a Reading of The Dollmaker.” Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction 36 (Spring, 1995): 211-223. A detailed analysis of Gertie, the central character in the novel. Chung focuses on an interview she conducted with Arnow and asserts that the author’s testimony is relevant to re-reading the novel, especially in assessing the complexity of the main character who has often been stereotyped as a “strong woman.”
Cunningham, Rodger. “ ‘Adjustments and What It Means’: The Tragedy of Space in The Dollmaker.” In The Poetics of Appalachian Space, edited by Parks Lanier, Jr. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991. This article approaches Arnow’s novel from a different perspective. Cunningham discusses how the novel is the story of an individual seeking space of her own but tragically finding her dream destroyed at every turn.
Eckley, Wilton. Harriette Arnow. New York: Twayne, 1974. This book-length study of Arnow’s works offers an excellent appraisal of her canon through the completion of The Weedkiller’s Daughter (1970). Three particular chapters should be of interest to anyone delving into the significance of The Dollmaker. Chapter 1 is a biographical sketch which illuminates some of the major events in Arnow’s life. Chapter 5 is an analysis of The Dollmaker. Chapter 8 gives an overview of Arnow’s career and makes some suggestions as to where her career might lead.
Gower, Herschel. “Regions and Rebels.” In The History of Southern Literature, edited by Louis D. Rubin, Jr., et al. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985. This article places Arnow in the context of the Southern writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who provided a depiction of common folk, as opposed to earlier writers who recalled the good old days of the plantation South.
Hobbs, Glenda. “A Portrait of the Artist as Mother: Harriette Arnow and The Dollmaker.” The Georgia Review 33 (Winter, 1979): 851-866. A useful scholarly perspective.
Oates, Joyce Carol. “On Harriette Arnow’s The Dollmaker.” Afterword to The Dollmaker. New York: Avon Books, 1972. In her commentary, Oates presents two dominant factors to be considered when reading The Dollmaker. First, the Nevels family’s story represents humanity as a whole, caught in a neverending cycle of beginnings and endings. Second, Oates sees the work as representative of American literary naturalism in which the individual is controlled by social forces, most specifically economic forces.
