What are the key plot elements in "The Doll's House"?
The exposition of "The Doll's House" occurs when a beautiful new dollhouse arrives at the home of the Burnell sisters: Isabel, Lottie, and Kezia. It is a "perfect little house" which has been handcrafted with exquisite attention to details; the walls are covered in wallpaper, carpet covers the floors, and tiny pictures hang on the walls. The sisters are thrilled.
The rising action begins when Isabel, Lottie, and Kezia go to school and inform the other girls of their new possession. Isabel appoints herself as the disseminator of this information, insisting that her status as the eldest sister allows her the privilege. Additionally, she insists that she will be the first to invite friends to visit their home to view the dollhouse. When playtime comes, the girls all crowd around around the Burnell sisters, excited to share in Isabel's news. Only two girls are excluded: Lil and Else...
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Kelvey. The Kelveys are quite poor and are always excluded from the other girls' activities. Lil and Else are shunned because their father is in prison, and their mother is a washerwoman who can't afford to purchase nice clothing for her daughters.
Together, Isabel, Kezia, and Lottie share the incredible details of their dollhouse. Isabel chooses the first two girls who can visit, and everyone else is particularly nice to Isabel, hoping for her own turn to visit and see the dollhouse. As more girls visit with each passing day, playtime conversation centers around the dollhouse. Else and Lil remain outside the conversation, but they always stand nearby so that they can listen to the other girls. Kezia asks Mrs. Burnell if the Kelveys can visit "just once" to see the dollhouse, and this request is promptly rejected. One day when Kezia is alone in the yard, she sees the Kelvey sisters approaching and invites them to come see the dollhouse.
Else and Lil accept the invitation, which leads to the climax. As Kezia kindly begins pointing out the various rooms inside the house, her aunt appears, reprimanding her niece for allowing the Kelveys inside their family home. She demands that the sisters "run away."
Lil and Else walk away in shame, which is the falling action. Kezia is called a "wicked" and "disobedient" child for associating with the Kelveys. After insulting Kezia, Aunt Beryl's "heart [feels] lighter."
The resolution of the story is that Else and Lil sit alone together, smiling that they had the opportunity to see the dollhouse. As the story closes, the sisters are silent and alone.
What is the inciting incident in "The Doll's House" by Katherine Mansfield?
The inciting incident in this brilliant short story is outlined to us in the first few lines of the tale, when we see the way in which a gift can be used to heighten social divisions and differences amongst a community that consists of people from all kinds of different backgrounds:
When dear old Mrs. Hay went back to town after staying with the Burnells she sent the children a doll's house. It was so big that the carter and Pat carried it into the courtyard, and there it stayed, propped up on two wooden boxes behind the feed-room door.
It is this apparently innocuous gift that is skilfully used by Mansfield to highlight the social divisions in this small community and which allows her to comment shrewdly upon society and in particular in the way that children very quickly and swiftly learn that social class is something that prevents human communion and that it is a barrier that stops us communicating with everybody else as equals. The way in which the Kelveys are treated and excluded by the girls in the school, except for Keziah, clearly displays this fact.