The Doll's House' is a 1922 short story by Katherine Mansfield. It was first published in The Nation and Atheneum on 4 February 1922, and later appeared in The Dove's Nest and Other Stories.[1] An alternative title used by Mansfield in other editions was At Karori.[2]
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The Burnell children receive a doll's house from Mrs.Hay and they show it off to their school friends.
Mrs. Hay has given a doll's house to the Burnell children; it is minutely described, with especial emphasis on a lamp inside of it, which the youngest girl, Kezia, thinks is the best part of the doll house. The next morning they cannot wait to show it off to their school friends; Isabel bossily says she will be the one to decide who is allowed to come and see it in the house as she is the eldest. The Kelveys, two poor girls, Lil and "our" Else, will not be allowed to do so because they are of a much lower social class. Later, Isabel and two of her friends, Emmie Cole and Lena Logan, taunt the Kelveys about their low social status. Soon afterwards Kezia impulsively decides to show them the house anyway; Aunt Beryl, worried about an insisting letter from a certain Willie Brent, walks in on them, shoos away the Kelveys, scolds Kezia, then feels better. The Kelveys have managed to see the lamp though and our Else smiles joyfully which is rare.and the story ends with them being silent once more.
The text is written in the modernist mode, with minute details and haphazard narrative voices.
A continuation of The Doll's House called The Washerwoman's Children written by Witi Ihimaera, depicting Else later on in life as a Justice in London, coming back to Karori for a jubilee at her school.
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