28 pages 56 minutes read

Katherine Mansfield

The Doll's House

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1922

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Essay Topics

1.

The sisters and classmates demonstrate different modes of girlhood and femininity. To what extent does Kezia demonstrate conventional femininity?

2.

Through free indirect discourse, Mansfield allows us to access several characters’ interiority. What is the rhetorical effect of juxtaposing adult consciousness alongside that of children?

3.

Any toy that attracts the attention of young girls could have served as the eponymous focal point of this story. What specifically about the doll’s house elicits Mansfield’s biting social commentary? What function does this doll’s house perform, and what does it reveal about those who view it?