Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 9 Number 1, April 2008
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“They’re All of Them So Lovely”: Semantic Effects of “Dollification” on Figurative Images of Women
By
Bergen Community College, USA
“They’re all of them so lovely/ It’s very hard to choose./ I like that dark-haired beauty,/ with scarlet coat and shoes./ The Golden-haired is sweeter,/ Her eyes are just sky-blue… (Rebecca Deming Moore, p.4) . This quote is taken from a poem in a thin hardcover picture book entitled “Dolls and Why We Love Them” (2000) . In these lines, the dolls, and two in particular, are admired by the author for their physical beauty as conveyed through simple poetic verse. Recently, anthropologist A.F. Robertson studied the adjectives used in 247 advertisements for porcelain collector dolls (2004) . These analyses showed that female dolls are generally described as “beautiful,” “pure,” “sweet-natured,” “dainty,” “hopeful,” and “serene,” adjectives, he says, that suggest “passive femininity” (Robertson, p.129) . Indeed, together these words seem to convey a lack of power over another that is unintended but expected, even desirable. Over a century ago, Ellis and Hall (1896) coined the term “dollification” to refer to “…ascribing more or less psychic qualities to the object, and treating it as if it were an animate and sentient thing.” (p. 132) . This idea has implications for how a social and cognitive process may develop between the self and the object—a doll.
A Study of Dolls (1896)
In their pioneering psychological study of dolls, Ellis and Hall issued a detailed questionnaire to eight hundred teachers and parents. In their own words, “The data desired are juvenile feelings, acts, or thoughts towards any object which represents a baby or a child” (Ellis and Hall, p.129) . Thus, according to these authors, any object could become “dollified” through the eyes of a child. “…nothing resists the childish instinct to find or make dolls out of everything, and stones, books, balls, buttons, stove hooks, nails, bricks, wash-boards, flowers, pins, articles of food, objects with no trace of anything that can be called face, limbs or head, are made dolls” (Ellis and Hall, p. 159) . The following is a detailed description of how, specifically, a certain object (flowers) was “dollified” by one correspondent when she/he was a child.
…I often took pansies for dolls because of their human faces; the rose I revered too much to play with, it was like my best wax doll, dressed in her prettiest, but always sitting in state in a bid chair in some secluded corner where little visitors who not spy her out. I loved these nature dolls far better than the prettiest store dolls and ascribed special psychic qualities to them. The hepaticas seemed delicate children to be tenderly cared for but which soon drooped and faded. Violets were sturdy little ones which enjoyed a frolic and could be played with. The pansy was a willing, quick, bright flower child, the rose her grown up sister, pretty, always charmingly dressed, but a quiet and sedate spectator. Violets were shy, good natured children, but their pansy cousins were often naughty and would not play. The hepaticas were invalids and cripples who watched their livelier brothers and sisters and were entertained by stiff maiden aunts, marigolds, which long curls. The dahlias were colored servants and mammies; yellow violets mischievous, fun-loving boys, sweet peas were nurses with cap and kerchief on; the morning glories were governesses and teachers… (p. 133) .
Although to a child, anything with or without “face, limbs, or head” may easily become “a doll”, the physical presence of any of these features in the object may make it more inclined towards dollification since, as phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty (1964) states, “…evidence of the perceived thing lies in its concrete aspect, in the very texture of its qualities… (p. 6) . Thus, an object imagined to be like a sentient being may be more inclined to have a physical part that could resemble a face in some way, e.g., “I often took pansies for dolls because of their human faces.”. Indeed, one can assert that on some abstract, schematic level of cognition that can influence the subjective nature of imagination (in a child or an adult) , the object and what the object is suppose to be are inextricably tied together. So, whether the entity is non-living or living, non-human or human, the cognition of the subject and the physical reality of the object are personally, even solipsistically intertwined.
Figurative Images “Dollified”
Lakoff and Johnson (1999) have asserted the inseparable nature of subject and object. The authors state that “…there are no objects-with-descriptions-and categorizations existing in themselves…The alternative we propose, embodied realism, relies on the fact that we are coupled to the world through our embodied interactions” (p. 93) . This kind of reality may exist not only in the physical world between subject and object, but also in literary genres such as poetry where imaginary, figurative, and idiosyncratic realities flourish between the subject and “object of interest” or “object of desire.” In an unpublished manuscript, Gibbs has described embodied action as it relates to metaphoric thought. He writes, “…metaphoric language is accomplished by embodied simulation…people construct image-schematic understandings of various concepts and abstract situations…what it must be like for their own bodies to engage in a particular action…These embodied simulations are essential parts of how people conceptualize ideas and events… (pp. 2-3) . Also, Bruner (1986) has described the term “subjectification” with regard to this process as “…the depiction of reality…through the filter of…consciousness… (p. 25) . And finally, Robertson (2004) has stated, “…our relationships with certain things can get very personal: we give them identities and draw them into our social relations…” (p. 117) . Thus, a physically appealing female subject may become “dollified” when desirable human psychic qualities are projected onto her by an admirer. This admirer projects a psychological profile onto her in order to establish certain social and emotional relations between the self and “the doll” that is highly personal. Indeed, through imagination, the admirer can conjure up a desired degree of “passive femininity” in the subject to render her more or less lovely than before. Thus, within this figurative state of mind her physical appeal is combined with a greater or lesser intent to seduce and captivate.
In the current study, symbolic patterns are explored between female characters in poetry and their admirers (the writers) who “dollify” them. The content of various figurative images is examined to show how admirers, through “dollification,” create certain social and emotional experiences between the self and their female characters, making them lovely in their own eyes. Merleau-Ponty (1964) uses the phrase “intuition of essences” which he describes as including “…the imaginary ‘free variation’ of certain concrete facts… (p. 70). In fact, the author has described this mental process as it relates to the onlooker, who may also be the admirer of the object.“…if we are seeking…to understand the essence of, a spatial figure, such as a lamp, we must first perceive it. Then we will imagine all the aspects contained in this figure as changed. That which cannot be varied without the object itself disappearing is the essence. (p.70) . Further-more, Zahavi (2005) has included the emotional part of this process, “According to Husserl…Every intentional experience is an experience of a specific type, be it an experience of judging, hoping, desiring, regretting, remembering, affirming doubting, wanting, fearing, and so on.” (p. 117) . This intentional quality is tied to the intentional matter of the experience, which is the thing itself including its physical properties. Zahavi explains, “The same quality can be combined with different matters, and the same matter can be combined with different qualities…it is possible to deny that “the lily is white,” to judge that “the lily is white,” or to question whether “the lily is white.” (p. 117)
In the following six analyses of poetic images, dancers and wives become “dollified objects” by their admirers. Within each of these two categories are three examples of “free variation”; these are “takes” on whether (and how) the “passive” role relates to the character’s expression of her femininity. This complex symbolization process allows each writer, as admirer, to establish unique and personal psychological realities between the self and “the doll” that is created.
Six Analyses
“lovely dancers”
In “The Harlem Dancer” (1922) by Claude McKay, the admirer describes the sur-realistic beauty of the dancer in the following lines, “Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes/And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway…She sang and danced on gracefully and calm…Upon her swarthy neck black shiny curls/ Luxuriant fell…” The admirer notes her gorgeous hair and “perfect” body form as it moves; her doll-like lure exudes from these stunning physical features. However, in the lines, “Grown lovelier for passing through the storm…looking at her falsely-smiling face,/ I knew her self was not in that strange place” the admirer seems to note that, on some level, she does not feel joy as these inanimate qualities are continuously projected onto her. But to those “youths” and “young prostitutes,” her smile is not falsely there (or truly there, for that matter), since it does not dawn on them either way. There is a keen sense of estrangement in her that is not conveyed through the song and dance. The admirer understands this dancer’s compulsion to be beautiful, pure, and serene, as well as her hidden longing for emotional comfort.
In John Crowe Ransom’s “Blue Girls” (1927), the author is initially skeptical of the good” that is physically beauty. This alleged admirer notices as the female students “dance” to class, oblivious like dolls to realities of the human condition. “Twirling your blue skirts, traveling the sward/ Under the towers of your seminary,/ Go listen to your teachers old and contrary/ Without believing a word./ Tie your white fillets then about your hair/ And think no more of what will come to pass/Than bluebirds that go walking on the grass/ And chattering in the air. The professor believes there is existential value in transient physical beauty laced with conscious intent. “Practice your beauty, blue girls, before it fail;/ And I will cry with my loud lips and publish/ Beauty which all our power shall never establish,/ It is so frail.” The following lines suggest that being young, pretty, and seemingly pure, on the other hand, may encompass a complex and undesired foreshadowing—the inevitable fading of physical beauty with a realization of lost opportunity to seduce and captivate. “For I could tell you a story which is true;/I know a woman with a terrible tongue,/ Blear eyes fallen from blue, / All her perfections tarnished —yet it is not long/ Since she was lovelier than any of you.
In Theodore Roethke’s poem “I Knew a Woman” (1958), the admirer creates an erotic encounter with a beautiful woman in the lines, “How well her wishes went/ She stroked my chin,/ She taught me to Turn, and Counter-turn, and stand;/ She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin…/ Loves like a gander, and adores a goose:/ Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;/ My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;/Her several parts could keep a pure repose…” The admirer notes the soft yet vibrant look of her skin as she moves, and the fullness of her morphing lips; both qualities convey the ethereal beauty of a doll that captivates because she wants to dance. Thus, she has intent thatsubverts a “passive femininity,” as she leads the way and hopes that her “wishes” go “well.” The admirer’s possible want of this kind of “feminine dynamism” in domestic life is suggested in the following lines, “She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,/ Coming behind her for her pretty sake/ (But what prodigious mowing we did make).”
“lovely wives”
In “The Bride” (1916) by D. H. Lawrence, the admirer describes the synthetic youthful beauty of his love who rests in peace. “My love looks like a girl tonight,/But she is old./ The plaits that lie along her pillow/ Are not gold,/ But threaded with Filigree silver,/ And uncanny cold.” Her face and pose have been prepared to look serene, even hopeful, like that of a bride doll. “She looks like a maiden, since her brow/ Is smooth and fair…” and “She sleeps a rare,/ Still, winsome sleep…” The admirer seems so pleased that she has finally become her dream—“passive femininity” incarnate. “Nay, but she sleeps like a bride, and dreams her dreams of perfect things./ She lies at last, the darling, in the shape of her dreams…”
In “The Young Housewife” (1935) by William Carlos Williams, the admirer creates a fleeting encounter with a married young woman. She is doll-like in her persona of innocence and purity with an unassuming “twist” of sex appeal. He writes, “At ten A.M. the young housewife/ moves about in negligee behind/ the wooden walls of her husband’s house./ I pass solitary in my car./ Then again she comes to the curb/ to call the ice-man, fish-man, and stands/ she, uncorseted, tucking in strands of hair…” When the admirer sees her “again come to the curb” and compares her “to a fallen leaf”, the power of the “twist” to seduce makes her suddenly seem passive less in her admirer’s eyes. “The noiseless wheels of car/ rush with a crackling sound over/ dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling.”
In Roethke’s “Wish for a Young Wife” (1964), the admirer takes note of a young woman’s physical appearance and warns her of others who will resent it. Then, the admirer wishes for her a look of youth that is doll-like since it never fades. “May the eyes in your face/ Survive the green ice/ Of envy’s mean gaze…And your hair ever blaze,/ In the sun, in the sun,/ When I am undone,/ When I am no one.” Here, the admirer wants the awesome power of eternal physical beauty to replace a “passive femininity” that inevitably leads to its fading.
Conclusion
In this paper, the author explores the symbolic relationship between the admirer and the female “dollified object.” This kind of intimate relationship between the self and the object develops through the writer’s imagination. An earlier paper by the author, intro-duced a theoretical model for understanding the symbolic relationship between a literary character (the self) and an actual physical object (Pavlik-Malone, 2007) . Here, the female character in each of six poems becomes a figurative “doll” creation. This complex cognitive process, uniquely intertwines images of her physical beauty with some desired degree of “passive femininity,” a term introduced by Robertson (2004) to
characterize the general allure of real (female) dolls.
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