Author – Kathrine Manzfield
“The doll’s house” is a short text written by Kathrine Manzfield. This short text shows us that rumours can affect a person’s life. It shows us that the way a parent preserves a person or something usually rubs off on their children, which can create generational hate. It shows us that kids can also be heroes, but it also shows us that good education is a lot harder for the poor to access compared to the rich who don’t struggle at all.
Coming from a person who has never really had to struggle during my childhood, and always knew dinner was going to be on the table each night. I never really knew or had any idea on what being underprivileged was like. But this book opened my eyes, and helped me realize that sometimes what you see on the outside ain’t always what is on the inside.
This text taught me that not all rumours are true, because the text shows us that some of the hate towards the Kelveys are formed from rumours about their father being in prison. Even though we had no evidence that he really was in prison. The message that I gained from this is that people often preserve you based on what they may hear about you, or even how you dress and that’s just how it is. They judge before reading the book. And it was displayed big time in the text. For example how all the kids in the book didn’t make contact or even affiliate with the Kelveys because of what their parents told them about the Kelveys. But this also taught me that not everything my parents or adults may do is right because after all the Kelveys weren’t disliked because they hurt any of the girls, but they were disliked because their parents couldn’t accept the Kelvey family because they were poor. Although they were disliked Kezia still didn’t push them away because that went against her morals. She ended up doing what most of us thought was right and what she thought was right, which is accepting the Kelveys even though they had a “criminal father”. It also taught me to stay true to my morals and never let anyone else’s thoughts or opinion persuade what I think is right or wrong.
My favorite part of the text was when Kezia brought the two Kelvey’s girls to have a look at their dollhouse even though she wasn’t meant to. I loved this part because it showed me that Kezia was willing to get a scolding from her mum or anyone that caught her to make the Kelveys feel accepted and wanted. This shows the cruelty of the parents because personally if I were to see my son, or daughter treating kids that get bullied in a kind manner I’ll be proud no matter what. But these parents are raising their kids to bully the Kelveys and be like everyone else. What the adults really should be doing is letting their kids be friends with the Kelveys because it seems like the parents are just kids in the body of adults.
Another one of my favourite parts was when the Burnells first received their dollhouse and Isabel the eldest sister tells them “I am to tell”. It reminded me of my relationship with my older brother. Whenever we got something new or cool he was always willing to tell everyone about it. But if he wasn’t the one to tell everyone there was usually going to be a punishment.
Although this text didn’t end in a fairy tail ending I still enjoyed it because it displayed different types of characteristics, it also showed me that kids can also be heroes. Because Kezia allowed the Kelveys to see what the doll house looked like even though she wasn’t allowed to show anyone it nor she was allowed to show the Kelveys but she still did. It was kind of similar to those movies where the younger brother is overshadowed by their older brother, because their older brother would do as their parents say compared to the younger brother who usually did what was right and stuck to their morals. But I do think this is a great book for teenagers because it shows them that sometimes disobeying adults or your parents can sometimes be the right thing to do.
In today’s society having the best looking shoes or wearing the nicest piece of jewelry plays a big role in how people preserve. But it’s sometimes not even about what you wear. I remember when I was about five years of age. I knew a boy who used to get bullied for the colour of his skin which was pretty sad. This kid was a Maori boy. But he had fair skin. That led to boys bullying him. Such as taking his shoes and taking his lunch but it got to such an extreme point to where one of his bully’s pulled his rat’s tail (a long piece of hair at the back of your head) off. Later on one of his bullies found out he was related to him so he started to protect him but before then he used to get bullied every day. Which made me think why were these kids like that. At first I thought it could be because they were always mad but later on in life I found out that it is because their parents probably treat them the same. And similar to the text the kids learnt to bully because of their parents behavior around them and towards them. But sometimes it is the kid but in these situations it was caused by the parents.
