The Dollmaker Literary Elements

Historical Fiction

The novel is set in Kentucky and Detroit during World War II.

Narrator: Omniscient speaker;
Point of View: Third-person

Pragmatic, Distressing, Tragic, Optimistic

Protagonist: Gertie Nevels; Antagonist: The pressures to compromise her dream and artistry to cater to the family’s needs.

The major conflict is the battle between conformism and independence that Gertie has to contend with in every decision she has to make. She puts her dreams and artistic integrity to the side to conform to the plans made by her husband and mother.

The climax occurs when Gertie’s daughter Cassie is killed on the train tracks while playing with her imaginary friend.

The allusion to Moses and Canaan foreshadows the failure to attain her dream of purchasing the Tipton place.

N/A

The novel alludes to the scriptural story of Moses to signify Gertie’s quest to own the Tipton Place as her promised land that she never attains.

“After a little space of level road, they were going down again, and the rainy autumn dark came swiftly down like a settling bird. There were sharp steep curves where the dripping limestone cliffs above gave back the sound of the car’s horn, and below them lay a narrow black plain pricked with lights. A train blew high above them somewhere in the limestone walls.”

The sculptural figure that Gertie is carving from the wooden block is torn between Christ and Judas showcasing the schism in her personal choices.

It parallels the urban and rural experience by contrasting the deprivations of farm life in Kentucky and that of the borough in Detroit.

“It was Max on her steps, dressed in her Sunday best in a long coat with fur on the collar.”

‘Sunday best’ is a metonymy for a person’s finest clothes while ‘steps’ is synecdoche for stairs.

“…brakes squealed and rubber squeaked while the fingers of light swept away from the woman”