The Doll’s House
Week of April 14, 2008

Chapter 21:

Everyone is terribly upset over Birdie’s “accident.” Emily is accusing Charlotte of putting Apple on the chair too near the lamp. Emily also said that Tottie and Mr. Plantaganet tumbled over when the front door of the dolls’ house was opened. They knocked Birdie into the flame. Emily is not taking any responsibility for this terrible tragedy. Charlotte insists she put Tottie and Mr. Plantaganet in the kitchen and not in the doorway. She did not put Apple on the chair, nor Birdie near him. The only one who never moved was Marchpane.

Charlotte declares that Marchpane isn’t beautiful. She is nasty and smells nasty. She thought Birdie was beautiful when she went up in flames, like a fairy. Emily said that Birdie would have liked that and she sounded more like her old self. Emily admits to Charlotte that she wishes the dolls’ house was like it was before Marchpane. “I don’t like Marchpane very much.” “I didn’t like the way—she just sat there—when Apple—when Birdie—”. Charlotte says Marchpane must go out of the dolls’ house at once. Marchpane was still sitting on the couch staring in front of her with a smile on her face as if she were something stuffed in a glass case. As if a voice came to Charlotte, perhaps from Tottie, Charlotte said, “We must give her to a museum.”

DISCUSSION:

Emily is blaming Charlotte for the catastrophe in the dolls’ house. I believe Emily is feeling guilty about lighting the candle and forgetting it, and she is taking it out on Charlotte. (In Chapter 20, Charlotte asks Emily if she lit the birthday candle. Emily did not respond to that question.)

Interesting that Charlotte insists she put Tottie and Mr. Plantaganet in the kitchen and not in the doorway. She also did not put Apple on the chair, nor Birdie near him. The only doll that never moved was Marchpane. Who put the dolls into the final position? Did Marchpane have the power to will them to move? Did they move under their own power? Could Marchpane have had the power to cause the candle to light?

What a terrible statement for Emily to make when she said, “What a good thing it was only Birdie.” But she did not say this with certainty. She used to love Birdie, but Marchpane is still holding some power over her for the moment. Fortunately, she starts coming out of her spell and wants Marchpane gone from the dolls’ house. Unfortunately, it is too late for Birdie.
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We have had the climax of the story with Birdie's sacrifice and now we are on to the resolution of the tale. Charlotte's question of where Birdie had gone gives way to her certainty that Birdie had given her life for Apple. That act seems to me, though it is not stated in the book, only implied, was of Birdie's own volition. Birdie did the choosing! Emily, guiltily, tries to blame Charlotte for the accident and chafes at Charlotte's repeated statement, "She gave her life for Apple". It appears that Godden would like us to meditate on the nature of true beauty in a brief exchange between Charlotte and Emily. Charlotte sees Marchpane as nasty, but Birdie as beautiful in the moment of sacrifice. Birdie's action in love is what clothed her in loveliness. What did your Mama always tell you? "Pretty is as pretty does". While that seems a weak comparison, it does remind us that actions speak louder than words and real beauty springs from true Love.

Thankfully, Emily begins to recover something of her more child-like self and sees Marchpane as the agent of all the misery. She still sees her as beautiful and valuable, though, and Charlotte is the one who sees clearly into Marchpane's cold soul and speaks with an authority unlike her usual self, "She must go out of the dolls' house. She must go out at once." And it is Charlotte who "hears" Tottie's remembrance of Marchpane's delight at being on display at the cleaners and the Exhibition.

As I was typing and, naturally, typed out "dollhouse" instead of "dolls' house", it struck me that the title of the book itself implies that the dolls had more of a choice in their life than Godden would like us to see at the first reading. Is there a hint of the concept of "free will?"
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I think at last the spell of Marchpane is broken. The girls realize, although Emily really doesn't want to admit, that something was going on in the dolls’ house.

They are finally free of Marchpane and her heavy wishes. Even Emily wishes things were back to the way they had been in the beginning, before Marchpane arrived.

This is a very sad chapter, but at least they have come to understand that beauty is not all it is cracked up to be, and a beautiful exterior can hide an ugly interior. Just as Birdie's untidy exterior hid her beautiful soul for her family until the last moment, when she gave her life for Apple's.