Harvey, Jessamy (2002) From maternal instinct to material girl: the doll in postwar Spain (1940s - 50s). Journal of Romance Studies 2 (2), pp. 21-36. ISSN 1473-3536.
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Abstract
In The Value of Things, Neil Cummings and Marysia Lewandowska state that, in a consumer culture, 'it is not objects that people really desire, but their lush coating of images and dreams' (2000: 76). What dreams and images are being desired when the longed for object is a child's plaything, such as a doll? The doll is popularly understood as a tool to aid in the formatting of gender, and, as such, primarily given to female children to awaken their maternal instinct. Miriam Formanek-Brunell notes that the study of dolls as cultural objects is overlooked precisely because 'dolls continue to be typically misunderstood as trivial artefacts of a commercialized girl's culture, static representations of femininity and maternity, generators only of maternal feelings and domestic concerns' (1993: 1). Formanek-Brunell proposes that 'dolls, like any other objects of ordinary life, can be seen as "texts"' (1993: 2). Dolls are cultural texts that, once analysed, can shed light on a variety of aspects of culture.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication |
| Depositing User: | Administrator |
| Date Deposited: | 17 Feb 2006 |
| Last Modified: | 09 Aug 2023 12:29 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/326 |
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