The Doll’s House Summary & Analysis

A doll’s house arrives at the Burnell’s home, sent from town by a family friend as a thank you for her recent visit. The family’s handyman, Pat, carries the doll’s house into the courtyard, and places it next to the feed-room to let it air out. It smells strongly of paint, so much so that Aunt Beryl thinks it could make someone sick.

The “sacking” covering the doll’s house is taken off to reveal the exterior of the house. It is painted a “dark, oily, spinach green,” with two chimneys and a door that looks “like a little slab of toffee.” There are also four real windows and a front porch, “painted yellow, with big lumps of congealed paint hanging along the edge.” The newness of the house is so exciting that no one else seems to mind the smell.

The hook on the side of the doll’s house is stuck, so Pat pries it open with his penknife. When the front of the house swings open, all of the rooms are on display at once. When knocking on the door of a real house, one can only peer in and see the front hallway, but the doll’s house opens entirely—allowing one to see everything, “the way God opens houses at the dead of night.”  

The Burnell girls have never seen anything so wonderful before and take in all of the details of the house—from the pictures painted on the walls, to the red carpet, plush pillows, beds with actual bedspreads, and kitchen fit with a small stove. Kezia, the youngest, notices a small lamp in particular, which sits on the dining room table and is filled with a liquid that looks like oil. She thinks the lamp is the best part of the house because it fits so perfectly, whereas the father and mother dolls look a little too big for the house and do not seem to belong inside it.

The next morning, the Burnell sisters rush to school, excited to tell everyone about the doll’s house. Isabel warns her sisters Lottie and Kezia that she, as the oldest, ought to be first to tell the other girls about the doll’s house and that they cannot say anything until she does so. She also insists that she choose the first girls who are to come and see the house.  

The Burnell sisters are allowed to invite girls from school two at a time into their family’s courtyard to see the doll’s house. These visiting girls are not invited to stay for tea or to go play in the house, but simply to enter the courtyard and see the house.

The Burnells don’t make it to school in time to brag about the doll’s house before the bell rings, and instead Isabel tries to make herself seem mysterious and whispers that she has something to tell the other girls at playtime. When playtime comes around, all of the girls at the school gather around to hear what Isabel has to share. All, that is, except for the Kelvey sisters, Lil and Else. As the poorest girls at the school, they are always excluded, and know they must stay on the outskirts of the circle. 

The Burnell family would not send their daughters to the school if it weren’t the only school around for miles. It is only a village school, and the family laments that all kinds of children must mix together—“the Judge’s little girls, the doctor’s daughters, the storekeeper’s children and the milkman’s.” The Kelveys, in particular, are the family everyone tries to avoid. Lil and Else’s mother is a washerwoman, and their father is out of the picture, leaving everyone to speculate that he is in prison. Many of the children at school are not allowed to talk to them, and the schoolteacher even uses a “special voice” to address Lil when she brings her “common-looking” flowers.

Lil and Else dress in unattractive clothing that makes their poverty all the more noticeable. Lil wears a dress made from hand-me-down scraps that her mother collects from the homes she cleans; her skirt is made from the Burnells’ old tablecloth and her sleeves from the Logan family’s curtains. Meanwhile, Else wears a white dress that is much too big for her and a pair of old boy’s boots. To top it off, Lil’s hat used to belong to the postmistress and looks ridiculous on a little girl.

Else is particularly strange, never smiling and rarely speaking. She has short hair, a tiny frame, and big, expressive eyes like “a little white owl.” She walks around behind Lil, holding on to the hem of her sister’s skirt, tugging it when she wants something. Though they rarely speak, the Kelveys always understand each another.

The Kelveys sit apart and listen in as the other girl’s chat at school. Sometimes a girl will turn and sneer at them, but Lil only smiles back. Isabel, meanwhile, spills all the juicy details of the doll’s house, and Kezia has to remind her to mention the lamp. No one pays the lamp any attention, however, too excited to find out who Isabel will choose to see the house first. She picks Lena Logan and Emmie Cole.

Over the next few days, the doll’s house is all anyone can talk about, and the girls at school kiss up to Isabel in hopes of being invited to see it. At lunch, the girls sit together and eat “thick mutton sandwiches and big slabs of johnny cake spread with butter” while the Lil and Else sit apart eating plain jam sandwiches “out of a newspaper soaked with large red blobs.”  

In a flashback, Kezia asks her mother if she may invite the Kelvey’s to see the doll’s house but Mrs. Burnell refuses. When asked why, she brushes Kezia off and tells her that Kezia knows exactly why the Kelveys are not to come.

A few days pass, and now every girl at school except the Kelveys has seen the doll’s house. Bored of talking about the house, the girls begin gossiping about the Kelveys instead. Emmie Cole starts it, whispering to Isabel that Lil will grow up to be a washerwoman just like her mother. As she talks, she moves her head in a way she has seen her mother do, imitating the sort of gossip that the adults spread regularly. Suddenly, Lena Logan gets an idea. She suggests going up to the Kelveys and asking them if they’ll grow up to be servants. Jessie May eggs Lena on, and Lena tells the other girls to watch her as she runs over, giggling, to where the Kelvey sisters sit. 

When approached by Lena, Lil and Else stop eating and hide their sandwiches. Lena asks Lil, “Is it true you’re going to be a servant when you grow up, Lil Kelvey?” When Lil does not respond except with a shamefaced smile, the other girls snicker, and Lena, upset that her first insult didn’t work, hisses, “Yah, yer father’s in prison!” and runs off.

When the other girls hear Lena’s insult, they are so excited by the cruelty of it that they run off hopping, screaming, and playing like a wild mob. They begin playing with a jump rope with more excitement than ever before.

That afternoon, Pat picks the Burnell girls up from school and drives them home to greet visitors who have arrived at the house. Isabel and Lottie go to change into fresh pinafores, but Kezia sneaks out to the courtyard to swing on its big white gates.

While swinging, Kezia notices two small dots along the road in the distance. As they get closer, she realizes it’s Lil and Else. She jumps off the white gates and considers running off, but changes her mind, jumping back on the gate and swinging it open to greet the Kelveys. 

Kezia says hello and asks the Kelveys if they want to come inside and see the doll’s house. Lil and Else are stunned, and Lil quickly shakes her head no. When Kezia asks why not, she gasps and tells Kezia that her mother told their mother that they weren’t supposed to talk to Kezia. Kezia brushes it off, saying that it doesn’t matter and that no one is looking. When Lil again refuses to enter the courtyard, she feels a little tug on her dress. When she turns, she sees Else looking at her imploringly. Else twitches Lil’s skirt again, indicating that she wants to see the house.

Else and Lil follow Kezia inside, and Kezia opens the doll’s house for them. When Kezia begins to give them a tour of the small house, Aunt Beryl suddenly yells at Kezia from the back door for letting the Kelveys inside. Aunt Beryl comes into the courtyard and furiously shoos the Kelveys away and slams the dollhouse shut. The Kelveys slip through the white gates and run down the road.

Aunt Beryl, it is revealed, had had a terrible afternoon due to a letter she received from Willie Brent. In the letter, Willie threatened to come to the front door if she didn’t meet him in Pullman’s Bush later that night. She feels better now that she has scolded Kezia and scared off Lil and Else.

Meanwhile, Lil and Else run off, stopping to rest by a “big red drain-pipe” on the roadside. They sit silently and look over the fields to the Logan’s cows. Else nudges closer to her sister and smiles. She speaks for the first time in the story, saying, “I seen the little lamp.”