The Doll Interpretation The belief that a person’s childhood experiences have a long lasting effect on that person’s psychological development is commonly held by professionals and masses alike. The colloquial term “daddy issues” implies that the early absence of a father figure in a female’s life is to blame for later promiscuity and trust issues in romantic relationships. Although the effects are not always severe, a child’s adolescent environment and experiences continue to affect his or her subconscious well into adulthood. In Edna O’Brien’s short story, The Doll, O’Brien utilizes religious allusion and a detached point of view to illustrate the effects that a repressive Irish Catholic childhood had on her narrator. O’Brien’s subtle use of religious allusion conveys to the reader the ideals of the narrator’s childhood society that have been ingrained into the minds of its members. The narrator describes her victimization by her teacher as being “a cruel cross to bear” (O’Brien 49). This allusion to the crucifixion identifies the narrator as a Christ-like character, contrasting the teacher, playing the role of Pontius Pilate, who acted out of fear of losing power. This description further elucidates the ideology of the society to associate any suffering as a Christ-like sacrifice and falls in character for the pristine little girl, constantly plagued by the “cruelty and stupidity” of her world, to use this description to excuse the ways of her teacher (O’Brien 54). The narrator then finds hope as “somebody said that [her] doll would make a most beautiful Virgin” (O’Brien 50). The comparison ascertains the doll as a source of purity and divine perfection for the narrator and her peers. For a society who subscribes devoutly to the concept of Immaculate Conception, the narrator and her classmates would have their lovely Virgin doll be without sin or flaw. This Roman Catholic ideology of divine perfection might have contributed to the under-the-rug tendencies of the narrator’s childhood environment. O’Brien maintains the separation of the teacher from Christian ideals as she “dies a slow death, wastes to a thread through cancer, yet strives against it says she is not ready” (O’Brien 52). This description primarily shows that some semblance of the narrator’s Catholic roots have pervaded into her adult mindset. The narrator’s word choice to say that the teacher was “not ready” insinuates that she was not with God at her death and even foreshadows the narrator’s probable belief that the teacher will not be deemed worthy to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. While the narrator may have escaped her childhood, this exemplifies the ways in which her childhood affected her long-term development and the way in which she reasons as an adult. O’Brien utilizes a unique point of view for her narrator to elucidate the ways in which her childhood environment influenced her development. The narrator’s point of view progresses from isolation as a child to detachment as an adult. One aspect of her favorite doll that contributed to her uncanny demeanor was that "conversations with her were the most intense and the most incriminating of all” (O’Brien 49). The initial mention of conversing with her dolls provides a sense to the reader that the narrator isolates herself from the other children by choosing to find alternative company in her pristine dolls. While it is not clear whether her solitude is of choice or circumstance, it is possible the narrator perceives a more accurate representation of what she would like to think a woman should be from her dolls than she sees in the cruelty of her teacher or the instability of her mother. In the narrator’s naïve adolescence, she fears for the doll – being so fragile – to be tossed around in the clumsy stupor of one of her sisters. This mirrors the way she has been treated by her teacher and family, a fragile young girl who is abused as a result of the society’s tendency to not address real issues. Once she escapes from this world of cruelty, she chooses to “feel none of the rage and none of the despair” (O’Brien 52). Her point of view becomes one of detachment once escaping, but it is evident that her escape is primarily from her own feelings and her inability to trust. She is a product of an under-the-rug society that ignores the problems of its members, such as the sexual harassment of the students in the Christmas pageant or her mother’s clear and severe social anxiety. This society trained her to never truly deal with the issue of her prize doll being stolen by her teacher, but only to barely reconcile with the way things were. Ergo, she does not take any action to achieve happiness when she escapes her childhood, but simply reconciles the ways of her former environment. Her realization that “it was not death, but rather the gnawing conviction of not having yet lived” that has caused her to lead an unfulfilled life brings about the narrator’s final understanding of her childhood (O’Brien 53). She now comprehends the limitations of the world she came from and how it taught her not to feel or hurt. To truly overcome a lack of instruction on how to realistically cope with emotional problems, she will have to take tangible action to maintain hope. Her enlightened point of view elucidates to the reader that a product of an under-the-rug society must fight his or her instincts to ignore controversy and learn to resolve conflicts. After reading Edna O’Brien’s short story, The Doll, her readers are left disturbed by the ways in which a person’s childhood influences developmental problems and emotional uncertainties. O’Brien hauntingly utilizes a little girl, innocent as a lamb, to maximize the discomfort of her readers. The narrator’s society enforces repressive religious ideals upon each of its members, encouraging them to push away any controversial issue and to embrace taboo. The inability for anyone to hold the narrator’s teacher accountable for her abusive nature serves as an understated yet none-the-less appalling detail. O’Brien contrasts the perceived beauty of the doll with its saddening purpose to comfort a girl with no other solace. Overall, the lingering perturbation affected to her readers serves primarily to shed light on one way that childhood experiences can inhibit a person’s ability to function fully as an adult. Her story warns of the consequences and encourages a more deliberate and involved upbringing of children who will grow up to mold the ways of society for others; the practice of abusing or ignoring children will only create the vicious cycle of a dysfunctional world.