The Dollmaker by Harriet Arnow
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God wher r ye?
The Dollmaker by Harriet Arnow is a story about a woman whose wits and intelligence is really not known to those around her. Gertie Nevels, a tall, big-boned woman raised in the Appalachian area of Ballew, Ky. She is creative, determined, strong willed and very self sufficient. In the hills of Kentucky, Gertie uses her surroundings to survive through hardships and everyday life struggles that come her way. She certainly has every situation under control.
Arnow uses the first scene in the book to show how intelligent Gertie really is. She has strength, intelligence and everyday common skills and more courage than most women have. The officers thought she was a stupid mountain woman on a mule. They perceived her as uneducated. Gertie shows them what smart really is when she helps them get their truck unstuck. Gertie tells the officers, “heist it up with a jack, git rocks under them wheels, and back up on the road” (12 Ch.1). Gertie used her skills and it showed how determined she really was.
Gerties home in Kentucky is like renting a piece of poor land and just struggling to exist in life. Her talents are seen basically as practical use. She is able to show her strength as she works on the farm and raises the children and she teaches them to read and write. For fifteen years Gertie had scraped and saved to buy a farm for her family and save them from economic bondage of share cropping. Her husband Clovis is the worst to over look her abilities, only seeing as a profit for himself. Gertie is waiting with her son Amos in the doctors office; she wants to whittle a doll for her daughter: Cassie Marie, from some scrap wood she finds in the corner; however Clovis asks her, “can you not make an ax handle er somethen that somebody could use?”(40, Ch.2). She has an ability to whittle and it is her most practical and artistic skill.
By living in Kentucky her creativity is tried, the lifestyle she lives is existent and common and very necessary. Her religious faith sets her back as well. Her mother is a very self loathing woman and she believes she knows whats best for Gertie. She manipulates the Bible to Gertie to fit her own lifestyle. Even Clovis is “put back by her unreligious ways”(46,Ch.2). Gertie becomes very restrained because of her mothers over-bearing guilt trips, causing her to experience a lot of guilt for not living her life-in light of her mothers wishes. Because of how her mother is Gertie doesnt express her abilities, but rather represses them in order to avoid guilt that may come. Gertie purchases the Tipton place and knows she will be able to use all of her abilities and her creativity to shine. Then Clovis decides he wants Gertie to move to Detroit with him. Gerties dreams are crushed because her mother quotes the Bible, “Wives, be in subjection unto your husbands, as unto the Lord” (141, Ch.9). Her mother is stern about Gods grace. Gertie finds her Bible reading on hope and grace that is brought about through understanding and through meekness. By the guilt she feels from Clovis and her mother she holds back from expressing herself.
When Gertie is forced to move to Detroit, she loses the nature that pulled her closer to God in Kentucky. Gertie felt as though nature brought her closer to God, through whittling and farming. The beauty of the land and homesteading it made her feel closer to God. When she moves to Merry Hill, shes lost without her connection to God. Gertie has no outlet to use her strengths so her family is no longer self sufficient. When Gertie was at her lowest she would turn to nature and whittling, now she doesnt have that