The Doll is one of
Blackwood's most famous stories. It has appeared in its original
form as an episode of Rod Serling's The
Night Gallery. Variations on the story of a talking
doll that comes to life to preform evil deeds are numerous and all
seem to be based, at least to some degree on Blackwood's original
story.
The most notable was the TV movie, Trilogy of Terror, which featured three stories written by Richard Matheson. In the third tale presented in the movie, Amelia, Karen Black is menaced by a Zuni fetish doll that came to life when a little chain was removed from it. This story is generally considered to be one of the most frightening moments in TV horror and the basic premise, a doll coming to life and exacting revenge, can be traced directly to Blackwood's story. In Trilogy of Terror II the Zuni fetish doll put in a second appearance.
Other stories that seem to owe their genesis to The Doll would be; The Living Doll, an episode of The Twilight Zone written by Charles Beaumont, The Dummy, an episode of The Twilight Zone written by Rod Serling, based on an unpublished story by Lee Polk, and the movies Devil Doll (1964), Dead of Night (1946), and Magic (1978). The Puppet Master series of movies has a group of little dolls that join together to seek revenge against enemies. The most popular new edition to the evil doll genre is Child's Play, featuring the Chucky doll. There have been several sequels to it.
The attitudes displayed in this story are typical of English stories of that period of time; a rigid class system where the wealthy and well-bred were the only people of any importance, servants and non-English whites were considered to be human beings but they were considered expendable and were to be tolerated only so long as they showed reverence for the upper class, and at the sub-human level were the non-whites who were spoken of as being only one notch above the animals and who were often treated with less compassion then that which would have been shown to an animal.
The principle characters here are: Colonel Hymber Masters, an army officer who served in India until his career ended for reasons which are unexplained, Monica, his neglected daughter who was probably born out of wedlock, Mrs. O'Reilly, the Colonel's superstitious Irish cook - a bit stereo-typed, but not really so different than my own Irish grandmother, and Madame Jodzka, Monica's kind Polish governess.
The opening is beautiful - Blackwood at his best. He speaks of how in the suburbs there are times when-
"great spaces between the lamps go dead at night"
Its always nice to titillate the reader right from the start, to dangle the promise of true terror, and , in this case, Blackwood delivers on that promise in spades.
A strange figure comes to the house of Colonel Hymber Masters and when the cook, Mrs. O'Reilly, answers the door he gives her a package for Colonel Masters that is to be opened by "his own personal touch and no one else". The fact that the man is "a niger" bothers Mrs. O'Reilly because she believes that:
"No man as black as he was means lucky stars to anybody"
The racism is quite open and Blackwood even spells it out.
"whether negro, hindu, or arab: the word 'niger' describing any man not really white."
Colonel Masters was not at home at the time so Mrs. O'Reilly left the package on the desk in his study. When the Colonel encountered it and unwrapped it, he was visibly shaken. He asked who brought it and, when the cook told him, he ordered her to burn it. He also told her that, if the man who brought it came back, she was to "say it didn't reach me."
This statement seems to underline the fact that the colonel was aloof and removed from the world and very distant from those around him, even his daughter. He was an unapproachable man who cared not about the world in which he lived and perhaps that is why acts of vengeance against him were undertaken. Perhaps the whole story is just about a man who felt himself so far above everything that he had to be brought down to earth.
The package contained a doll, a cheap, rather ordinary-looking female doll composed of sawdust, wax, and cloth. Colonel Master's daughter, Monica, was quite lonely. The Colonel spent most of his time at home in isolation and in the evening he would go out to play cards. Monica spent most of her time with her governess, Madame Jodzka, or alone. Mrs. O'Reilly reasoned that it would be a shame to burn the doll when the little girl was so badly in need of companionship.
On the surface Monica seems to play a relatively minor role in the story. We are never really given a physical description of Monica. All we know is that she had few toys and did not play. Her father appeared to love her but was still very distant. We are also never given a reason for the delivery of the doll. There is a vague feeling among the household staff that the Colonel did something in India that brought his military career to an end, something that left him shameful and isolated. Whatever it was, it must have been something to earn the scorn of proper society.
I would suggest that the most logical explanation would be that Monica's birth came about from an affair between Colonel Masters and an Indian woman. It is likely that he did something to cause the death of Monica's mother. Perhaps he simply took the child and deserted her and she committed suicide. Perhaps it was something more sinister. There is nothing in the story that would support any of these theories but the fact that the doll is female, that Monica is not a child produced through marriage, that there seems to be somewhat of a barrier between Colonel Masters and his child, and that the man's military career had come to a sudden, inexplicable end all seem to point in that direction.
When Monica was given the doll, Blackwood tells us that:
"Monica opened the parcel and recognized the doll with a yell of wild delight that seemed almost a scream of pain."
If the doll represents the girl's mother, there would be the joy of reunification and the pain of knowing that she was there seek revenge against her father. It would also be a reminder that, because of the prejudices of the times, she could never be accepted by society, or even her own father.
A short time after Monica received the doll she began to tell the household staff that it could talk to her. Madame Jodzka, the governess, thought she saw it walking. She became so frightened that she quit her job and went back to Poland. But after a short time, difficulties with her relatives in Poland and a sense that she had deserted Monica just when the child needed her most, made her return.
The construction of Blackwood's tale is brilliant. On the surface things seem to be quite ordinary and there are logical explanations for the events that are out of the realm of ordinary experience. The horror is trickled in, drop by drop. A little thing here, a little thing there.
The bloodstains on Monica's sheets and pillow cases were attributed to the fact that the child bit her fingernails and while the explanation did not sound at all believable, no one wanted to reject it because the search for the real reasons behind what was happening might lead into areas too horrible to be explored.
There were scratches on Monica's body at times but the servants were quite sure that the doll meant Monica no harm. They were convinced that it was Colonel Masters that the doll was after.
When Madame Jodzka tried to destroy the doll, a pain "sharp as a serpent's bite" shot through her hand. There was nothing left to do but to confide her fears to Colonel Masters.
The Colonel was upset that his order to destroy the doll had not been obeyed but pleased that Madame Jodzka had informed him of the doll's presence. He promised to meet her at Monica's room at twelve thirty that night.
When they went to Monica's room the doll began to move and speak - "Buth laga" - the Hindustani word for 'revenge'. The thing made a sudden lunge for Colonel Master's neck. Madame Jodzka exclaimed, "Que le bon dieu", meaning basically, 'Good God, what is it?'. The most problematical part of this story is that there has to be a scene where a grown military man fights a little girl's doll. The basic concept, when you think about, is sort of ridiculous. But Blackwood is a master of his craft. The scene is very, very short and goes by so fast that you really don't have time to analyze it and see that its silly.
The next thing we know, a dark skinned arm reaches through an open window and snatches up the doll. Colonel Masters was resigned to his fate and calmly told Madame Jodzka that when the doctors came she was to tell them that he had over-dosed on sleeping pills. The next day he was dead.
Monica accepted her father's death fairly well and did not seem to mind the loss of the doll that she once loved so much. As a last master stroke, Blackwood ends the story as it had began, talking about how in the suburbs sometimes when -
"great spaces between the lamps go dead at night"
- dried bones rattle behind respectable walls.
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