It makes one wonder, but also it is part of human life. Being played with, pushed aside, being replaced, thrown away because of being too old or not fashionable enough, too stiff unlike the newborn.
Many will feel like a doll. Good enough to play with if it fits the owner. they create laugh, good times, are pampered or swung through the room. Drowned in the bathtub, a haircut. cookies forced inside, withstanding the hot tea spilled, and going out for a walk in a carriage or staying home and waiting for the next time they will be played with.
An interesting poem and I wonder if you have (had) a doll.
A very pertinent observation. Each of us has probably had a situation in our lives where we may have felt like a doll, just as you mentioned. Because of the time in which the picture was painted, I had in my mind a situation in which a still immature girl is given to a man who is to become her husband.
I had a lot of dolls. I loved barbie. But where are they now? I don't know.
I had one baby doll. Hard plastic and she was named Anneke (don't know why I was still a toddler). It had the same hair as the old queens of the Netherlands and the story is that I cut its hair. Not spectacular just one theft. My mother was mad and took the doll away. I've seen it a few years later but never really played with it. I didn't like the looks and had no idea what to do with it. I always felt baffled by how children play with dolls and have those chats, it mad me feel that I was totally not creative.
I never had Barbie only one sibling had. Aren't yours saved in some box? I still have books from my early childhood although I moved many times. Just the series isn't complete. I doubt I can still buy them.
I also happened to cut my doll's hair. You can say that I did some experiments on them, because I painted them with paints and colored their hair with markers. But I don't remember my mother's reaction to all this. She probably looked at it indulgently nodding her head from side to side. It's possible that these dolls are in a box in the attic at my grandparents' house, but I don't remember when anyone went in there last. I guess I'll have to make a trip up there.
🤣 now we know it's creative behaviour!