The Youngest Doll

This content is available through online browsing (free) program dependent on page scan. Screen readers can not currently scan, so please contact JSTOR user support for access. We will provide PDF copy of your screen reader

"The youngest doll" was built in a rotten sugar plantation in rural Puerto Rico. She is a member of "extinct sugarcane aristocracy" and this story occurred when her family's social position and wealth rapidly disappeared ("The youngest doll", page 6). One day my aunt, a young woman was soaked in the river, and she was bitten by a shrimp in the river. The doctor treated her wounds on the surface, said that the shrimp was embedded in her feet, and it took years to heal the wound.

A gentle girl sacrificed for years has unexpectedly avenged her talent to make a life-size doll full of honey. "Youngest doll" based on family anecdotes is an amazing literary expression of Rosario Ferré's feminism and social concerns. This is the first story of the collection originally published in Spanish in 1976.

"The youngest doll" depicts the post-operative Puerto Rican society from a women's point of view, showing the impact of industrialization and the accompanying materialism on specific women's lives. It uses well-known grammar practices. However, as Heinrick Ibsen's play The Doll House does, instead of women's dominant dolls Ferré's dolls are made by women and ultimately controlled. In addition to promoting women's empowerment, the stories also point out the adverse effects of industrialization and colonization on all Puerto Rico. Ferre's story depicts the collapsing society of modern Puerto Rico. Sugarcane aristocracy is "extinct" in society, it is deeply divided and confused by its numerous influences in history. Over the centuries, the Spaniards dominated Puerto Rico and seriously affected language, food, culture, and religion.