DOLLY

Characters :
                 

            Franklin – Famed poet, Husband of the narrator

            The narrator – Wife of Franklin

            Gwen – Cosmetics Seller

Plot Summary :

                     

   “Dolly” opens with the narrator and her husband Franklin planning their deaths: “That fall has been some discussion of death”.  It is as if planning to suicide.  Both are driving around and see little used, but mostly used the country road.  They thought that rarely used road might give them privacy to do what they should do.  They were stopped by a debate stating “whether or not to leave a note”.  Franklin says No. the narrator says Yes. “And that very fact – our disagreement – seemed to put the possibility out of his head .”

                        The story then goes in a different direction.  An elderly woman, called Gwen arrives at the house by selling cosmetics.  She is a married woman.  Her husband was dead, who was also a writer.  The narrator was working upon the neglected writers, one among was Maratha Ostenso, who wrote a book called Wild Geese.  Later, we learn the background of Gwen’s daughters and two grandchildren.  Gwen is the caretaker of the to children because her daughter is in hail for trafficking.  She had another successful daughter, a  nurse in Vancouver.  Her daughter invites Gwen to Vancouver but she dislikes Vancouver.  The narrator purchased youth making lotion.  Gwen promised to drove it off next time she comes around.  The narrator shared her experience with Gwen to Franklin,  By soon Gwen returned with the lotion.  Both talked easily and the narrator offers the copy of Wild Geese out to start her car, and she couldn’t get it goingt engine made a willing noise and stopped.  Franklin tried to start but failed.  He went inside the village to call the garage but it was closed.  Gwen tended to stay overnight with them.  She hung up to her home and adviced her grandchildren to be good.  Franklin comes back into the kitchen and both Franklin and Gwen were struck at the same time.  They repeat each other name in tones of mockery and dismay. “Frank”, “Dolly”.

                        There was a quick twin, Gwen says the narrator, that she had been a nursemaid when she knew Franklin in Toronto.  She was looking after two children whose parents had sent them out to Canada to miss the war.  She met Franklin when he was on his last leave and they had a crazy time.  After the war ended, she got on a boat as soon as possible to transport the English children home and she met a man in a boat and married him.  The narrator seems more possessed seeing the relationship between Franklin and Dolly.  Franklin and Dolly left to prepare a car to be towed out of grievous excitement.  She left the home by leaving a terse note to Franklin.  She reached Cobourg, a town they never had been together.  She stayed in a motel and she was thinking about Franklin and she was listening over the friendly talk of a woman in a motel.  To her, Gwen was a person who had got in the way and created absurd problems.

                        Suddenly, the narrator backs to her home and finds the car of Franklin and she also found Gwen’s car.  Franklin took her in the car out of the cold at home and he said: “Life is totally predictable.”  He doesn’t talk to her by seeing her eyes.  He made fun with her by testing her possessiveness by keeping talking about Gwen.  Later we learn that he purchased Gwen’s car. And Gwen went North Bay to her relatives house.  The narrator thought she must die before the terse note come.  She asks Franklin to tear the letter before, he read.  There was a mix of rage and admiration among them.  It went back throughout.