Shortstory written by Janet Frame

This is a short story by Janet Frame, a NewZealand writer who lost 2 of her sisters drowning in separate incidents and who herself suffered from psychiatric troubles.

This story is centred on a little girl named Dossy. One of its essential characteristics to that it creates an effect of surprise.

Throughout the story we think there are 2 girls. The surprise is revealed at the end there is only one girl in the story, whose name is Dossy. The second girl is only a figment of her imagination.

First, how does the writer succed in fooling/ manage to fool us for so long ?
The story is told by an outside narrator. It’s a third-person narrative

The narrator pretends to see 2 little girls. The narrator has an interior focalization on Dossy, i.e. (that is to say)  he knows her thoughts. This little girl that Dossy imagines seems to exist really, all the more so as she is described physically and her thoughts are revealed to us . If the little girl had existed the nuns would have seen her. We can wonder why Dossy invented/made up this little girl

Dossy did so to escape from reality.
Dossy has no mother anymore. She is an orphan, she is raised/educated/brought up by her aunts. She invents this little girl, because she has no other friend. Dossy is poor, as her aunts are poor. She lives in a poky, little house. To compensate for/offset her poverty she immagines that that her little friend is rich.

Dossy suffers from having to wear old clothes/ garments/second-hand clothes/ hand-me-downs (vêtements transmis)
Dossy dreamt that she knew a little girl who was rich, lived in a big house and wore beautiful clothes. Dossy felt frustrated
Dossy indulged in wishful thinking.
If Dossy is big, and her friend is little, it’s to make Dossy feel superior.
Dossy immagined that her friend had parents to compensate for the fact she was an oprhan. The word ‘father’ is written with a capital letter. It shows how much Dossy idealizes fathers, how much she misses her father.
The story is about fantasizing, imagining things. This story has some of the characteristics of a fairy tale.
The story starts with the words ‘only on the shadows’ which are repeated twice. Evoking ‘shadows’ twice twice introduces us to another world. Where we can’t see things well. As we can’t see well, we need to imagine things. Things are blurred. We are in the world of dreams, fantasy. Things in such a world are different from what they are in reality.
What is also repeated is the fact that Dossy ‘sang’ and this song is close to a lullaby that mothers sing to put their children to sleep and when they sleep, they enter the world of dreams (dreamland).
The evocation of shadows, of songs, the repetitions have a hypnoti effect on the reader.

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