The Enchanted Doll: #4
In the short story“The Enchanted Doll”, the author who was Paul Galicoclearly creates an example of escape literature for the readers to interpret and imagine and help pass their time. Escape literature is written to “help readers escape the daily cares and problems of reality.” Every escape fairytale has coincidences, happy endings and tough beginnings within the plot of the story. Also, “most romance would fall into the category of escape literature.”The plot throughout “The Enchanted Doll” resembles a fairy tale even further in the sense that it is a truly escape piece of literature. In the story, Paul explains the horrible experiences Samuel goes through so that he can nurse Essie back to full health and help her regain her walking ability and no longer be crippled. Essie has problems and is dying from not being loved and having no one in her life who cares about her except her evil cousin who doesn’t really love her. Essie also has another side that is shown at the end of the story. In every fairy tale love story, the prince always saves his princess which is quite ironic as this story has so many fairytale attributes but isn’t really quite a fairytale.
Using a person to person conflict, Paul is able to provide the reader with a typical hero and villain which are commonly seen in escape literature. Samuel is the typical hero and is a stereotype of a hero who saves a young lady from her wretched, emotionally abusive, evil, villainous witch of a cousin Rose Callamit. Incorrectly recalling her true last name by mistake, Paul Galico foreshadows to Rose being the villain, the witch, another example of escape literature that is only to entertain. Rose Callamit is the perfect villain type of character.
The theme in “The Enchanted Doll” is also an example of escape literature and is not interpretive because it is not very real and sounds like a moral. Saying that good beats evil helps fulfill the reader’s expectations as well as providing a perfect chance to wrap up the ending with a happy ending. The plot, characters and theme all provide perfect examples as to why the story called “The Enchanted Doll” is an escape piece of literature and not interpretive.