The Multi-Ethnic Community of Women in Harriette Arnow's The Dollmaker

Abstract

In her recent study, Communities of Women: An Idea in Fiction, Nina Auerbach observes, union of women... is one of the unacknowledged fruits of war.' Auerbach's observation is applicable to Harriette Arnow's masterful proletarian novel, The Dollmaker (1954). Set in Detroit during World War II, the novel realistically portrays the grim lives of the residents of a housing development who are lured to Detroit by the promise of jobs in its munitions factories. Polocks, Hillbillies, Wops, Japs, Huns the women from diverse ethnic backgrounds bond with one another while their husbands are off at war or are working the night shift in a munitions factory. They tend one another's children and offer one another emotional support. Arnow documents in detail the manner in which hatred of people from a different geographical location or a different ethnic group erodes the sense of community, even among the women. However, she draws a distinction between the world of men and the world of women: the male characters