— Anonymous
A short story from A.M Homes certainly had me thinking about my past life back when I had little knowledge of relationships. The short story “A Real Doll” brings out one’s internal struggle of getting into a relationship and experiencing adulthood. Throughout the short story, I noticed that the author had every escalate very quickly within moments of reading. “A Real Doll” helped me visualize what a growing boy could be thinking of when maturing. From calmly practicing how to talk to a female all the way to sexual intercourse and in between we can see some ups and downs of a relationship. I read this story knowing to get background information of what a young man thinks during his age of adulting. Now as I tried to take this in an informative way, it was extremely hard to concentrate without being creeped out of the gestures the young man mad and his actions. Going from the beginning to the end of the story, there were many scenes that seemed unnatural of what a regular boy would do. The first unusual act he made was consuming Valium which no boy would have thought about in my age. In my eyes, he seemingly took it to control himself and to remain calm and to get rid of the “butterflies” we call in our stomach when feeling anxious or worried. Moments after talking to the doll, he then proceeds to put the doll in his mouth for absolutely no reason, there was no hint that was going to lead us in a direction that something interesting might happened. After reading this part, I can see the “weirdness” A.M Homes likes to put in her short stories. A.M Homes wishes to make everyone think this barbie doll is a real person and wants to show the process of a relationship. As I thought that the “hickey” the boy gave the doll was not enough, we then go into a scene where they perform sexual intercourse. This completely twisted my mind because I realized that this is a doll that he is having sexual intercourse with and not an actual person. As this point into the story, I was completely uncomfortable reading he rest of the story, and as I predicted I would, they continue to “play” with each other. From all the play dates they had, it had felt that I got a basic understanding a boy’s dream. If that was not the case, it also gave me an inside look of what to expect from a relationship. From the scenes where the boy and Barbie are seen together, and the hatred the boy feels towards Ken, it seemed like a regular relationship anyone would see in dramas but only with real people. This had challenged me to see if this is truly what happens during a relationship or is it more towards a guy’s fantasy as what a perfect relationship would be for them. The Barbie had not played a major role to herself but more of what a guy would want from a female. There was no rebellion from Barbie but more of things went the way he wanted to be. An example of this could be when the boy bit Barbie’s neck and had given her a necklace of love. Barbie was frustrated and when the boy asked if she was alright, she switched emotions quickly and said everything was alright like nothing happened. This story had to have been favorable for the boy since everything had seemed to go his way which opened to me thinking if A.M Homes intended for it to be coming from a twisted boys head.
