La casa de muñecas: relato de Katherine Mansfield sobre clase y exclusión social

La casa de muñecas

When Mrs. Hay returned to the city after having been home for Burnell, she gave the girls a large dollhouse. It smelled a lot of paint. The house was green like spinach and yellow.It had 2 red and white chimneys. It had 4 glass windows.
Pat opened it and saw the living room, dining room, kitchen and two bedrooms.
The Burnell girls seemed crazy about the house, but there was one thing that Kezia liked more than anything: a lamp on the dining room table, a small and exquisite amber lamp with a white globe. Inside it there was what looked like oil.
Isabel, the eldest daughter, said, "I'll tell you," because she was the oldest sister. Isabel was very bossy, and Lottie and Kezia had accepted it.
They arrived at school late and could not tell their friends.In class she said she had something to tell them, and later at recess all the girls gathered around Isabel, except the little Kelveys, who were kept apart from everyone.
At the school the Burnells attended, the children of the doctor, the milkman and the judge all avoided the Kelveys; even the teacher treated them differently.Not everyone knew where Mr. Kelvey was; it was said that he was in prison.

Mrs. Kelvey worked as a house cleaner from house to house. She dressed her daughters in scraps given to her by her employers. For example, Lil, who was ugly, was dressed in a tablecloth from the Burnells.And a hat that had belonged to Miss Lecky, the postal clerk, and Else wore a white dress and booties, but whatever they wore, they looked strange.
Else always walked behind Lil, holding on tightly.
At recess Isabel told her friends how pretty her house was and everything she had, without paying attention to anything special. Meanwhile the Kelveys approached to see what they were talking about, but the girls looked at them and they smiled.
Isabel invited Emmie and Lena to her home.
As the days went by, the topic of conversation was the dollhouse.
One day Kezia asked her mother if she could bring the Kelveys, and her mother said no, that she already knew who they were.
At school recess Isabel, Emmie and Jessie tried to humiliate the Kelveys, but they, being used to it, did not move.
One day, while Kezia was swinging at home, she saw 2 girls approaching; they were the Kelveys. Kezia asked if they wanted to come in, and they said no, but eventually they entered. Just as they were about to look at the dollhouse, Aunt Beryl came in andtold them not to come back around there again.
At the end of the story, Lil takes the feather from her sister's hat and says, "I saw the little lamp," drawing a smile.