The Lolita Complex: - Scholarly Commons Home

The impulse to collect… makes sense when you see many examples of the same
character together, or an array of similar characters that are variations on a theme.
Multiples reinforce each other and create a contextual universe. One action figure
is just a toy; ten figures are a collection. A hundred can be another world [Fig. 74]. 80
Susan Pearce, in regard to the accumulation of dolls by adult collectors,
has also stated that there is “a tendency to treat the material as if it were
human”. 81 She cites a “typical” example of a collection gathered by Angela
Kellie of Strathpeffer in Northern Scotland, which became the foundation
for the Museum of the Social History of Childhood in 1992:
By the time the material was donated to the new museum it included over 300
dolls… but the original dolls came to Angela from her mother and grandmother.
Angela seems to have treated the dolls like real children, giving them names and
talking to them. 82
I would say that for many owners, whether adult collectors or children, this
type of attachment to dolls emphasises that relationships do not simply
mimic parent-daughter connections; they are akin to it. This is apparent
especially in Japan where the belief that dolls contain human spirits is more
common.
Davis stated that traditionally “in Japan… the doll [was]… not merely a
plaything by which little children may [have] become make-believe mothers
83 but… a means to make a[n adult]… a [real] mother”. Citing Hearn, Davis
emphasised just how real the doll could be to the adult woman in this
context:
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