Appearance and Alterity: the Coding of Homoeroticism in Vernon Lee’s “The Doll”

Addressing representation, Galia Ofek writes that “self-identity is constructed and determined, to a great extent, at a visual level,” a two-sided interaction which occurs between “one’s projected body image and the socio-cultural codes which interpret it” (1). This theme of appearance and its analysis is central to Vernon Lee’s short story “The Doll,” wherein the narrator, who has arrived in Italy to collect trinkets and furniture, accidentally comes across a life-sized recreation of a Countess made by her husband, the Count, upon her death. The incorporation and deconstruction of elements of standard female beauty and behaviour is largely accomplished through the interactions between the figure of the Doll and the narrator, a tie that becomes complex and at times problematic.