In this variation on a tremendously popular story, Dorothy Gray is an anxious domestic mouse who acts as a full time slave and goody-two-shoes girl-scout to her invalid mother. The author tells us that: 

‘Hysteria was a luxury in which she couldn’t indulge.’  

Of course they are both handsome women, but Dorothy thinks she is dull and grey, whilst her mother is entirely vain, and dresses beautifully even when in bed. Dolores is confined upstairs, as ordered by the previous doctor, with some kind of cardiac disease and hasn’t been down for five years. Whenever Dolores rings her bell Dorothy runs to the mirror first, but nothing can be done with her hair, which, of course, is mouse coloured. But Dolores is manipulative, and Dorothy neurotic: she runs upstairs thinking it an emergency every time her mother’s bell rings firmly. This time, her mother has seen two strangers get out of a car across the street! Dolores it turns out is OK: 

‘Dorothy gave a deep shuddering sigh. Thank goodness for that.’ 

It is not long at all before Dolores has another cardiac attack, and the strangers, the new doctor and his nurse, bound up the stairs to their first emergency call. Dorothy later insists her mother staged the attack deliberately when she learned Doctor Devaux, the man who confined her to bed, was leaving Lakeville. 

‘ “She did it on purpose”… says Dorothy… Suddenly she brightened. Why, Dolores would be in the spotlight now. She had been the new doctor’s first patient. Everyone would be running to her to ask about him.’ 

As Dorothy is a slave, the doctor she has just met pops in for a cup of tea to her downstairs parlour. He actually talks to her (a clue that the book, despite its sentiments and setting, is from the US rather than the UK)! After he leaves, a few tears trickle down her face: 

‘Here was the very man she could love, and what chance had she?’

 

To think about: This doctor-nurse romance follows a familiar pattern, but it is hardly a twentieth century structure. It is a fairy tale. Which one?

 

The girls in town, who have some awful names, such as Lovenia Cantrell and Lenore Traub, gossip that Dorothy won’t know her beauty until it is too late. This gossip in Lakeville is powerful stuff: it has put a man in ‘the incurable mental ward’ already, for a baseless rumour. Yet no hint of jealousy, or sexual desire, burdens this romance.  

“Mother, if I’m going to do the dishes I’d better go down.”

“Can’t you show any interest in your appearance? Or do you want me to seem years older than I am?” 

This fabulous (derived from the word ‘fable’ but has altered its meaning somewhat in the modern era) tale is most closely related to Cinderella, but there are fragments of Sleeping Beauty and The Ugly Duckling in it as well. This tried and true psychological structure makes the story compelling even though we all know the plot. Interestingly, second-hand booksellers will tell you that it is surprisingly common for men to come in and ask, rather sheepishly, for a stack of Mills and Boons; and women for two-penny Westerns. The book is unquestionably aimed at the domestic housewife of the 1950’s, with many more references to fabrics and recipes than to character development. 

At the climactic ending to Ch 6, for example, Dorothy has collapsed from the exhaustion of serving her mother : 

‘When Dr Angelisti decided no-one was coming to open the door, he pushed, found it blocked by something and set his shoulder to it. Something in silver and cerise lay behind it.

Quickly he knelt beside it, then straightened and looked up to leave the figure in silver and cerise and run to the one in black-dotted Swiss.’

 

Thankfully, the plot thickens. The ‘Lakeville greens’ is a springtime bowel disturbance that the public health authorities, being lazy bureaucrats, and despite the regular child mortality, have done nothing about. Dr Angelisti, the newcomer who soon becomes Dr Angel to the townsfolk, is to take them on, and the entrenched power structure, for their own good. He bravely wades in to local politics! 

“You’ll have to move softly to win the populace” he is warned. “…the health of all is in your hands. It must make you feel like one of God’s lieutenants.” 

The townsfolk naturally resist his challenge to the inadequate science of the outdated public health department. He finds the source of the Lakeville greens, and bravely takes the unpopular steps to save the community from itself. Our author spells it out: 

‘ …if the Dr Angels and the other angels of history had put self first, we’d still be having mass epidemics of cholera.’

 

To think about: Our doctor has been cast as an angel, next to God. He is moving unawares in a world shaped by fairy tale. This still happens today…I recall numerous patients expressing this belief about myself during consultations. How can this interfere with patient management? Could this be damaging, even dangerous? What will you do about it when (not if) it happens to you?

 

After the party for Dolores’ new gown, replete with recipes and fabrics to break the bank, Dorothy begins to wake up. There is the suggestion that their former doctor kept Dolores and his other patients invalid for the regular income. After all, our author tells us, ‘…a nervous breakdown was the popular escape of her youth’. 

‘I know now that Dolores is not selfish, but self-centred’ says Dorothy, showing a new skill in hair-splitting. 

The doctor suggests diet and some exercise outside the kitchen and the attic, and ooh, Dorothy and her new friends feel so much better, and even think of talking about their own hobbies instead of their husband’s! Next, Dr Angel comes up privately with a scheme to get Dolores to hospital, to save her daughter from slavery. Proving that medicine is indeed an art, he reveals her mother’s heart is in perfectly good shape, and makes Dorothy realise her loveliness. Dorothy finds her social courage, and uses it right away to jot down some recipes. 

To think about: This tale is from the 1950’s. How do you think a modern feminist would approach the story?

 

In today’s terms this is a tale of lies and dreadful psychological abuse by the mother (who in fairy tales is usually a wicked step-mother). Feminists believe that these fables are harmful to women, and are used to control them...but don’t so often acknowledge that women will control each other, independent of a male external to their social world. The power of the patriarchy is rightly identified, but often at the expense of recognising the power of the matriarchy. The famous American writer Angela Carter has a book called ‘The Bloody Chamber’…a reference to menstruation as well as horror…which comprises a feminist revision of selected fairy tales.  

Dorothy comes out of her cocoon and transforms into a beautiful young woman who helps the doctor in his research. When he disappears temporarily she is worried: 

‘But he’s all right, she assured herself “doctors always are.” 

The townsfolk are saved from themselves, and remember those who have died from the epidemic:

“Maybe he’s right.” said someone. “Hearing those names, we’ll remember science has no prejudices and sickness can’t play politics.” 

To think about: Perhaps this statement is also a fable? 

The books ends with Dolores’ cure and joy for Dorothy, who of course becomes a nurse and gets to marry Dr Angelisti. She is to be busy all her life, serving her angel.  

To think about: Our author has presented a fable with no real character development or revelation of human suffering. Do you think a child oppressed to the extent Dorothy was can be transformed by love?

 

It is difficult to choose my favourite quote, but I’ll leave you with a final candidate: 

‘Darling, I’m using bromides to convince you this can be serious.’

 

References and Further Reading

Bowman, Jeanne (1962) Dr Angel             Horwitz 

Carter, Angela (1979) The Bloody Chamber 

There are literally hundreds of other books like ‘Dr Angel’. There is also an extensive feminist academic body of literature about them.