55 pages • 1 hour read
Jacqueline SusannValley of the Dolls
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1966A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Mid-Century Patriarchy and the Objectification of Women
Readers may find from the outset that the attitudes of virtually all the characters reflect a male-dominated society in which women’s roles are established by men. Each of the three protagonists defines herself and her career based on her relationships with men. Jennifer, who appears from the outside to be the freest of the main characters, expresses an underlying core desire to be loved by a man with whom she can have children. When she realizes that the man who professed to love her is actually in love with the breasts she is about to lose, she despairs and dies by suicide. Neely, at 17, professes that she will always place a loving husband above her career. However, intoxicated by stardom as well as her addiction to drugs and alcohol, she self-destructively forces all the important men from her life. Her psychiatrist, friends, and rivals assert that she has doomed herself—implying that alienating the helpful men in her life has led to her downfall. Anne arrives in New York intent on building a career, believing that she might one day settle down with the right man. Within a few months, she has changed her mind, begging Lyon, a notorious playboy, to marry her. The author implies that since men inherently limit these socially ascendant women, the lives of virtually all women of this pre-women’s liberation era are bound by rules, norms, and expectations set by men.
The author portrays the women in the narrative as fighting back against this patriarchal authority. Anne frustrates two extremely wealthy would-be suitors because she will not settle for marrying someone she does not love. Jennifer, perceived by most of the men in the novel to be nothing more than an exquisite beauty, consistently maneuvers those who are sexually attracted to her into fulfilling her wishes—for mink coats, marriage, and career advancement. When Neely recognizes the extent of her star power, she fearlessly demands fealty from all the men around her—and they accede to her wishes. Confounded by Jennifer’s and Anne’s clever negotiations, Henry laments, “[L]isten, all I ask in the next life is to come back as a beautiful broad” (260).
Susann makes clear, however, that the successful struggles of these women against patriarchy are temporary. Wily studio executives plot against Neely, disheartening her and chasing her away from Hollywood when they decide that she is washed-up. The French producer Claude, who owns Jennifer’s contract—thus essentially owning her—forces her to have a facelift and medical enhancement of her breasts in her late 30s, harshly telling her never to believe she has any worthiness beyond her appearance. Anne, who seems to achieve all her dreams, develops a drug addiction when she sees no alternative to Henry’s dictum that she must accept Lyon’s continual philandering. Susann describes a man’s world in which even the most upwardly mobile women find their freedom, opportunity, and fulfillment severely restricted.
Pushing the Norms of Society
The main characters of Valley of the Dolls struggle against not only patriarchy but also the traditional expectations of those around them. These characters come to embody the changing social norms of mid-century America as casual sex, career-driven women, and drug use became more commonplace. The narrative is ambivalent about these developments, showing both positive and negative aspects of societal change.
Readers may not perceive Anne to be a rebel, yet throughout the narrative, she resists attempts to force her into roles and decisions against her will. Anne’s widowed mother, whom Anne suspects of having a loveless marriage, counsels her to stay in the hometown she loathes, marry an appropriate spouse, and not expect much enjoyment from sex. Allen Cooper, Anne’s first fiancé, lashes out in disbelief at her unwillingness to set a date and marry him. Her amazed friends and even her boss, Henry, cannot believe she would pass up the chance to give up her menial career and ascend to the heights of New York society. When Anne takes Lyon as her lover, she tells him to come to the house she has inherited so she can make love in her parents’ four-poster bed, despite knowing everyone in Lawrenceville will be scandalized. While Anne aspires to a traditional marriage with children, she also represents the budding women’s liberation movement and the idea that these roles should be combined with love and pleasure.
The other socially defiant character is Jennifer. While her beauty makes her an object of desire, her seemingly aberrant behavior stuns those around her. Just out of boarding school and isolated in Switzerland during World War II, Jennifer engages in a three-year-long love affair with a female classmate. Over the course of a couple of years, she divorces two prominent men and quietly aborts her wanted pregnancy from her beloved Tony. She travels to France to appear in scandalous soft-core porn movies that become so popular she begins to star in movies with her clothes on. While Jennifer makes a life for herself this way, she expresses her discontent as men objectify her and value her only for her body. This reaches a head when, after she is diagnosed with breast cancer and needs a mastectomy, her partner tells her he loves her breasts more than anything else about her. Here Susann interrogates the value of sexual liberation without underlying societal changes—if men continue to reduce women to their sexual value, then women are not actually liberated. Jennifer sees the choice between a mastectomy and death as a prison, and she chooses death as the only possible escape.
These two protagonists are not the only characters who defy social norms. Ted, Neely’s second husband, is bisexual and pursues sexual relationships with men. There are many references to gender-fluid and LGBT characters, though often through slurs. The author also describes New York high society and the glittering world of Hollywood as places of permissive decadence, where drug use, infidelity, and flouting social norms are commonplace. Susann does not include these descriptions to sensationalize the narrative; in most cases, the actions are not directly depicted but rather woven into the backdrop of the story. With this, the author expresses that indulgence of this kind, which seems shocking in the case of Anne and Jennifer, is the norm in the upper echelons of society.
Escape Through Addiction and Self-Destructive Behavior
Based on the title, readers may assume that the book’s primary focus is addiction to prescription drugs. Indeed, Valley of the Dolls refers to the low point of drug addiction, juxtaposed in the book’s opening poem to the heights of fame and wealth. The three women refer to their different pills as “dolls” and use them to cope with the various unfulfilling aspects of their lives. Susann also uses drug dependency as a metaphor for escape from the crushing realities of patriarchal oppression.
Susann depicts the realistically casual, gradual evolution of addiction, which commences differently with each main character but achieves the same result. In each case, the character attempts to deal with a physical issue, only to find that the euphoric feeling accompanying the drug becomes the primary reason to take it. Jennifer, who cannot sleep more than a few hours each night, finds relief in red pills—Seconal. When Neely cannot relax after taking the green pills prescribed to help her lose weight—Dexedrine—she accepts red pills from Jennifer so she can relax. To help Anne cope with stress, Neely gives her red pills and offers yellow ones as well—Nembutal—which work with the red pills to induce deep sleep, especially when combined with alcohol. As the characters move through the narrative, their dependency increases. As with many addictive substances, the women become acclimated and require ever-increasing doses before the drugs work effectively. When Neely overdoses, she takes 50 Seconal capsules mixed with different kinds of liquor. Jennifer likewise overdoses in France, forcing her to abandon the opportunity for a lucrative Hollywood film contract. The narrative ends as Anne, her dependency slowly increasing, takes two red dolls to help her push aside her awareness of Lyon’s infidelity. Whether for weight loss, sleep, or emotional numbing, the women come to need these drugs to cope with lives that make them feel small and disposable.
While the prevalent prescription-drug abuse Susann describes takes center stage, readers may also recognize that each of these characters has other dependencies as well. From the beginning, Jennifer yearns for the man who will fulfill her lifelong desire to be cared for. She moves from man to man and remains unfulfilled. Through her soft-core porn movies, she shares her body with thousands. Casually, as she tells Anne of meeting her true love, Winston, she mentions having had seven abortions, symbolizing failed attempts to find domestic happiness. Neely, who promised to devote herself to her husband, instead becomes addicted to fame and stardom. She views herself as royalty, demanding to be treated specially by everyone. Believing herself more important than anyone else, she loses all sense of gratitude. She attempts to steal Anne’s husband, believing it is her right. Anne, as Lyon and others note, quickly falls in love with the excitement and pace of New York City and becomes emotionally dependent on Lyon despite his infidelity. When Lyon moves to England to write, Anne confides that her love affair with New York floundered when he left. When he returns, Anne abandons her engagement to Kevin and immediately falls into Lyon’s arms. She cannot get enough of his presence and essence. As he pulls away from her, pursuing other women, she finds that she cannot leave him despite his becoming a negative force in her life.
Symbolically, Susann compares the compulsive desires of the protagonists to the dolls they are addicted to. Like narcotics, the relationships, acclaim, and individuals they seek draw them into dependence and leave them unfulfilled.
