Mona Susan Power
A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power is in four sections, with the first three sections moving backward in time. It opens in the 1960s, moves back to the 1930s, then to the 1900s, and concludes in the 2010s. It tells the story of three generations of Dakota women, beginning with Sissy as a young girl in the 1960s and concluding with Sissy/Jesse as a middle-aged woman in the 2010s.
The first three sections unfold in the first-person voice of a young child. In section one, Sissy tells the story of her childhood with a volatile mother. Section two is in the voice of Sissy’s mother, Lillian, as a child. She describes her horrendous experience in a residential school where her sister was poisoned by a nun for publicly asserting her Native American heritage. And section 3 is in the voice of the child Cora, Lillian’s mother. All three sections describe the trauma the girls experienced in a culture that killed their leaders, discriminated against Native Americans, ridiculed and undervalued them, and tried to re-educate them for the purpose of eradicating all traces of their Native American culture and heritage. Separated from their families and all that was familiar, the three young girls cling to their respective dolls for comfort and companionship. The dolls speak to them, encourage them, and help them to endure the psychological trauma of discrimination and indoctrination.
In the final section, Sissy/Jesse retrieves the dolls from various trunks and positions them together to form a council. Each doll comes alive and “speaks” to Jesse, revealing her story and expanding on the background of her mother and grandmother. Jesse writes their stories and, through the process of re-telling their stories, she begins her journey toward healing.
The first three sections work well and depict the horrors inflicted on Native Americans. Power weaves into the narrative some of the stories she heard from her mother and grandmother. The descriptions are graphic and heart-wrenching and they explain the trauma inherited from one generation to the next. The final section, in which the dolls speak to an adult Sissy, seems disconnected from the earlier sections. While it is believable a child can derive comfort by having a doll as an imaginary friend who communicates with her, it is less plausible and somewhat disconcerting when an adult claims to converse with dolls.
Power is to be commended for the unique structure she builds to depict the trauma experienced by Native Americans. Her use of dolls as a device to communicate the innermost thoughts of the girls is effective. Her language is powerful and evocative. The three girls speak in authentic voices that capture the fears, struggles, and confusion they experienced when wrenched from home and family. The final section, which circles back to Sissy, affirms the power of storytelling as a tool of resistance to oppression and as a means to foster healing. Regrettably, this final section is also overly sentimental and contrived.