The plight of the toy who is brought to life and then abandoned seems pitiable because of an old storyteller’s trick. So Puff that mighty dragon sadly slipped into his cave. Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys.… The latter is a familiar theme in children’s stories, from The Velveteen Rabbit (1922) to Corduroy (1968), not to mention “Puff the Magic Dragon” (1963):Ī dragon lives forever, but not so little boys. In Atwood, the sand castle undergoes a double transformation: it is re-imagined as a doll made of sand, and as a toy brought to life. Jimi Hendrix observed more recently that castles made of sand “fall in the sea, eventually” (1967). References to sand castles and their temporariness go back at least as far as 1843 ( Memorials of Miss Mary Fishwick, of Springfield, Near Garsfang). – Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)
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