The Artificial Silk Girl

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw rapid advances in the productive capacities of the world’s industrialized nations, which made more material goods available to the general public. With the advent of film and an increase in printed materials, advertising rapidly grew as a means to make the public aware of the goods and services that could improve their lives—and of what they were missing out on when they couldn’t afford those goods. Silent films provided the advertising industry with greater reach, spreading ubiquitous images of men and women living in luxury. These images created a desire to consume and acquire objects, activities, and services that had previously been confined to the truly wealthy.

As someone who grew up wearing dresses sewn from drapery fabric, Doris feels the lure of material things and the better life she sees in film and advertisements. She discovers along the way how difficult this fictional good life is to attain. In the end, she comes to believe that glamour isn’t so important after all.

As a New Woman, Doris is conscious of her sexual desires and her sexual power. When she and her friend Tilli discuss men’s desire for sex, Doris retorts, “Tilli, sometimes women too are sensual and they only want one thing” (65). Doris’s sexuality and desire to be with whom she wants is best illustrated in the scene with the Onyx: Instead of sleeping with the older husband and father so he will shower her in gifts and wealth, she instead sleeps with the man’s much younger friend simply because she finds him attractive. After being fired, Doris openly attacks the Onyx’s wife for the hypocrisy of firing her because of “immorality.”

For much of the book, Doris see sexual favors as transactional, completely separate from love. In exchange for giving Alexander what he wants (sex), Doris tastes the “star” lifestyle. After a while, their transactional relationship quickly weighs on her. She begins questioning the nature of beauty when she rhetorically asks “for whom am I beautiful?” (82). Her innate good looks hooked Alexander, but as she achieves the standard of beauty she wants thanks to the elegant clothing and jewelry he buys for her, she realizes that beauty is being wasted on Alexander, whom she describes as a “pink rubber ball” (81).

The intersection of marriage, mistress, and prostitute is a deliberate criticism of society’s expectations for female sexuality. Although Doris never blatantly equates the three, her comparisons between what she did with the “hunk” and what the Onyx’s wife does with her husband, the parallels between being a mistress and being a prostitute, and the idea of exchanging sex for financial support in marriage suggests that sexual activity in one context is no more virtuous than sexual activity in the others.

Despite criticisms of marriage and traditional gender roles, hope for love and marriage remains, as seen in the relationship between Ernst and Hanne. Hanne didn’t abandon Ernst from lack of love; society’s obligations and the restrictions that it placed on women caused their marriage to falter. The novel implies that if women are provided more freedom to act as individuals rather than simply as extensions of their husbands, then love and marriage can still function healthily.

Although more women were able to acquire an education in Weimar Germany, it was by no means available for all. A college education had long been a status symbol and was the deciding factor between the proletariat and bourgeoisie of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Lack of available education is the greatest hindrance to obtaining the lifestyle that Doris so desires. She struggles to hold a job and to have a man like Ernst find her interesting, despite her beauty, vivaciousness, and ambition. Doris repeatedly asks God to help her acquire an education before Ernst tires of her, but God does not intervene, leaving her with the same options she always had.