MANNEQUINS IN LITERATURE

Mannequin 

Book by Fannie Hurst (1926)

Melodramatic tale of a girl, kidnapped by her nursemaid and raised in a slum in early 1900's New York. At 18, she is working as a salesgirl, until her beauty is discovered and she is promoted to a model, or "mannequin," in the department store. Her story takes a sordid turn when she is accused of murder after her attacker dies while she is resisting a rape attempt. Later she is of course acquitted and reunited with her real family.

The Munich Mannequins 

Poem by Sylvia Plath (1963)

Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children. 

Cold as snow breath, it tamps the womb 

Where the yew trees blow like hydras, 

The tree of life and the tree of life 

Unloosing their moons, month after month, to no purpose. 

The blood flood is the flood of love, 

The absolute sacrifice. 

It means: no more idols but me, 

Me and you. 

So, in their sulfur loveliness, in their smiles 

These mannequins lean tonight 

In Munich, morgue between Paris and Rome, 

Naked and bald in their furs, 

Orange lollies on silver sticks, 

Intolerable, without mind. 

The snow drops its pieces of darkness, 

Nobody's about. In the hotels 

Hands will be opening doors and setting 

Down shoes for a polish of carbon 

Into which broad toes will go tomorrow. 

O the domesticity of these windows, 

The baby lace, the green-leaved confectionery, 

The thick Germans slumbering in their bottomless Stolz. 

And the black phones on hooks 

Glittering 

Glittering and digesting 

Voicelessness. The snow has no voice. 

Mannequins

Book by Steven M. Richman (2005)

A photographer's artistic fascination with mannequins is explored through a series of 390 portraits from around the world. This compelling photographic essay captures the personalities and drama of storefront figures, while presenting intriguing questions about the nature of mannequins: their relationship to art and the role they play in shaping women's form in perception and fantasy. Retailers, merchandisers, members of the fashion industry, and photography enthusiasts will all find this book a valuable source of inspiration.

To the Mannequins

Poem By Howard Nemerov (1961)

Adorable images,

Plaster of Paris

Lilies of the field,

You are not alive, therefore

Pathos will be out of place.

But I have learned

A strange fact about your fate,

And it is this:

After you go out of fashion

Beneath your many fashions,

Or when your elbows and knees

Have been bruised powdery white,

So that you are no good to anybody—

They will take away your gowns,

Your sables and bathing suits,

Leaving exposed before all men

Your inaccessible bellies

And pointless nubilities.

Movers will come by night

And load you all into trucks

And take you away to the Camps,

Where soldiers, or the State Police,

Will use you as targets

For small-arms practice,

Leading me to inquire,

Since pathos is out of place,

What it is that they are practicing.