Valley of the Dolls: by Jacqueline Susann

1865 Words4 Pages

Welcome to the doll factory! Personalities are free, dreams are additional charges. Sometimes taking a step back and looking at the big picture before jumping at your dreams sounds like something we would never think to do. In the book Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann she reaches in to the real and vulnerable lives of three women wealthy white women, (something we dare to dig into in our everyday lives) who are just trying to achieve their dreams.
Society generally frowns upon the idea of drug use, even when used for a helpful purpose. Jenifer North takes drugs to escape a different kind of pain. The dolls represented in the book are a symbolism for sleeping and weight loss pills. After Jenifer finds out her only worth is her body, she begins to strip for the money she so desperately craves. Was Jenifer virtually ethical about her decision to start to strip for money? In my opinion yes, Jenifer was right for what she did. Virtue ethics is all about living a good life and determining what is right and wrong. For Jennifer doing the action to get what she desperately needed at the time was fair! Jennifer was a smart character in the book but when faced with hardships, we always find out a way to sell the best part of us. In Jennifer's case this was her body.
When we first meet young Anne Welles she is just leaving home to go off to New York City. Her beauty is unremarkable and quickly recognized by Allen Cooper who later gives her an administrative job as his assistant. Anne later realizes that her boyfriend is not everything he first resembled to be when she arrived to the big city. In Nicole Cage’s article titled "Let's Talk Valley of The Dolls" (2011), a big city guy with a big city attitude quickly sweeps Anne off her fee...

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...a brighter tomorrow. So whether you see “dolls” as pills, or a child’s play toy, you better run fast because the valley is promising that the next line of dolls coming out will sure be a brainwasher, or are we already trapped in the valley

Works Cited

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Cliffe, Nicole. "Let's Talk 'Valley Of The Dolls': Barbs, Boobs And Revolting Kissers." N.p., 22 Apr. 2011. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
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"Valley of the Dolls." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 21 Apr. 2014. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
"Vally of the Dolls Quotes." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.

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