Absolution

“Saigon Barbie” is the nickname Charlene gives to her customized Barbie dolls, which she dresses in a traditional Vietnamese ao dai and non la. Saigon Barbie becomes the central image of Charlene’s philanthropy while highlighting the flaws in her activism.

Saigon Barbie kickstarts Charlene and Tricia’s friendship when Charlene enlists Tricia to sell the doll clothes. Though Barbie dolls are considered frivolous due to their association with youth and femininity, Saigon Barbie comes to stand for Charlene’s sharp intellect, determination, and business acumen. After Charlene’s death, the doll becomes a symbol for Charlene herself, evoking Rainey’s memories when she sees the doll on Dom’s shelf.

There is an essential irony in the image of a Barbie wearing an ao dai. Barbie is modeled after an idealized white American woman: svelte, blonde, and beautiful. She portrays an ideal of womanhood that the military wives in Saigon are expected to uphold, a docile and attractive ornament. Though Saigon Barbie is clothed in traditional Vietnamese garments, the clothes are an imperfect fit. To make the non la stay on, for example, Charlene must insert pins through the doll’s head. In this way, Saigon Barbie resembles Charlene and Tricia, clumsily inserting themselves into a culture that they don’t fully understand.

Family is a central motif in Absolution. Alice McDermott specifically highlights women’s relationships to the concept of family. Tricia is extremely family-oriented, basing most of her decisions around staying close to her husband and widowed father, even when doing so constrains her personal freedom. At the start of the novel, she has given up her career as a teacher after her marriage to Peter. She has re-aligned her goals, and her new ambition is to support Peter and start a family with him. Wifehood and motherhood are the de facto goalposts for young Catholic women of Tricia’s ilk in the 1960s, milestones by which to measure the success of their lives. For Tricia, the ability to have a happy, healthy family is not just a desire, but a measure of her own worth.

Tricia’s aspirations are complicated by her struggles with fertility. She suffers several miscarriages throughout Absolution. McDermott describes the process and aftermath of Tricia’s first miscarriage in detail, highlighting her distress at being “the sort of woman who had a miscarriage” (93). To Tricia, suffering a miscarriage is synonymous with failure to be a certain kind of woman, falling short of the standard set by her society. Her suffering is compounded by the cavalier attitudes of Peter and the Navy doctor, who don’t understand the emotional impact of the experience.

Charlene has a different family relationship. Having already had children, Charlene has essentially proven her worth as a woman by societal standards, but during her time in Saigon, she is largely uninterested in spending time with her family. Charlene desires individuality and freedom from patriarchal conventions. When she can, she spends her days away from home, experiencing Saigon in full and entertaining affairs with several other men.

Despite their differing attitudes, family inevitably remains a central influence on both women’s lives. After leaving Vietnam, Tricia re-evaluates her goals and separates her identity from the desire to be a mother, though she finds joy in caring for her younger relatives. Though tempted to run away with another man, freewheeling Charlene chooses to stay with her family, and leaves Vietnam before the war starts, to ensure their safety. Absolution explores the role that family relations play in the characters’ lives, while emphasizing their individual experiences outside of the context of family.