The Miniaturist

“I am the girl, Nella thinks, who hasn’t had a single peach, never mind the cream.”

At the beginning of the novel, Nella expresses frustration that her marriage to Johannes is unconsummated. The protagonist’s figurative evocation of peaches and cream reveals her eagerness to taste the pleasures of adult sexuality. Having internalized prescribed gender roles, she anticipates finding fulfillment in romantic love and sex with her husband. The statement illustrates Nella’s naivete in the early stages of the novel.

“Souls and purses, she thinks, these two are obsessed with souls and purses.” 

Listening to Marin and Johannes talking, Nella concludes they are fixated on religion and money. Her assessment sums up the contradictory values of Amsterdam, where citizens enjoy wealth while also being expected to adhere to Calvinist principles of frugality. The novel demonstrates how this conflict ultimately creates a society built on secrecy and hypocrisy.

“I am too old for this, she thinks. Who will see this piece of work, who will be able to sit on those chairs, or eat the waxen food? She has no friends, no family in this city to come and exclaim at it—it is a monument to her powerlessness, her arrested womanhood.”

When Johannes presents her with the cabinet, Nella is initially dismayed, perceiving it as a toy for a child; she feels it highlights her failure to transition from girl to woman. A central symbol of the novel, the cabinet represents Nella’s life. At this stage of the narrative, the dollhouse reflects the protagonist’s sense of “powerlessness” in the household she should be the mistress of.