China Doll

There is a dialogue between a person that attempted suicide and the ferryman who carries the dead across the river Styx. Charon asks, “tell me what you done it for”, and the dead person says, “no, I won’t tell you a thing.” The dead person is bitter that Charon did not grant his request that “all I leave behind me is only what I found”, suggesting that he wanted no memory of himself left in the world of the living. The boatman offers to return the dead person to the world of living, by “letting the hurdy gurdy play”. This suggests that he is not dead yet and has not yet crossed the river to the realm of the dead. The boatman has seen many stranger ones return to life when they were on his side of the shore. Charon refuses to condemn the dying man and offers that if their positions were switched, he would want to live again. The china doll represents the dying man’s life and fragile ego. Charon pleads to the man to give life a second chance and that his life and ego is not broken, but “it’s only fractured, and just a little nervous from the fall”.