Letters: Nov. 24, 1967

(4 of 4)

Sir: As one who has lived happily for over half a century with a small but precious collection of sexless dolls, including third generation of same dating back to my Seattle grandmother's "Frozen Charlotte" of 1844, I deplore the new realism. Heavens to Betsy, we knew which was which by the color of their booties.

ANN L. WURTELE Woodstock, N.Y.

Sir: The introduction of the "Little Brother" doll has predictably resulted in irrational, moralistic, and highly emotional protests. The very absurdity of the outcries tends to obscure potentially valid objections. While doll play begins at an early age, little girls continue this interest during a later period characterized by exclusion and disparagement of the opposite sex. There is much psychiatric evidence suggesting that this period of sexual disinterest has healthy purposes. It aids the normal repression of highly threatening infantile sexual conflicts and allows time for exploration and growth in the demanding process of simply learning to deal with others.

It is possible that repeated exposure to realistic male genitalia would complicate and even retard this aspect of development. Sexual openness in a seven-year-old child is not necessarily a virtue.

FRANKLIN G. MALESON, M.D. Pennsylvania Hospital Philadelphia

Once Removed

Sir: I'm sure that your review of Graham Greene's The Comedians [Nov. 3] is fair to the picture, but I know that it isn't fair to Haiti. "Greene's fictional Haiti," you say, "seems not very far removed from the real one . . . a Black Power station," etc. Well, this just isn't so. Greene found what he came looking for—Papa Doc, the Tontons Macoute, Black Power, a sick society. The visitor without this preconception will see little or nothing of Haiti's cloak-and-dagger world. He will be overwhelmed instead by the Haitian people who have spurned those who strutted in the capital and stole their taxes, from Dessaline's time to the present. The Haitians continue through all this to be the most creative, outgoing, generous and ebullient people in the Caribbean; and the poorest—but without a trace of self-pity, xenophobia, or racial arrogance.

SELDEN RODMAN Oakland, N.J.