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The Thorn Bird
Meggie’s doll, Agnes, symbolizes the fragility of girlhood and the early erasure of Meggie’s identity in a male-dominated world. At the start of the novel, Fiona gives Meggie the doll as a birthday present—Meggie’s first and only object that belongs solely to her. But Meggie’s brothers quickly destroy Agnes, marking the beginning of Meggie’s lifelong pattern of quiet endurance, emotional dispossession, and coerced selflessness. The loss of the doll seems small in material terms, but it carries massive symbolic weight: not only does it confirm that Meggie’s wants will never matter as much as others’ needs, but it also shows her that anything tender or private in her will always attract intrusion and harm. The destruction of Agnes foreshadows Meggie’s marriage to Luke, who treats her as an object passed between hands—valued for her utility, not her feelings. Like the doll, Meggie endures handling, bruising, and abandonment. But unlike Agnes, Meggie survives. Her memory of the doll preserves the innocence no one allowed her to keep, and its fate points forward to the emotional violence that shapes her path toward womanhood.
Agnes (Meggie’s Doll) Quotes in The Thorn Birds
The The Thorn Birds quotes below all refer to the symbol of Agnes (Meggie’s Doll). For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 1
Quotes
She was yanking inexpertly at a large knot when the dreadful thing happened. Off came the hair, all of it, dangling in a tousled clump from the teeth of the comb. Above Agnes’s smooth broad brow there was nothing; no head, no bald skull. Just an awful, yawning hole. Shivering in terror, Meggie leaned forward to peer inside the doll’s cranium. The inverted contours of cheeks and chin showed dimly, light glittered between the parted lips with their teeth a black, animal silhouette, and above all this were Agnes’s eyes, two horrible clicking balls speared by a wire rod that cruelly pierced her head.
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Agnes (Meggie’s Doll) Symbol Timeline in The Thorn Birds
The timeline below shows where the symbol Agnes (Meggie’s Doll) appears in The Thorn Birds. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...Her mother, Fiona (sometimes called Fee), silently hands her a parcel containing a beautiful store-bought doll—an extraordinary gift for a poor family like the Clearys who live in rural New Zealand....
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...joy is short-lived. Two of her brothers—Jack and Hughie—find her and become rough with the doll, yanking it from her arms and pulling it apart to examine how its limbs move....
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...striking dark features. He is fiercely protective of Meggie and even helped Fiona buy the doll in town. Frank comforts his sister, reassures her that they can fix the damage, and...
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But when Meggie tries to comb the doll’s tangled hair, the entire scalp peels off, revealing a hollow head and a pair of...
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Chapter 2
...willow-pattern tea set she once longed for, arranged on a handcrafted blue table beside her doll Agnes. The gift has lost its magic, but she plays along to show gratitude. She...
(full context)
