The Artificial Silk Girl Summary

The novel starts with Doris introducing herself and telling us some details about several days of her life. The way she writes is like writing in a diary, except that she claims it's not. Doris believes she is writing a movie, and indeed, most of her details are visual rather than the typical emotion-filled writing found in other diaries. It is obvious from the way Doris writes that she is very self-confident and finds most people inferior to her, especially if they are not in style."

She introduces the readers to many characters, most of who are men she had relationships with, but two of the most important people that she stresses their importance to her are Hubert (her boyfriend whom she loves so much) and Therese (a dear friend who is in love with a married person who is not planning to divorce and one whom Doris loves to tell everything).

Doris gets fired from her work, and she doesn't know what her future holds for her because her father is unemployed, and she had no other source of money except a minimal amount that her mother earns from working in the theatre. She consults Therese who gives her the name of a man called Johnny Klotz to try and have a relationship with and get some money from. She agrees.

Doris doesn't include the time frame in which things happen; she simply tells her story without saying how much time passed or even starting a new chapter. She is now working as an extra in a theatre. To make herself noticeable between the extras, she claims she knows Leo (a boy the other girls seem to have a crush on and talk about a lot) and lies about it. It works, but if her lie gets to Leo, she will be doomed.

She lies about many things, in order to please other people and produce the best image of herself. She lied about her religion once to a man whom she hung out with to earn some money. Doris also got a place in the Drama school without having to pay. She considers herself a star now because she got a role in a play. Later, she says that she is leaving for Berlin but does not give details, instead, she jumps to another play that she is supposed to perform.

After much searching, Doris finally is able to meet Hubert, and discovers that the girl he was going to marry left him and her father didn't give him the job. Doris then goes to Berlin, and she very quickly narrates her story there, jumping from story to story, telling the readers briefly about the people she met there. One of the women she stayed with was pregnant and got her baby when Doris was there, so she named the new baby girl Doris. Doris slept with numerous men to please them and earn money. She enjoyed some men, while found herself forced to for the sake of money for others. She never admitted that this was working like a prostitute.

In the middle of any story Doris narrates, she suddenly says: "I want to become a star". She is trying to find work in Berlin and does not find any until now. She meets a blind man called Brenner and they fall in love with each other, and she becomes his eyes, describing to him everything she sees. Because Doris has very cinematic eyes, she accurately describes everything to Brenner, making him imagine everything as if it were in front of him. She describes Berlin in every detail, engaging all senses.

She also meets a very rich man called Alexander who makes her rich and she finally pays her debt to Therese and buys even more elegant clothes. However, she leaves when his wife comes back from a trip, and Doris has to sell her expensive things to earn money.

Doris is tired of leaving her body to a strange man for money; that's what she claims. However, she keeps waiting for men to invite her to their houses and to give her money, and she keeps telling herself that it's the last time. She meets Ernst, who is the man with whom she stayed longest until now, and he finds her a job that could earn her some living. To the readers' surprise, Doris, who was looking for work since she came to Berlin, writes: "I'll do anything, anything at all, but I will not work". She deeply falls in love with Ernst, but she realizes how much he loved his ex-wife, so she leaves him and tells his wife to return to him. In the end, Doris returns to Karl, and she is still dreaming of becoming a star.