The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Lucius keeps his word, and after being mended and dressed elegantly, Edward is placed on display: “From this shelf, Edward could see the whole shop: Lucius Clarke’s workbench and the windows to the outside world and the door that the customers used to enter and leave” (185). One day, Edward sees Bryce enter the shop. Bryce begs Lucius to just have a look at Edward, and Lucius agrees, but only if Bryce leaves afterwards and never returns.

Bryce asks if he can hold Edward, but Lucius says no. Lucius says that he must tell him goodbye, and so he does: “Don’t go, thought Edward. I won’t be able to bear it if you go” (188). But Bryce does go, and Edward feels completely alone.

Edward feels alone, but he isn’t technically alone; he is surrounded by dolls—“lady dolls and baby dolls, dolls with eyes that opened and closed and dolls with painted-on eyes, dolls dressed as queens and dolls wearing sailor suits” (191). Edward has never like dolls because he finds them “annoying, self-centered, twittery and vain” (191), and his shelf-mate reinforces this dislike.

His shelf-mate tries to make Edward feel bad because he’s a rabbit and not a doll, and she says that no one will ever buy him. He says that he doesn’t want to be bought, and the doll is aghast at the thought. But he explains why: “I have already been loved by a girl named Abilene. I have been loved by a fisherman and his wife and a hobo and his dog. I have been loved by a boy who played the harmonica and by a girl who died. Don’t talk to me about love […] I have known love” (193).

The doll gets sold, and Edward thinks “good riddance” (194). When the shop doors open, all the dolls fill with hope at the thought of being bought, but Edward “was the lone contrarian. He prided himself on not hoping, on not allowing his heart to life inside of him. He prided himself on keeping his heart silent, immobile, closed tight. I am done with hope, thought Edward Tulane” (194). 

Edward gets a new shelf-mate, an antique doll with a face that had been broken and repaired like Edward’s: “Her face was, in fact, a web of cracks. She was wearing a baby bonnet” (197). She relates her history to the rabbit: “I have lived one hundred years. And in that time, I have been in places that were heavenly and others that were horrid. After a time, you learn that each place is different. And you become a different doll in each place, too. Quite different” (198).

She says that she wonders who will comes for her this time, but Edward says he doesn’t care if anyone comes for him or not. She thinks that’s “dreadful” and chastises Edward: “There’s no point in going on if you feel that way. No point at all. You must be filled with expectancy. You must be awash in hope. You must wonder who will love you, whom you will love next” (199). He says he’s “done with being loved” because it’s “too painful” (199). She says that he “disappoint[s]” her, and that he might as well end his journey now. She asks if he wants her to help him fall off the shelf, and he says no.

She again says that he disappoints her, and he thinks of Pellegrina, “of warthogs and princesses, of listening and love, of spells and curses. What if there was somebody waiting to love him? What if there was somebody whom he could love again. Was it possible?” (200). He feels his “heart stir” (200) but tries to tell himself that no, it’s not possible.

The next morning, a sweet little girl buys Edward’s shelf-mate, and the china doll imparts him with a final sentiment: “Open your heart […] Someone will come. Someone will come for you. But first you must open your heart” (203). He thinks about his old life with Abilene but tries not to. 

Edward sits on the shelf for years. He repeats his old shelf-mate’s words over and over in his head “until they wore a smooth groove of hope in his brain: Someone will come; someone will come for you. And the old doll was right. Someone did come” (207). It’s spring, a little 5-year-old girl named Maggie comes into the shop with her mother. Without asking, Maggie grabs Edward off the shelf and cradles him in her arms in the “same ferocious, tender way Sarah Ruth had held him. Oh, thought Edward, I remember this” (208).

Lucius asks the girl’s mother to “attend to your daughter. She is holding a very fragile, very precious, quite expensive doll” (209). The woman comes over, and Edward feels dizzy. He thinks he must be dreaming again. The little girl’s mother has Edward’s old gold watch hanging around her neck. It’s Abilene, all grown up. She places her hand on the locket: “Edward?” (209). He looks at her and confirms his true identity.