 <p>No you can't see the parents local variables. You inherit the parents prototype chain, not their local state. In your case you're applying the parent function onto the child object which does not hold the state.</p> <pre><code>apply(this,...) </code></pre> <p>means that you're binding the function to the current value of this. when you call method b from the child object, its then bound to the child, and therefore is not operating within the closure that contains the parents value. </p>