Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Dressmaker, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Transformation, Illusion, and Truth
Vengeance and Suffering
Secrets, Hypocrisy, and Conformity
Memories, Progress, and the Past
Healing, Medicine, and Power
Summary
Analysis
Sergeant Farrat, Dungatar’s local policeman, prepares to do his evening lap to check for any trouble in town. He does not think there will be any problems tonight as there is a football match the next day, and the players and fans go to bed early in preparation for matches. Sergeant Farrat parks on the high street and looks out at the town. The evening is quiet and foggy, and there is no one around.
Dungatar is a community which values conformity and convention. Therefore, it is important to the residents that everyone in Dungatar supports the local football team. This support symbolizes Dungatar’s solidarity as a place where everyone (in theory) is united behind the same cultural values and behavioral standards and where those who do not fit in are not accepted.
Themes
A Greyhound bus pulls up beside the post office and Sergeant Farrat watches as a young woman steps out into the street. The woman hides her luggage in the post office’s shadowy porch and looks down Dungatar’s main street. Sergeant Farrat notices her smart, fashionable outfit and the Singer sewing machine that she carries. Suddenly, Sergeant Farrat recognizes the woman as Tilly Dunnage and he leaps out of the car. Tilly hears the car door and she begins to march in the other direction, carrying her sewing machine.
Tilly’s fashionable outfit marks her as unusual in Dungatar. This suggests that Dungatar is a provincial and old-fashioned place which does not keep up with modern fashion or culture. Tilly clearly wants to avoid meeting or making connections with people in the town, possibly because she has been hurt before and has grown wary of people through past experiences.
Themes
Sergeant Farrat hurries after Tilly and calls her name. He offers to help her with her luggage, but she ignores him. Sergeant Farrat grabs the sewing machine from Tilly’s hand and she spins around to face him. Sergeant Farrat smiles awkwardly, and Tilly watches as he loads the sewing machine and the rest of her luggage into his car. She climbs into the backseat and sits, feeling tense and uncomfortable, as Sergeant Farrat drives her home.
Tilly is reluctant to accept Sergeant Farrat’s help, which insinuates that she is wary of people and does not trust people easily. This implies that Tilly has experienced negative treatment in the past, either in Dungatar or elsewhere, which has informed her behavior and made her unwilling to connect with people. This demonstrates that way in which people’s pasts can inform their future behaviors.
Themes
Sergeant Farrat drives Tilly through Dungatar’s town center. They pass the football pitch and the school. Tilly remembers her own childhood in Dungatar: she recalls how the school library smelled and she remembers a pool of blood on the grass outside. She remembers being taken to the bus stop by Sergeant Farrat when she was a child, which makes her feel queasy. Presently, they reach Molly’s house at the top of the Hill, and Tilly looks out at her childhood home. Sergeant Farrat watches Tilly: he thinks that she has grown into a beauty but that she looks “damaged.”
Tilly’s memories insinuate that she grew up in Dungatar and that she has unpleasant and traumatic memories from her childhood there. Although these childhood events are in the past, Tilly’s memories affect her in the present and make her wary of Sergeant Farrat, even though he seems keen to help her. Although time has transformed Tilly in some ways (she has grown into a beautiful woman), her traumatic memories stay with her and impact her behavior and her willingness to connect with people as an adult.
Themes
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Sergeant Farrat asks Tilly if anyone knows she is back. Tilly says that “everyone will know soon enough.” She asks Sergeant Farrat how Molly is and Sergeant Farrat replies that Molly does not go out much. Tilly gets out of the car and makes for the door. Sergeant Farrat helps her with her luggage. He admires her sewing machine, and Tilly tells him that she is a dressmaker. Sergeant Farrat is delighted. He sees Tilly inside and then he gets back in his car to drive home. He hasn’t seen Molly for a year or so, but he knows that Mae McSwiney sometimes checks on her.
Tilly implies that the Dungatar residents are gossips and that nothing stays a secret for long in the town. This supports the idea that Dungatar is a place which does not change much, as the residents are desperate for scandal and gossip to make their lives more exciting. Sergeant Farrat’s observation that Molly “does not go out much” suggests that Molly is ostracized and lonely. Although Sergeant Farrat is meant to take care of the community (he is the local policeman), his complacent attitude toward Molly, who is isolated and vulnerable, suggests that in societies which value conformity and dislike outcasts, it is easier to ignore those who do not fit in than to stand against the crowd and reach out to them.
Themes
Inside Molly’s house, Tilly finds that the rooms are dank and musty-smelling. A possum has nested in the rafters, and the fire hasn’t been lit for some time. Tilly opens the door to Molly’s room, and Molly looks up from her bed and gapes at Tilly. Molly is extremely thin—her face is gaunt and skeletal. She gestures to a group of invisible people around her bed and says that Tilly cannot take her dog. Tilly sighs and says that this is what “they” have done to Molly.
Molly is an outcast in Dungatar and has clearly been neglected and abandoned by the townspeople, even though she is vulnerable and cannot care for herself. This suggests that the Dungatar residents are cruel to people who do not fit in, and they value conformity over kindness. Molly’s isolation has seemingly led to mental health problems that cause her to hallucinate that she is surrounded by people when, really, she is alone. This demonstrates the devastating effects of isolation on people and the importance of human connection. Tilly blames the townspeople for Molly’s condition because they have alienated her when she needed help.
Themes
After Tilly has seen Molly, she sits on the porch outside, drinks a brandy, and looks down at Dungatar. At dawn, Tilly gets up and begins to clean the house, clearing away cobwebs and throwing out mounds of clutter. She drags Molly to the bathroom and forces her to wash and brush her teeth. Tilly then cleans Molly’s bed and feeds her tomato soup. Molly thinks Tilly is trying to poison her and so she vomits the soup up.
Tilly’s resilience and nurturing personality shine through as she begins to transform Molly’s house from a shabby, uninhabitable shack into a pleasant place to live. She also intends to transform Molly by cleaning, caring for, and feeding her. Tilly is motivated to do this because she loves Molly, and this supports the idea that love has transformative power.
Themes
The next morning, Tilly stands on the porch and looks down at the Dungatar dump at the bottom of the Hill. The McSwineys’ caravan sits nearby, and it appears to be part of the garbage dump. Edward McSwiney is the delivery man in Dungatar, and his many children often ride around on his cart with him. Tilly remembers the McSwiney kids and how she used to watch them play when she was a child. They have an eldest boy, three younger girls, and a disabled son named Barney, who is “not quite finished,” as well as six younger children.
The fact that the Hill is raised above Dungatar supports the idea that Molly and Tilly are outcasts and live separately from the rest of the townspeople, who dislike and ostracize them. The McSwiney’s yard is also separate from the town, as the garbage dump is on the outskirts, and this suggests that the McSwineys may be outcasts too.
Themes
Tilly looks out over the town, which is lit by the morning sun. Dungatar lies between the curved railway line and the low, sluggish river. There is a park on the riverbank and then the town moves east to west—from Mr. and Mrs. Almanac’s cottage to the school where Prudence Dimm teaches. Alvin Pratt’s General Store sits on the high street alongside the pub, police station, and post office. At the end of the high street, the road leads to the oval football pitch, which looks up at Tilly like an eye. Tilly turns away from the town and washes an old dress stand that she found in Molly’s house.
Again, the Hill represents their Tilly and Molly’s and ostracization from the townspeople because they are geographically removed from them. In contrast, the buildings of the town below are trapped together by the river and the railway line, which run on either side of the high street. This suggests that the Dungatar community is close-knit and that everyone knows one another’s business—all the houses face one another, and people can watch one another all the time. The townspeople therefore seem to value conformity because they are afraid to stand out and be gossiped about or ostracized by their neighbors. However, the townspeople are all united in their dislike of Tilly and Molly, who live separate from them and therefore present a challenge to their lifestyles. This idea is represented by the football pitch, which is a symbol of the community, and which seems to stare up at Tilly as a symbol of the fact that the whole town is watching her and judging her behavior.
Themes
