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 soaks in his bath and rubs eggs into his hair. His bath is full of plant sprigs, and he drinks herbal tea and sketches a new outfit in his notepad. He thinks the outfit should be decorated with peacock feathers. Sergeant Farrat gets out of the bath and begins to look over the pattern for a women’s jumper he plans to make. Underneath his police uniform, he wears stocking and ballet slippers.
Unlike most of the Dungatar residents, Sergeant Farrat is an open-minded man and is interested in fashion—something that is considered unacceptable by the intolerant and conservative values of the Dungatar residents. Farrat’s general open-mindedness means that he’s also aware of interest in herbal remedies in progressive parts of the world and uses similar homemade ointments as Tilly. Sergeant Farrat hides his secret love for fashion under a veneer of respectability (his uniform) because he worries that the Dungatar residents will ostracize and reject him if they find out he’s a crossdresser.
Themes
Beula bangs on Sergeant Farrat’s door and comes bursting in when he opens it. She complains about the indecency that went on at the footballer’s dance and indignantly tells Farrat that Gertrude Pratt went off alone with William Beaumont. Sergeant Farrat gives Beula the knitting pattern and tells her that it is a secret police code. He needs her to write down what the code says for top secret police business.
Beula knows everybody’s secrets and tries to use them against people. She is so conservative and extreme in her desire to police other people’s behavior that she goes to the police to report Gertrude’s indiscretion (it was considered immoral for unmarried women to have sex in the 1950s). This suggests that people like Beula not only wish to gossip about people but actively seek to punish them for behavior which is outside of the norm. Clearly, there can be severe consequences for people who refuse to conform.
Themes
At the pharmacy, Nancy prepares to send Mr. Almanac out for the mail. She points him in the direction of the post office and shoves him forward so that he totters along, following the cracks in the pavement. Ruth waits at the post office, hands Mr. Almanac his envelope, and shoves him back toward Nancy. While Nancy wait, Reginald Blood approaches her and whispers that he needs cream for a rash on his genitals.
As the pharmacy is the only source of medicine in the town, Nancy and Mr. Almanac have a lot of power over people because they learn their secrets, such as Reginald’s sexual promiscuity.
Themes
Beula rushes into Pratt’s and stops to talk to Muriel. Beula tells Muriel that Tilly went to the dance with Teddy and that she wore an indecent dress made from a tablecloth that Muriel sold her. Beula says Tilly is just like her mother, Molly. Muriel listens halfheartedly. Beula then tells her that Gertrude was with a man all night. Just then, William drives past and nods at the two women, who both turn to stare at him.
Beula gossips about everyone and goes out of her way to learn people’s secrets because this gives her power over them—no one wants to have their secrets revealed because Dungatar residents are extremely conservative and judgmental, and people are ostracized if others find out that they engage in behaviors outside of the norm. It was considered improper for unmarried women to have sex in the 1950s, and the women judge Molly harshly because she had Tilly when she was not married.
Themes
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Lois Pickett scrubs Irma’s floor as Irma watches unhappily from her chair. Lois always washes the same spots and never cleans under the table. While Lois works, she gossips about the footballer’s dance and tells Irma that she thinks William Beaumont and Gertrude Pratt will have to get married. Lois doesn’t think that Elsbeth will be very happy about this.
Lois is a gossip and likes to know everybody else’s business. It was considered immoral for unmarried women to have sex in the 1950s—as such, women who got pregnant and didn’t get married were judged extremely harshly in conservative society. This suggests that there are severe consequences for people who break social conventions, as they face a choice between social ostracization or being forced to marry even if they are not in love.
Themes
