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
At the Dungatar station, Hamish sells Una a ticket, and William sees her onto the train. Una cries a little as she leaves Dungatar for good. Meanwhile, Evan Pettyman puts Marigold to bed. She is nervous tonight and she asks for an extra spoon of her medicine. Evan gives it to her and says that Mr. Almanac has advised her to take it as often as she wants. As Marigold dozes off, Evan tells her that he must go out of town on business. When she is asleep, he masturbates to a photo of Una.
Even though Una is related to Elsbeth (an important person in Dungatar), she is still an outsider and is used and discarded by the hypocritical townspeople, just as they use and discard the town’s other outcasts. Evan pretends to help Marigold by encouraging her to take her medicine, while, really, he uses her drug dependence to control her and to conceal his womanizing.
Themes
