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
Beula Harridene approaches Sergeant Farrat and asks when Molly’s funeral will start. Sergeant Farrat tells her sternly that people who weren’t close to Molly, and who only want to gossip, should not attend. He says that Tilly’s presence and her hard work have benefitted the town and that people have not appreciated her.
Sergeant’s Farrat’s friendship with Tilly has transformed him for the better and he is no longer afraid to stand up to the hypocritical townspeople. They only want to attend Molly’s funeral to gossip, even though they cruelly ostracized her when she was alive. The townspeople have benefitted from Tilly’s presence because she has made them beautiful clothes, yet they have still refused to accept her or even to pay her for her work.
Themes
Beula goes into Pratt’s and tells Alvin and Muriel that Sergeant Farrat advises against going to Molly’s funeral if they were not really friends with her. Alvin and Muriel are vaguely indignant and they say they’ll close the door when the funeral goes by. Lois says that she wants to go because Tilly still has some of her clothes, but Muriel says that this would be wrong, according to Sergeant Farrat. Beula suggests that Tilly and Sergeant Farrat are having an affair, and the women continue to gossip.
The townspeople are annoyed because Sergeant Farrat has pointed out their hypocrisy. Although they were unkind to Molly while she was alive, they now wish to attend her funeral so that they can gossip about her among themselves. This shows that Sergeant Farrat’s relationship with Tilly has transformed him for the better, as he is now no longer afraid to stand up to the judgmental townspeople who ostracize and persecute anyone who does not fit in.
Themes
Sergeant Farrat arrives to take Tilly to Molly’s funeral. He wears a black dress and high heels. Tilly is concerned about this, but Sergeant Farrat says he no longer cares what the Dungatar people think. Tilly and Sergeant Farrat are the only people who attend the funeral. Sergeant Farrat makes a speech: he says that Molly came to Dungatar for a fresh start but that she was a victim of gossip and constant scrutiny. He hopes she will find a better place now—one where she will be loved and accepted, as she tried to love and accept others.
Sergeant Farrat’s relationship with Tilly has a positive effect on him: he is no longer afraid to openly be himself in Dungatar. Although Sergeant Farrat used to hide his crossdressing because he was afraid that the conservative Dungatar residents would judge him, he has now realized that the townspeople will never accept or tolerate anyone who is different from themselves because they are hypocrites and expect others to live up to behavioral standards which they, themselves, do not meet.
Themes
Reginald Blood, who drives the hearse, helps them lower Molly’s coffin, and Tilly says goodbye to Molly in the rain. Sergeant Farrat takes Tilly home and the pair get drunk and listen to popular songs on Tilly’s radio. Beula Harridene lurks in the garden outside and spies on them. Suddenly, Tilly decides that Molly hated popular songs and she staggers to the door with the radio. She throws it outside, where it hits Beula in the face.
Beula’s injury is an example of poetic justice because she spies on people in order to hurt and control them—but, ultimately, she herself gets hurt while doing this. This suggests that even if no one actively takes revenge on people who lead negative lives and hurt others, these people often end up suffering themselves as a result of their own cruel behavior.
Themes
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Beula staggers home in the dark, her face crushed by the blow from Tilly’s radio. A few days later, on Monday morning, Sergeant Farrat waits expectantly for Beula’s daily call. When Beula does not arrive, Sergeant Farrat goes to her house and discovers Beula lying in bed. Her face is badly injured, and the wound has begun to fester.
Beula spends her life spying on people and trying to discover their secrets so that she can exert power over them or turn others against them. She ends up getting hurt because of this behavior, which again suggests that those who seek to hurt others often end up hurting themselves.
Themes
Sergeant Farrat takes Beula to the hospital. The doctor explains that the injury has made her blind and that she must move into the sanitorium permanently. Sergeant Farrat drives up to Tilly’s in his matador costume to tell her about Beula. When Tilly hears that Beula was injured the night of Molly’s funeral, she smiles to herself.
Tilly is pleased because she feels that Beula’s injury is an example of poetic justice. Beula has spent her life spying on people and trying to catch them doing things that she knows the Dungatar residents will judge and punish. Therefore, it is ironic that Beula goes blind, because she can no longer watch what people are doing. Beula sustained her injury while spying on Tilly, which suggests that those who try to hurt others often end up hurting themselves.
Themes
Nancy closes the pharmacy and shoves Mr. Almanac across the street toward his house, where the garden gate and the front and back doors are open. Irma is asleep on her chair outside, so Mr. Almanac goes careening past her. Nancy rushes across the road and finds that Mr. Almanac has plunged straight through the front door of the house and straight out the back. He lands face down in the river outside and drowns. When Tilly hears about this, she goes to Molly’s grave and tells Molly about Beula and Mr. Almanac.
Mr. Almanac’s death is an example of poetic justice. Mr. Almanac is a cruel man who used to abuse his wife, Irma. It is fitting, therefore, that Irma indirectly causes Mr. Almanac’s death—she sleeps through his return from work and fails to catch him—because this indirectly avenges abuse she has suffered at his hands. Tilly is pleased because the townspeople were cruel to Molly and, therefore, she feels their accidents are fitting forms of punishment.
Themes
When Tilly arrives home, she finds the Dungatar Ladies Social Club in her garden. They try to flatter Tilly and compliment her plants. Tilly listens cynically as Elsbeth explains that they are putting on a play (Shakespeare’s Macbeth) and that they’d like Tilly to make the costumes. Gertrude shows Tilly what they would like, and Tilly remarks that these costumes are “Baroque.” In response, the women condescendingly ask if she has ever heard of Shakespeare. Tilly quotes the witches’ speech from Macbeth, but Muriel says that they have not read the play yet.
The women are hypocrites because they are only nice to Tilly when they want something from her; they’re cruel to her and treat her like an outcast the rest of the time. The women choose Macbeth because they want to show that they are worldly and cultured. However, their choice of costume instead reveals their ignorance because they are from the wrong time period—Shakespeare wrote during the 1500s, whereas the Baroque period was in the 1600s and 1700s. Tilly, who is genuinely cultured and worldly, knows the play and spots the women’s mistake. She does not point it out to them, however, because she wants them to make fools of themselves and showcase their true ignorance at the festival. It is fitting that Tilly quotes the witches’ speech, since Tilly is associated with witchcraft throughout the novel because she is an outsider in Dungatar. Like Tilly, witches were often persecuted in small, conservative places because they were seen as threats to mainstream power and conventional authority.
Themes
Elsbeth asks Tilly if she wants the job, and Tilly says that she will make the costumes if they pay her up front. Everyone owes her money for her previous work, and if she’s not paid she will make Winyerp or Itheca’s costumes instead. Gertrude demands that the treasurer, Muriel, ask Alvin for the money. Muriel snaps that the group also owes Alvin money and that no one has paid him for years. Elsbeth sighs and says that they will use the money that she was saving for William’s tractor. Gertrude suggests that William can play Macbeth, and the group sets off happily down the Hill.
The townspeople are hypocrites because they are happy to use Tilly’s services but give her nothing in return, and they treat her like an outcast when they feel she is of no use to them. It is appropriate that William should play Macbeth because just as Macbeth is manipulated and used by his wife, Lady Macbeth, William is used by Gertrude. Gertrude did not marry William because she loved him, but for the power and prestige that this marriage would bring her. In this sense, the fiction of the play reveals the truth about William and Gertrude’s situation.
Themes
That afternoon, Tilly picks marigolds, cuts the stems off, and boils them in a pan of water. She bottles the liquid after several hours and leaves her house to go to the “shires” offices.
Tilly is associated with growth and plant life throughout the novel, and this is often reflected in her use of plants to make medicine and herbal remedies. This reflects Tilly’s association with witchcraft and the idea that, through her use of alternative medicine, she can empower people and challenge mainstream authority.
Themes
