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 arrives unexpectedly at Tilly’s house with armfuls of dresses and fabrics. These are his clothes, and he wants to hide them at Tilly’s because a district Inspector has been sent to stay with him—Sergeant Farrat does not want the Inspector to think he is gay. The Inspector will investigate Evan Pettyman’s murder and the string of recent accidents in town. Tilly says that she would like to meet the Inspector to see if he is clever.
Sergeant Farrat is a crossdresser—something that was considered unacceptable by the intolerant and conservative moral standards of the 1950s, when the novel is set. Although, through his genuine friendship with Tilly, Sergeant Farrat has learned not to care what the Dungatar townspeople think about him, homosexuality was illegal in the 1950s and so Farrat may face extremely severe consequences if it is widely believed that he is gay.
Themes
Tilly dozes off in her chair; she dreams of feeding Pablo and of Molly when Tilly was a young child. She dreams about Teddy and their night together, but suddenly the dream changes and the townspeople are lurching up the Hill toward her, armed with weapons. Tilly steps out onto the porch and faces them with a smile. The townspeople turn and flee.
Tilly is haunted by her past because she has lost people and because she knows that the townspeople will not let her forget her past, which they punish and persecute her for. Tilly is afraid that the townspeople will use her past as an excuse to take their own pain and frustration out on her.
Themes
Meanwhile, Sergeant Farrat finds the district Inspector, who is named Frank, to be a very messy and uncouth man: he farts a lot, eats with his mouth open, and does not wash his clothes much. Sergeant Farrat misses his neat, peaceful life alone and he hopes the Inspector will not stay long. One night, Sergeant Farrat takes Frank for dinner at Tilly’s and Frank is extremely taken with Tilly, who wears a very low-cut dress. Tilly cooks for the men and offers them excellent cigars. They drink wine and dance around her table after supper.
Sergeant Farrat cannot reveal his true personality or interest in fashion to Frank because fashion was considered effeminate according to the strict gender norms of the 1950s. Therefore, Sergeant Farrat has to disguise his true behavior from Frank because he is afraid that, if Frank found out about his cross-dressing, he would judge Sergeant Farrat and possibly believe that Sergeant Farrat is gay, which was a crime in 1950s Australia.
Themes
When Sergeant Farrat and Frank leave, Tilly piles up all her fabrics and sewing materials and covers them with a sheet. Next, she takes a sledgehammer and smashes in the walls of the house so that she is just left with one long workroom. There are drawings of Baroque costume designs pinned to all the walls, and Tilly begins her work.
Tilly, who once transformed Molly’s house for the better and made it a pleasant place to live, now transforms the house again when she destroys it. Before, the house represented Tilly’s hopes for her new life in Dungatar. However, the spiteful townspeople and Tilly’s own grief over Molly and Teddy’s deaths, dash these hopes and show Tilly that the Dungatar townspeople are incapable of changing or becoming more accepting of outsiders. Tilly still plans to make the Baroque costumes for the townspeople’s version of Macbeth because she knows that these costumes are from the wrong time period (Shakespeare wrote in the 1500s whereas the Baroque period was in the 1600s and 1700s). She wants the townspeople to make fools of themselves and show off their ignorance publicly at the performance.
Themes
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