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
The morning of the Eisteddfod arrives, and the cast prepares nervously to leave on Bobby Pickett’s bus. They wait in the hall, and Tilly watches from the Hill as the bus pulls up. Gertrude, who has gone mad, flies off the bus and begins hammering on the hall doors. The cast cowers inside and they bar the door with furniture. Bobby shuts the bus doors, and Gertrude throws herself on the bonnet and begins to beat the window-screen and howl that they cannot fire her.
Gertrude is a power-hungry and ambitious woman. However, once she gets power (as the director of the Dungatar play) she abuses it, and gradually drives herself mad, because she holds others to such impossibly high standards. This suggests that when people alienate and abuse others, they often end up hurting themselves.
Themes
From the hall window, William waves to the doctor, who is in the hotel across the street. The doctor hurries down and injects Gertrude with a sedative. She falls to the ground, and the cast clambers onto the bus. Mona takes over as director and announces that Sergeant Farrat has not arrived. Bobby says that Sergeant Farrat will meet them at the station and he goes to start the bus, but the engine dies, so everyone climbs off the bus again.
William and the doctor use medicine to silence Gertrude and to stop her violent outburst. This shows that when modern medicine is used appropriately, it is powerful and can stop people from hurting others and themselves.
Themes
Tilly’s house is covered in scraps of fabric and half-finished garments. She has stuffed strips of fabric into every nook and cranny of the house and piled it up beneath the roof. She looks at herself in the mirror and notes that she looks tired and lean. She picks up a can of petrol at her feet and begins to pour it over everything.
Tilly has transformed the house into a large workspace for herself. Once she finishes her project, she begins to transform the house once more and turn it into something that will burn easily. Although Tilly is associated with creative energy throughout the novel, her grief over her recent losses drive Tilly to the opposite extreme. Now, she’s become destructive and she decides to take revenge on the townspeople for cruelly ostracizing her and her loved ones, as this ostracization indirectly led to their deaths.
Themes
At the police station, Sergeant Farrat practices his lines and Frank puts the finishing touches to his outfits. The bus, pushed by the Dungatar cast, rumbles up outside, and Sergeant Farrat says that he will follow them in the police car. Bobby gets the bus going again, and Frank gets on. Sergeant Farrat watches it chug away and he looks up at the Hill. Smoke billows from Tilly’s chimney.
Sergeant Farrat is different from the townspeople, although he is accepted by them, because his friendship with Tilly has helped him learn to love and accept himself—something that the judgmental Dungatar residents do not encourage. This is symbolized by the fact that the townspeople all go on the bus together—they are a homogenous group—whereas Sergeant Farrat goes in the other direction and tries to save Tilly when he sees her house is on fire.
Themes
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Tilly marches through the town, untying animals and slapping their behinds to make them run away. Sergeant Farrat hunts for his car keys, but he can’t find them. He notices the smoke cloud from Tilly’s growing larger. Sergeant Farrat realizes that Tilly’s house is on fire, and he sprints up the Hill toward it. He collapses, exhausted, at the top, and sees that Tilly’s house is ablaze. He is too tired to reach the tap, but Tilly has switched off the water anyway.
Tilly sets the town on fire to take revenge on the townspeople, who have ostracized her and who indirectly contributed to the deaths of her mother, Molly, and her lover, Teddy. She does not want to hurt the animals, however, because they have done nothing wrong, whereas she feels that the townspeople deserve to lose their homes.
Themes
The Dungatar cast arrives very late and misses the first play. They wait outside during the second one, and their makeup begins to melt in the heat. They grow irritable and start to bicker. When they are due to go on, they realize that Sergeant Farrat is still not there. Mona says that Lesley can play Banquo. The others protest that he does not know the script, but Mona says that Lesley is a born actor and he’ll be fine.
Although Dungatar is a close-knit community, the residents do not genuinely like one another—instead, they gossip and slander each other in private. The true nature of their relationships is revealed as they bicker outside the hall, as this shows that although they value conformity, they are not united.
Themes
The play begins, and when it comes to Mona’s Lady Macbeth soliloquy, she masturbates on onstage. The audience shuffles uncomfortably and they don’t return after the break. When the actors appear onstage to continue, the judges tell them that they don’t wish to see anymore.
The Dungatar residents organized the play so that they could show off how refined and cultured they are. However, according to the conservative behavioral standards of the 1950s (when the story is set), they are not refined at all and do not know how to conduct themselves respectably. Ironically, Mona’s behavior is in line with more modern interpretations of this scene in the play and reflects how the scene was originally meant to be played. Although the conservative audience think that they are honest and respectable, really, their honesty is based around a provincial and old-fashioned type of morality which views female sexuality as shameful. Inadvertently, Mona has been too honest in her performance as Lady Macbeth and has made the audience uncomfortable. This shows that although conservative morality may claim to value honesty, those who abide by these beliefs do not want to be confronted with anything which feels unfamiliar or uncomfortable.
Themes
