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
In Pratt’s, Reginald Blood serves Faith O’Brien at the meat counter. Faith flirts with the butcher and she can barely breathe when he teases her. William Beaumont enters and asks Gertrude where Alvin is. Gertrude introduces herself brightly to William, but he wanders off before she can finish. Gertrude watches William approach Alvin and ask to buy some gardening equipment, but Alvin explains that Elsbeth Beaumont has many outstanding debts. William seems stunned and he leaves the shop, ignoring Gertrude’s attempts to flirt with him. As Gertrude watches William leave, Muriel informs her that there is a dance on Saturday night.
Faith and Reginald are having an affair—something most of the townspeople know about. This suggests that the Dungatar residents are hypocritical because they will harshly judge outsiders, like Molly, for similar behavior (Molly had an illegitimate child—Tilly—when she was not married) but will make allowances for people they consider insiders, like Faith and Reginald. Meanwhile, Elsbeth tries to disguise her poverty by running up debts so that she can maintain an appearance of wealth. Her public appearance is not based in reality, and Alvin makes that known to William here, which suggests that the truth usually comes out in the end.
Themes
Tilly tries to visit the school library, but it is closed. She sits by the river instead, and she remembers her own school days in Dungatar. She recalls being on “ink well duty” and that Stewart Pettyman used to bang the drum when they marched into class. One day, when Tilly was pouring ink into pots for the students, Stewart shoved the desk so that she spilled ink on him. Prudence Dimm, the teacher, made Tilly sit outside all morning as punishment.
Tilly’s memories of the past are jumbled and vague, which implies that they may not be reliable. Prudence Dimm chooses to punish Tilly instead of Stewart because Tilly is a social outcast and, therefore, an easy target with no one to defend her. This suggests that while people who are considered insiders in the community can get away with bad or immoral behavior, those without friends in the town are unfairly punished even when they are victims of persecution.
Themes
After school, Stewart and the other boys chased Tilly and attacked her. Stewart headbutted her in the stomach and the boys pulled down her pants and sexually assaulted her. The girls laughed and joked that Tilly was a “bastard.”
Tilly is rejected and picked on by the other children because she is a “bastard,” or an illegitimate child (her parents were not married when she was born). This suggests that Dungatar is an extremely intolerant place and that anyone who steps outside of conventional and conservative morality will not be accepted. During the 1950s, it was considered immoral for unmarried women to have sex. Therefore, Molly (Tilly’s mother) is judged by the townspeople and Tilly is picked on by their children, who imitate their parent’s intolerance.
Themes
In the present, Marigold Pettyman, Evan Pettyman’s wife, waits anxiously for her husband to get home from work and takes several pills to calm her nerves. She is a panicky woman who keeps her house fastidiously clean. When Evan arrives home, Marigold shrieks at him to take off his shoes. Evan Pettyman is the town councilor. Women try to avoid him because he fondles and gropes them. No one says anything, however, because his son, Stewart, died and because Evan gets things done on the council. Evan also knows how everyone in Dungatar earns a living.
Advances in modern medicine in the 1950s meant that ordinary people had newfound access to a wide range of drugs to treat everyday ailments, such as Marigold’s anxiety. Evan is a powerful man in Dungatar because people are afraid of him. It is implied that he knows people’s secrets—Ham insinuates that many of the Dungatar residents are involved in illegal activities and that Evan ignores this—if he wanted to, he could use his position as a councilor to punish and ostracize people for their secrets. Evan also abuses this power over women, who are afraid to speak out against him because of his powerful position in the community.
Themes
Get the entire The Dressmaker LitChart as a printable PDF.
Marigold was very young and shy when she married Evan and she’d just inherited a large sum of money from her father. Throughout their marriage, however, she grew anxious and neurotic—and Stewart’s death affected her badly. Evan puts on the pajamas Marigold cleaned for him and he eats his dinner in the kitchen. Marigold lays out newspaper so that Evan won’t spill crumbs, and she asks him to remove all the doorknobs in the house so that she can clean them.
It is hinted that Evan married Marigold for her money and that this money has helped him attain his powerful position in Dungatar. Marigold is traumatized by the memory of Stewart’s death, and this past event has a far-reaching impact on her life and is partially responsible for the neuroses she develops.
Themes
Evan complains that he is too busy to help Marigold with housework and he tries to give her a spoonful of her nightly “tonic.” Marigold refuses to open her mouth, so Evan says he will take off the doorknobs. Marigold swallows her medicine and laments that it’s been 20 years since Stewart died. Evan helps Marigold to bed and, when she is asleep, he spreads her legs and sexually assaults her. The next day, Marigold cleans all the door fixtures.
Evan uses medicine to subdue and control Marigold. Although she eventually takes the medicine willingly, Evan pressures her into it and then takes advantage of her once she is asleep. This suggests that Evan abuses his power over Marigold—rather than try to help her, he uses medicine against her to make her submissive and to get his own way. Like Dr. Almanac’s withholding of medication from his wife, this suggests that medicine can be used to harm people instead of to help them.
Themes
