“The Garment” is a short-story by Bell Kaufman. The story introduces us, in a in medias res style, to a rather unstable family. The story is filled with adjectives and detailed descriptions of the environment – e.g. “Rachel walked back into the blue kitchen, with its neat bowl of shining apples on the long table and the purring fridge”. It also uses symbols and metaphors – e.g. “The silence held its breath” and “… But felt glued to her two silent daughters.”
This makes it a lot easier for the readers to focus on the complicated and poisonous relationship that is between the sisters Rachel and Flora. At the first thought, it may seem silly to get frustrated because someone stole a dress from you, as Flora does with Rachel’s beloved green silk dress. But if we think about it for a second – we actually put a lot of perhaps unnecessary feelings into materialistic things; such as a piece of clothing. It makes us feel pretty, secure, good looking, confident or maybe sexual. In Flora’s case, I personally believe that it’s a mix between her actual thoughts about the dress, as much as the fact that she’s wearing something that belongs to her sister. A person she probably looks up to, and tries to copy; and what better method of copying somebody, than taking their clothing. But this seemingly innocent reason for Flora’s behavior doesn’t calm Rachel nor make her forgive her for what she’s done, and if you look at the incident from Rachel’s side, this might not be so far from our own behavior as well. Because since she still lives home, I would assume that Rachel is a teenager. In this age, we try to find our identity, and we want to feel special – stand out. So when somebody puts on the same dress as you, or has the same hair, or listens to the same band – it takes away our feeling of being special.
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