Analyse af Julia Darlings novelle 'The Dress'

The short story “The Dress”, written by Julia Darling shows the tense and strained relationship between two sisters and their relationship with their mother. The relationship collides with one of the sisters’ silk dress being stolen by the other. However, the interesting thing to notice is the development of this inexcusable action.

The story is told by an omniscient third person narrator, who is able to see the situation throughout all the characters’ point of view. This helps the reader to gain an insight into the involved person’s thoughts, considerations and their motives for their actions. The short story takes place on the upper class environment, which can be seen by the fact that they are able to afford expensive restaurant visits. The story starts in medias res. We are thrown into a scene in which a girl screams her sister’s name in anger, but the reason for her fury is yet unknown to the reader. The ending of the story is open, which leaves the reader to decide what is going to happen afterwards. In the text’s structure the uses of contrasts are highly emphasized. An indication of one of these contrasts is when Rachel’s rage is followed by an idyllically birthday morning: ”Rachel picked up the hanger and threw it into the floor. She wanted to hurt someone. At one end of the table was a neatly folded pile of used wrapping paper left over form that morning, when Flora and Rachel had sat watching their mother opening her gifts.” By putting positive pictures against negative they both become more effective and sharpen each other.