- The mother is as mentioned above working as a bereavement counsellor. Therefore spends her days with tearful needy people. But she tells her daughters, that she would like to get a different job, for example something with jewellery. Where she can sit alone, and work with her jewellery. She works with people and their problems all day, and she is just fed up!
In the beginning she seems quite calm and relaxed, because she does not want any problems. She just wants a nice dinner, with her daughters. But she could not get that, not even for one night. It is quite odd, that the mother does not solve the problem. She is used to doing that at work, it is her profession anyway. But she just watches by passively. Which is mentioned in the quote: “She felt sorry for herself.. It was her birthday, and she wanted to relax. She wanted to feel loved” [1]
The mother has some psychological disturbances, which we can see above. She only wanted to feel loved. Therefore we can conclude, that she does not feel loved by her family. That she is quite lonely, and feels that she is difficult to love.
The mother is in the begging quite passive in the fight between the sisters, and she tries to keep calm. But she gradually becomes more and more upset and hurt. It’s like she is a bomb just waiting to explode. And in the end we can really see, that see has got some serious problems. She completely freaks out, and gets a panic attack. She ends up with just staring into the empty air. She might be regretting it all, or just reflecting over her sad empty life.
- The relationship between Flora and Rachel, is judging by Rachel’s point of view not very good. It seems if though, the relationship between the sisters is messed up. Rachel usually locks up her things, so that Flora does not take them. So it does not feel like; there is a lot of trust in their relationship. Also Flora says: “The dress made her feel taller, braver, cleverer, and Rachel was all those things already” [2]. This shows us, that Flora is very jealous of Rachel, and she thinks very highly of her. That causes a lot of problems between them, because it is a constantly competition.
The two girls are also very different from each other. Flora is the “black sheep” in the family. She swears under the dinner conversation, she smokes (empty cigarette packets), her room was not tidied up, and she was late for the dinner. She is also dating an older Italian guy, and finally she stole her sister’s dress. And on the other hand Rachel is as Flora sees her; taller, braver and cleverer. For example Rachel followed her mother to her birthday dinner, she did not swear, even when she got upset. The ironic part is that Rachel chooses to leave, but her mother kicks out Flora.
- The main symbol in the story is of course the dress. Flora steals it, ruins it and buries it. She has done the same thing, against her family and sister in a symbolic way. She ruined the relationship by stealing the dress, and she buried the dress in the garden, like she buried her sister’s love and forgiveness. She wanted to be just like Rachel, popular and appreciated. But she ended up, being thrown out of her own home, and losing the respect of her family.
- The text is not chronically build up. But it starts “in medias res”, directly into the plot, without an introduction. There are in total two flashbacks, and there are no flash-forwards. It starts of by being an all-knowing point of view, and it later switches from Rachel, Flora and to the mothers point of view. So we get to know, how all the women feel, under the whole text. It gives the reader a better understanding, because the readers can see their private thoughts, and therefore understand them better.
- The themes in the text are family complications, and jealousy. The whole text revolves around the difficult relationship, between the two sisters, because of Flora’s jealousy issues. And the friction between them ruins the whole family. It causes the older sister, to move in with their father. This makes the mother feel completely alone, and she is left with her troubled daughter Flora. Not with her clever and responsible favourite daughter Rachel. It must also be hard for the mother, to see her daughter move in with her father. Assuming that the father left their mother. Either that, or they got a unanimous divorce. Since it’s their father, but he does not live with them anymore.
To finish it all off, it shows that in divided families, there are quite often a lot of problems, with abandonment and loneliness. This is a bad example of how communication or more the lack of it has ruined an entire family.
[1] P. 10, L. 96-97
[2] P. 9, L. 36-37
