...The Dress by Julia Darling What does it take for a family to get separated? Can this just happen over night or in a matter of a couple of hours? Has the society changed and is it easier to simply just separate? A lot of families get torn apart nowadays and there are several causes for all of this. In the short story “The Dress” written by Julia Darling from 2006, we are introduced to two girls who are slowly tearing their own family apart in a special way. The mother of the two kids, Flora and Rachel, is a very sweet and caring person. She wants to do everything for her kids, but they aren’t always going to obey what she says. The mother, as mentioned in the text, is forty years old – actually, the story takes place as she is celebrating her fortieth birthday. She cares a lot for her two teenage girls – or as she would probably say; her angels in disguise. It’s clear, even to the oblivious eye, that she is what ties this family together. Without a mother figure like her that can take care of them, Flora and Rachel wouldn’t get along at all. The mother tries to be a strong person because she is alone after she divorced her husband, but she is not unbreakable as we see at the end of the story. The mother wants her kids to get along, but when this isn’t even possible, she almost breaks into tears. Even though the mother tries to make the two sisters get along, it’s not working. They are so indifferent, that you would hardly be able to tell if they were in family or not...
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...English assignment 12 Analysis and interpretation of “The Dress” by Julia Darling “The Dress” is a short story written in 2006 by Julia Darling. The story describes how the strained relationship between the two sisters Rachel and Flora and their mother’s lack of ability to deal with emotions outside her working hours combined with a conflict concerning the loan of a dress become the factors that lead to the end of their life together as a family. The plot unfolds on the mother’s fortieth birthday and spans less than a day, as we enter the story in medias res, when Rachel is standing in the hallway screaming for her sister after having realized that she has taken her dress. From here the story progresses chronologically until the point when Flora admits having borrowed and ruined the dress, an episode the author has chosen to describe using flashbacks. The story is told in an omniscient third person narrator, however the point of view switches between the three characters –for example is focus in the beginning of the text on Rachel and her anger when she finds out about her missing dress, then switches to Flora and how she feels wearing the dress, and then in the restaurant focus is on the mother and her discomfort being caught in the middle of the conflict between her daughters. This way the reader gets a more nuanced view of why what might seem to be a rather common conflict between sisters escalates and ends the way it does. A part of the explanation to this question...
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...Essay - ‘The dress’: Misunderstandings, crisis and conflicts sometimes occur to families. There are many reasons why these things happen. An example could be if the common communication had been suffering severe damage after a parent’s divorce. These families with divorced parents and children living with one parent have become a more and more common scenario nowadays. The short story “The dress” tells the story of a family with divorced parents and where the two daughters are living with their mother. The relationship between the two sisters Rachel and Flora is clearly not good, and the relationship to their mother is not good either. The plot is that Flora steals one of Rachel’s dresses. This action creates a major conflict between Rachel and Flora, and later on it has fatal consequences to the relationship to their mother too. Already from the start the widened gap between Rachel and Flora is described. Rachel is quite sure that Flora has taken her dress. She is walking round in the house looking for the dress and it is pretty obvious what she feels about her sister. “She stared at the place where she had left the dress, ironed and ready to wear that night for their mother’s birthday. The hanger was still there, thin and wretched, but the dress had gone, and the room smelled of Flora”. (p.1.l.14-16) “Rachel picked up the hanger and threw it onto the floor. She wanted to hurt someone.”(p.1.l.19) Rachel is clearly not happy about her sister at this point, and is not going...
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...The Dress This story describes many problems. One of them deals with the two sisters who don’t get along. Because their mother can’t help them, they face many problems. This is one of the main themes in the short story “The Dress” by Julia Darling. The mother works as a bereavement counselor. She deals with sad and emotional people every day at the job. When she is home, she just wants to relax and forget about the pain that other people experiences. She is divorced and turns forty during the story. When her daughters start arguing under the fortieth-birthday dinner at the fancy restaurant, she starts acting professional, as if she was at work. She wants to relax and have a good time with her daughters, but their bickering doesn’t allow her to. (p. 10 l. 119-120) “The loud people on the table behind them started to sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR LARRY! It made the mother feel belittled”. There’s another birthday party going on at the same restaurant. When the mother hears them sing, she wishes that she was a part of that “normal” party. But she can’t, all because of the relationship between the two daughters, Flora and Rachel. The relationship between Rachel and Flora is marked by jealousy and envy. (P.9 l.36-37) “It (the dress) made her feel taller, braver, cleverer, and Rachel was all those things already”. Rachel is tidy and she is on time at appointment. She is the perfect daughter that the mother wants. Flora, in contrast, is a mess and she is late, even at her mother’s...
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...The Dress ”The Dress” By Julia Darling is a short story about the deterioration relationship between particularly the two sisters Flora and Rachel but also their relationship to their mother. A certain dress is a pivotal point of the disputes that ends up having serious consequences. The mother of the two mature sisters is forty years old, and it is her birthday. Already on the first page, where Rachel finds out that Flora has taken her dress, the reader gets the impression that the mother is less capable of handling conflicts domestically than on her job. The mother is bereavement counselor, and it is suggested numerous times that she needs to distance herself from her job when she’s at home. She has difficulties dealing with the constant intrigues between her daughters. She tends to take Rachel’s advantage, because she’s the tidy and conscientious one while flora is a mess and desperately trying to get her mother’s attention. (…)It made her feel taller, braver, cleverer, and Rachel was all those things already(…)The mother neglects her children and is not willing to deal with their problems. This obviously had an effect on the two sisters and in particular on Flora. The mother deals with her client’s problems and issues professionally and therefore she has a great need of a safe and loving environment, when she’s of work. She needs to outdistance the client’s problems and deal with her own problems instead. The children’s perpetual fights are too much for her to dealing...
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...The Dress A dress is made of pieces of fabric, it is a thing you can hold and wear. You wouldn’t think a piece of fabric could tear a family apart. This short story by Julia Darling, is about jealousy, lack of communication and troubles between a single mother and her daughters. Some siblings solve their problems easily and get along very well, while others find it hard to believe that they share the same genes. The story tells about the relationship between a single mother, and her two daughters, Flora and Rachel. The mother of the two sisters, Flora and Rachel, has no name and is throughout the story only referred to as ‘mother’. She is divorced to the father of her daughters, therefore she is a single mother. She is forty years old and works as a successful bereavement counselor, who helps other people out every day. With all of that said it still seems like she is going through a rough time in her life. She seems to be hitting midlife crisis. She is unable to solve her daughter’s conflicts, you would expect a bereavement counselor to at least try to solve the problems of her own daughters but she keeps avoiding confrontations, which is quite ironic due to her profession. ““Flora!” whispered the mother, who wanted life to be calm, a flat sea with no sudden breezes. She liked emotions to be explored in safe rooms, with a clock.” (p. 3, l. 103-104) this refers to her job where the clock tells her when to end the emotional conversations with her clients. The mother spends all...
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...The dress The dress is a short story by Julia darling. The novel follows the story of Rachel, Flora adn their mother. We get to know the bond between both sisters and their mother. We get to know the different point of views in this short story. The family consists of 3 people, the mother, Rachel and Flora. The father is distant, and is refered to at the end of the story. It all started when Flora decided to take the dress Rachel was going to wear at their mother's birthday. Rachel already knew who the culprit was, but could not get to Flora. Rachel is now lived, and decides that it's no use to go after the same dress, so she decides to choose another. Meanwhile Flora was having fun, and enjoying her newly possesed confidence. While Rachel was fuming and Flora was creating a mood of warmth with the dress, the mother was all sad. As a bereavement counselor, she had to deal with sadness. So moving on, the family goes to a expensive restaurant, where the 40'th birthday of the mother is celebrated. The atmosphere at the restaurant was very cosy, but the mother and her daughters, wasn't enjoying that much because of the little fire between the girls. So when they headed home, The mother plopped herself on the sofa, while Rachel went upstairs to get her belongings. When she returned with her suitcases, she told her mother about the dress, and left with the father. Flora couldn't explain herself properly, and the mother was so upset with her, that she told Flora to leave. The...
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...The Dress The short story “The Dress”, written by Julia Darling in 2006, is about two sisters and the mother. The story takes place on the mother’s birthday. The main conflict is a missing silk dress of one of two sisters, and this conflict ends up coursing great damage on the structure of the family. The main characters are the two sisters Rachel and Flora, and their mother. The story takes place in a wealthy district with expensive restaurants. The sisters have very different personalities; Rachel is the neat and clever one. You can tell by the things she notices and how she describes them. For example :”… disoriented heaps of crumbled cloths…” and “Rachel wrenched the half-closed curtain back, so that the room was suddenly filled with floating specks of glistening dust.”. Flora is just the exact opposite. She is messy, jealous and childish to some degree. The story follows the storyline chronologically. The story starts with Rachel looking for her dress which has been stolen from her by her sister Flora. The story then continues in the restaurant where they are planning to celebrate their mothers’ birthday. There is a strong tension between the two sisters, which the mother immediately picks up on as they are sitting at the table. The tension continues when they come home, but evolves into a huge fight, under which they discovered that Flora had ruined the dress by burying it in the garden. The ending is very open, and makes us wonder how this problem will be solved,...
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...The Dress The Dress” is a short story written by Julia Darling. It is about a conflict between the two sisters Rachel and Flora. Flora steals Rachel’s dress, before the mothers birthday dinner. She intends to give it back, but she accidentally ruins it. She cannot return the dress, because she has buried it in the garden. This makes Rachel so mad, that she leaves to stay at her dad’s instead. The mother then kicks Flora out too, as a consequence of her acts. The mother is divorced from her previous husband, who we do not hear about. She works as a bereavement counsellor, and is probably rather successful, since she can afford drinking cocktails and visiting expensive restaurants. She considers leaving her job to work with jewellery instead. She explains, that she is sad with being a counsellor. When it appears that the sisters have an argument, she gets mad, because it reminds her of her job. She does not want to deal with more troubles, not even from her daughters, whom she feels should at least pretend to get along on her birthday It does not seem like she is good at her job, since she do not even want to make an effort with the problems at her own home. She is tired of the intrigues between the sisters. Rachel has the same mind as her mother and therefore the mother tends to take her side, which is the easiest thing. The mother acts out of self-interest and does not confront the problems at her home, because she wants to relax. The two sisters have a tense relationship...
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...The Dress Julia Darling writes “The Dress”, it’s a short story; there start in a media res. Where Rachel shouts out her sisters name Flora several times. The theme in the text, is particular the relationship between the 2 sisters, Flora and Rachel, but also their relationship to their mother. A certain dress is the essential point of the dispute that ends up having big consequences for the family. In the following pages I would like to give a characterization of the mother and the relationship the two sisters Flora and Rachel. I will also talk about how the text is structured, and if it contains some kind of symbolism. And in the end come up with a conclusion of the whole text. The mother of the two children is turning forty; on the day the story is tolled. Rachel has bought a dress that she would where the same night, as they will go out celebrate their mother. But Flora borrows the dress, without permission, and it’s here all the drama starts. The mother works as a bereavement counselor. The reader gets the impression that the mother is less capable of handling the conflict between her own daughters than her clients. “… And Rachel knew that she would have to be pleasant, to forget about her stolen dress, wear something else, and smile […] for a moment Rachel imagined her sitting opposite a distraught client in a cream-couloured room, pushing a box of pink tissues across a coffee table.” The mother needs distance from her job when she is of clock. She...
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...The Dress Analysis (New introduction) The short story “The Dress” is about one day in a family with issues. We hear about how it goes if you don’t talk about the issues and try to solve them. Because if there are roblems in a family, you shouldn’t just give up because it’s a bit hard. A family is a place where you should feel loved, wanted and respected. The short story by Julia Darling called “The Dress” written in 2006. The story is about the two sisters Rachel and Flora. Rachel has bought a light green dress to wear at the dinner they are going to with their mother to celebrate her fortieth birthday. But when Flora found the dress lying in the kitchen, she takes it because she felt that it was meant for her. She destroys the dress, and it creates a tension between the two girl at the dinner. At home the tension develops when Flora admits taken, destroying and burying the dress. The fight leads to Rachel going to their father’s house and Flora leaving, which leaves the mother alone. We hear about four characters in the short story Rachel, Flora, the mother and Floras friend Alberto. We don’t hear who’s the elder and who’s the younger sister. The mother is a forty year old bereavement counsellor. She’s thinking about quitting her job, and start making jewellery instead. She seems indecisive, she doesn’t do what she wants to do - throughout the story we hear about what she wants, but she doesn’t do anything to get it. She also seems rather childish judged...
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...‘’The Dress’’ Julia Darling ’’The Dress’’ is a short story about a single mother who lives with her two teenage daughters, Rachel and Flora. In the story we hear about their daily life with fights between Rachel and Flora, how the mother feel and how she reacts to these fights. It seems like the family lives in a rich and wealthy place, because of the expensive restaurant and the Café Malata where Flora is drinking some cocktails with Alberto. The mother in the story is divorced from her daughters’ father, and it didn’t seem that she since divorce has had strength to find a new man. She is forty and works as a bereavement counselor, where she is helping people with their troubles. Her relationship to her teenage daughters is not very well. The daughters have often fights and as their mother she always has to interfere to get her daughters apart. At her work she always meet people with sadness, who she has to help, and then when she come home she want to have a break and relax, but it is not the case, because of her daughters fight: ‘’I’m forty, the mother said. She felt sorry for herself. All day she had sat with tearful needy people. It was her birthday, and she wanted to relax. She wanted to feel loved’’, (page. 10 line. 18-19). At the restaurant she is talking about to leave her job and instead make something with jewellery, because she does not want to live the rest of her life...
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...Assignment 12 ”The Dress” by Julia Darling is a short story about jealousy and the troubles of single mothers with careers. It tells about the relationship between the two sisters, Rachel and Flora. It is a tense relationship, which finally breaks on their mother's fortieth birthday when Flora has stolen and ruined Rachel's dress. Rachel, unable to handle her sister anymore, goes to live with their father instead. Some time after the mother kicks Flora out of the house. The mother in the story is a forty-year-old bereavement counsellor. She lives alone with her two daughters. We know that she is divorced, because the girls' father does not live with them but is not dead either. When Rachel and Flora start fighting, the mother is unable to solve their conflict, despite the fact that her job consists of helping people. ""Flora!" whispered the mother, who wanted life to be calm, a flat sea with no sudden breezes. She liked emotions to be explored in safe rooms, with a clock." (Page 3, line 103-104) The mother spends all day taking care of people whose lives are falling apart and wants to go home to a calm and relaxing life. She wants to stop focusing on others' problems and instead have people focus on her and make her feel loved. She does not want to have to deal with more troubles, not even from her daughters, whom she feels should at least pretend to get along on her birthday. When attempting to solve their problems, she would refer to deal with it the same way she deals...
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...The Dress The author of this short story is Julia Darling, and it was published in 2006. The Dress is about a strained relationship between the two sisters Flora and Rachel, and their relationship to their mother, who cannot handle the two sisters as good, as she can handle her job as bereavement counselor. The background to the conflict starts is a stolen silk dress, and escalates on the restaurant, where they are celebrating the mother’s birthday. This ends in serious consequences. Rachel goes to live with her father and Flora gets kicked out of the house by her mother. The main theme of the short story is family relationships with the sub-themes of jealousy and troubles of being single parent. The narrator changes between a 3rd person narrator and 1st person narrator, but mostly it is a 3rd narrator with an omniscient view, because the omniscient narrator is “zoomed” in on the persons. The narrator knows everything, and the reader knows how the girls think about each other for instance “It made her feel, taller, braver, cleverer, and Rachel was all those things already.” (Lines 36-37), which indicate that Flora, perhaps, is a little jealous of her sister. The story starts out with that the reader hears that Rachel stands in a dark hallway in the house, which gives the in Medias res effect, where the reader dumps straight down in the story. The story’s time is chronological as it lasts from morning to evening, but the structure of the story is not chronological, because...
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...“What is a disordered family? The short story, “The dress” of Julia Darling 2006, illustrates exactly that. It tells the story of the relationship between two sisters and their mother, and the consequences of their poor communication skills and repressed frustrations. In the following analysis and interpretation, I will unravel the tangled threads of the complicated affair, by giving a characterization of the mother and revealing the relationship between the sisters. In addition to this, I will touch on the symbolism, structure and the themes of the short story. The plot begins at home, when Rachel discovers that her sister has stolen her new silk dress. For the evening the family have planned to eat at a modern restaurant, and for the occasion Rachel, the older sister, has bought a beautiful perfect blue silk dress. Flora finds the dress, when she is home alone and finds it impossible to resist the urge to try it on. Suddenly she finds herself strolling down the street, feeling elite and confident all because of the dress; qualities she sees in her sister, but fails to see in herself. By accident she ruins the dress, and in desperation and fear she buries it outside the house in the garden. When they later meet up at the restaurant, Rachel is furious with her sister making an uncomfortable mood at the table. The mother, as the bereavement counselor and low self-confidence woman she is, tries to avoid the fight by babbling on about unimportant stuff like, what is on the...
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