The New Dress | What Is to Console Us? The Politics of Deception in Woolf’s Short Stories
In the following excerpt, Meyerowitz provides a
thematic interpretation of ‘‘The New Dress’’ that
focuses on the self-consciousness of the central
character, Mabel Waring.
Social and class discrimination . . . destroy emotional fulfilment in ‘‘The New Dress,’’ as seen in the character of Mabel Waring. Mabel is of the lower class, part of a family of ten ‘never having money enough, always skimping and paring.’ At Mrs. Dalloway’s party, she thinks of ‘her own drawing-room so shabby’ and of her inability to dress fashionably because it is too costly. Mabel’s anxiety about her appearance, her manners, and her values is provoked by her encounter with the society world of the Dalloways; however, her insecurity is more pervasive: ‘At once...
[The entire page is 600 words long]
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