AN ANALYSIS OF VIRGINIA WOOLF’S THE NEW DRESS

THEME AND CONFLICT:

The central messages of the story are the following: inferiority and social-
classes. The story The New Dress is basically a story of conflict. From the beginning
of the story until the end, the main character struggled to resolve his inner conflicts.
Mabel never stopped criticizing and comparing herself with Rose Shaw, another
character in the story. She also pointed out that if it wasn’t for her social standing,
she wouldn’t have any problems fitting in the circle of upper class men and women.
The conflicts in the story are: Man vs. Himself (as Mabel fights with her inner
demons) and Man vs. Man (as she tries to fit in society).
PLOT STRUCTURE:
The story uses of Flashback. It started when Mabel reached the venue of the
party, then, she started antagonizing herself over her choice of dress style and
color after looking at herself in the mirror situated at the far end of the room. She
isolated herself. She was alone with her self-berating thoughts. The story continued
as she met the other people in the party whom she thought of as insincere with their
compliments about her. Mabel envisioned the other characters as “flies, trying to
crawl over the edge of the saucer”. She remembered how happy and comfortable
she felt at the dressmaker’s- how Miss Milan took care of her as she shared her
desired outcome for the dress. Mabel tortured herself about her unremarkable
family and upbringing, the idle married life that she has. The story ended as she
bid farewell to Mrs. Dalloway as she tried redeem her value, lied about her
enjoying the party, then Mrs. Barnet helped her with her twenty year old Chinese
cloak.

CHARACTERIZATION:
The main character of the story is Mabel waring. She is a flat character with
a static trait. In the story, she was portrayed as someone who has a very low self-
esteem and has inferiority complex. Throughout the story, she remained insecure
and hard on herself. Though there were times, especially during flashbacks, that she
felt good with herself. Also, before the story ended, as she envisioned a positive
Mabel but her desire was not sustained at the end.
Other characters who are also flat and static:
Mrs. Barnet is a maidservant in the Dalloway household.
Clarissa Dalloway is the hostess of the party that Mabel attends.
Rose Shaw is the epitome of fashion. She exudes confidence and class which,
clearly, Mabel lacks.
Robert Haydon is a guest in the party.
Charles Burt, also another guest of the party whom Mabel has quite a high opinion
of as understood by this line “one word of praise, one word of affection from Charles
would have made all the difference to her at the moment”. He is also a malicious man
who can see through everyone especially if one were feeling particularly mean,
paltry, or feeble-minded.
Mrs. Holman the only person who made conversation with Mabel. She is also an
attention-seeker as she purposely shared some of her misfortunes for others to pity
her.

POINT-OF-VIEW NARRATIVITY:
The author makes use of the third person point-of-view incorporating
stream of consciousness. Another person is narrating the story in a way that
he/she knows the emotional consciousness of the main character, Mabel but not with
the other characters.

STYLE, SYMBOL AND DICTION:

The author of the story uses the stream-of-consciousness narrative. The
story progresses from Mabel’s thoughts. There are a lot of commas used in the story.
There are also multiple verbs used just to describe one thing which help in giving
emphasis and image to the story. The sentences are written in a way that suggests
that the story is made from the thoughts of the main character.
These are the symbols used in the story:
Yellow dress- yellow is a color that positively signifies light, warmth and optimism
however it also negatively connotes cowardice and jealousy.
Mirror – this object symbolizes “reflection” of Mabel’s inner emotion.
Fly – a metaphor of how Mabel sees herself- isolated and estranged, as the only
one left in the saucer.
Butterflies and dragonflies – a metaphor used for the other high-classed guests of
the party.
Party- symbolizes the “society”.