Essay "The Dress"
Essay
When should you forgive, and when should you not forgive? This question seems to be one, that the main characters of Julia Darling's short story ”The Dress” should be asking themselves more often. They don't seem to be able to forgive each other. In the text we read about a little problematic family. It is the day of the mother's 40th birthday, and the mother seems to be at a bad stage of her life. Her black hair is starting to turn grey, and she is a single person. Maybe the father of her children left her recently. She is a bereavement counsellor so she sees a lot of tearful and needy people. When she is finished from work, she wants to be the loved person, and in fact she can't go on with the job. She is considering to quit it and start making jewellery instead. She wants her birthday dinner to be quiet and neat and not with big emotinal showings, and she wants her two daughters Flora and Rachel to get on more well, since they are not getting on well at all. Rachel and Flora are sisters and it would seem that Rachel is the oldest of the two. She is tall, brave and clever, and Flora is jealous at her for being that. It seems that Flora is always trying to be better than Rachel in any way, but without succes. Flora and Rachel does not get on well. Communication between them is always in an angry tone of voice (barbed and dangerous). Flora has got an extreem need of being superior to her sister, and as a result of this, Rachel always keeps her stuff locked up. Generally Rachel hates Flora especially after Flora has taken Rachel's dress. The story starts in medias res. The events in it are almost represented in a chronological order, but there are flashbacks. Furthermore you could say, that this story is written opposite the cosmos-chaos-cosmos-model. At first we read about Rachel screaming and she has got a huge problem with the fact, that her sister has taken her dress. Later on we read about the crime itself and then the dinner and at last the fatal
When should you forgive, and when should you not forgive? This question seems to be one, that the main characters of Julia Darling's short story ”The Dress” should be asking themselves more often. They don't seem to be able to forgive each other. In the text we read about a little problematic family. It is the day of the mother's 40th birthday, and the mother seems to be at a bad stage of her life. Her black hair is starting to turn grey, and she is a single person. Maybe the father of her children left her recently. She is a bereavement counsellor so she sees a lot of tearful and needy people. When she is finished from work, she wants to be the loved person, and in fact she can't go on with the job. She is considering to quit it and start making jewellery instead. She wants her birthday dinner to be quiet and neat and not with big emotinal showings, and she wants her two daughters Flora and Rachel to get on more well, since they are not getting on well at all. Rachel and Flora are sisters and it would seem that Rachel is the oldest of the two. She is tall, brave and clever, and Flora is jealous at her for being that. It seems that Flora is always trying to be better than Rachel in any way, but without succes. Flora and Rachel does not get on well. Communication between them is always in an angry tone of voice (barbed and dangerous). Flora has got an extreem need of being superior to her sister, and as a result of this, Rachel always keeps her stuff locked up. Generally Rachel hates Flora especially after Flora has taken Rachel's dress. The story starts in medias res. The events in it are almost represented in a chronological order, but there are flashbacks. Furthermore you could say, that this story is written opposite the cosmos-chaos-cosmos-model. At first we read about Rachel screaming and she has got a huge problem with the fact, that her sister has taken her dress. Later on we read about the crime itself and then the dinner and at last the fatal