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Chapter 19
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Dressmaker, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Transformation, Illusion, and Truth
Vengeance and Suffering
Secrets, Hypocrisy, and Conformity
Memories, Progress, and the Past
Healing, Medicine, and Power
Summary
Analysis
The Dungatar residents are united in their hatred of Tilly and their belief that she caused Teddy’s death. People shove or throw things at Tilly if she goes into town, and locals drive around the house and scream that Tilly and Molly are “witches” or “murderers.” Sergeant Farrat still supplies them with food, though, and Molly and Tilly hide away in their house, wrapped up in grief and bitterness. Below them, in the dump, people burn garbage so that the fumes blow up the Hill to their cottage.
Tilly is an easy target for the townspeople’s hatred because she is already seen as an outsider, and with the McSwineys gone, she has no one to defend her. Teddy was popular in the town, and the townspeople are genuinely saddened by his death. They take their pain and frustration out on Tilly because they can, even though she is not responsible for Teddy’s death. Historically, witches were outcasts, who lived on the fringes of society and who were persecuted because people wrongly believed that they had magical powers, which were viewed as a threat to mainstream religion. The townspeople’s characterization of Molly and Tilly as witches, then, reinforces their view of the women as social outcasts.
Themes
