Healing, Medicine, and Power Theme Analysis

Different types of medicine are used throughout The Dressmaker. The protagonist, Tilly Dunnage (a young women who grew up in Dungatar and returns as an adult to set up her dressmaking business) often uses herbal remedies when traditional medicine is not available. However, while medicine is most often thought of as something used to heal people, Ham suggests that medicine can also be used to silence, punish, and control others. Overall, the novel implies that when it comes to medicine, people’s intentions are just as important as their capacity to heal. 

Many of Dungatar’s residents rely on modern medicine to manage their various ailments, and this reliance sometimes makes them vulnerable to powerful members of the community. Advances in modern medicine in the 1950s meant that people had cheaper access to drugs to treat everyday problems and illnesses. This is demonstrated in the novel through Marigold Pettyman, who is reliant on sleeping pills to calm her nerves. This suggests that modern medicine was commonly available to ordinary people during the 1950s, even in remote places. However, although advances in drugs mean that these medicines are more freely available, the Dungatar residents do not have easy access to a doctor and, instead, rely on Mr. Almanac (the pharmacist) for the dispensation of medicine. This gives Mr. Almanac power over members of the community who rely on these drugs, because he is the only one who can provide them. Mr. Almanac is an unkind man who beats his wife, Irma, and does not have his patients’ best interests in mind. For example, Mr. Almanac puts bleach in a cream that he makes up for Faith O’Brien to treat an STD, because he knows that Faith has been unfaithful to her husband. Mr. Almanac’s behavior shows that because those who control medical supplies have power over people who rely on these medicines, it’s easy for those with access to medicine to abuse that power. This is further supported by the idea that people from Dungatar are frequently institutionalized in the nearby sanitorium even when they’re sane and capable of functioning in the outside world. For example, it is suggested that the townspeople wanted to have Barney McSwiney (the McSwineys’ disabled son) committed to the sanitorium simply because he does not fit in, even though Barney is not a danger to himself or others and has a family to take care of him. This suggests that medical treatment can be used to control people or to enforce social ideas about conformity.

Tilly, however, represents a threat to people who use medicine to control and subdue others, because she uses alternative forms of healing—such as herbal remedies—to help people. Although Mr. Almanac is a pharmacist, he refuses to provide his wife, Irma, with treatment for her severe arthritis, which causes her extreme pain. Instead, Mr. Almanac deliberately withholds medicine from his wife so that he can punish her and exert power over her. When Tilly comes to Dungatar, then, she bakes herbal cakes for Irma to help relieve her pain. While Mr. Almanac uses medicine to control and subdue his wife, Tilly uses healing remedies to help empower Irma and to alleviate her suffering. This suggests that while modern medicine is helpful, it cannot help people if it is withheld from them or misused by those who control its supply. Tilly also uses herbal medicine to help Marigold turn the tables on her husband, Evan Pettyman, who uses drugs to abuse and manipulate her. Tilly provides Marigold with herbal potion which Marigold then uses to take revenge on her husband by poisoning and then murdering him. This suggests that knowledge of alternative medicines can be empowering—it can even let previously disempowered people like Marigold become just as dangerous as the people who control access to medicine. Tilly’s herbal remedies and use of plants for medicine is associated with witchcraft throughout the novel, which is part of why Tilly is an outcast. Witches were often historically cast out of communities or persecuted for their use of herbal medicine, which was believed to challenge Church power and traditional religious teachings (since witchcraft was associated with devil worship and blasphemy.) Ham suggests that, although Tilly’s use of herbal medicine seems to work, powerful members of the community feel threatened by this and use her healing skills as an excuse to persecute her. 

Ham suggests that the purpose of any type of medicine, whether traditional or alternative, should be to heal people and to alleviate their pain—otherwise, medicine does more harm than good. Both traditional and herbal remedies are presented as effective in the novel. For example, when administered properly and to someone who genuinely needs sedation, the drugs that the doctor from the sanitorium gives to Gertrude (after she goes mad during the production of the Dungatar play) work quickly and do what they are supposed to do. Similarly, Tilly effectively eases Molly’s suffering with herbal treatment after Molly has a stroke. This suggests that both herbal and traditional medicines have their uses in society. Although Tilly’s healing powers seem mysterious and are associated with inexplicable power like witchcraft, in reality she uses practical knowledge of plants to create her cures. The fact that Tilly brings these ideas to Dungatar, which is very old-fashioned and remote, suggests that although herbal remedies seem archaic and mystical, they are in fact popular in modern cities, where Tilly has been educated. This suggests that in the 1950s, it is actually traditional medicine that has fallen behind the times by failing to prioritize healing and access to high quality medical care. Overall, Ham suggests that if medicine genuinely heals or benefits people, then it is worthy of respect and understanding. Meanwhile, even the most advanced medicine can be rendered worthless if people do not have easy access to it—or, even worse, if it is used to abuse or control people.