Vengeance and Suffering Theme Analysis

In Rosalie Ham’s The Dressmaker, Tilly Dunnage returns to her childhood home, a small town called Dungatar. However, the townspeople have always ostracized Tilly (they wrongly believe she is responsible for a local boy’s death) and they continue to do so on her return. Eventually, their cruel treatment pushes Tilly to take revenge upon them by burning Dungatar to the ground and making off with the town’s insurance money. Ham thus suggests that suffering can push people to seek revenge in extreme and irrational ways. But while vengeance can have devastating results, Ham also notes that it has a certain logic to it: for people who have been treated badly, treating others the same way often seems like the only appropriate response. Furthermore, many of Ham’s characters meet fittingly bitter ends after treating others badly, which implies that people who behave cruelly will generally suffer in return—whether or not anyone is actively seeking vengeance on them.

Suffering can cause people to take out their pain on others. Beula Harridene is Dungatar’s primary gossip, and she spies on people so that she can use their secrets against them. While Beula’s efforts seem malicious and unprompted, Ham subtly suggests that when people are cruel to others it is usually because they themselves are unhappy. This is reflected through Sergeant Farrat (Dungatar’s policeman) and his charitable belief that Beula is “malicious and mad” because of the constant discomfort of her deformed jaw. This suggests that horrible people are often cruel because they themselves suffer. This idea is further demonstrated through Molly, who, after she suffers a stroke, destroys things in her house to take “revenge” on life for her pain. This suggests that suffering causes frustration which leads people to lash out—even when what they’re lashing out at isn’t really the source of their pain. The same is true for Tilly, who eventually takes revenge on the townspeople because they have mistreated her. Although Tilly has little interest in revenge when she first returns to Dungatar, by the end of the novel her grief and suffering have pushed her to her limit and she burns the town as vengeance for her mother Molly—who dies of a stroke and whose funeral is neglected by the Dungatar residents—and for Teddy McSwiney, who is Tilly’s lover and who dies in an accident on the night that they try to attend the Dungatar Social Club Ball. At the ball, Tilly and Teddy are turned away because the townspeople unfairly hate Tilly. This indirectly leads to Teddy’s death as, if he had been at the ball, he would not have had his fatal accident. Tilly’s grief and extreme suffering push her to give in to her desire for vengeance against the townspeople, even though they didn’t literally kill Molly or Teddy. 

Even when vengeance is irrational or extreme, it can provide a kind of poetic justice since it can make people experience the same pain that they have inflicted on others. Marigold Pettyman, who is married to the misogynistic town-councilor Evan Pettyman, gets revenge on her husband by subjecting him to the same humiliation and powerlessness that he has put her through. Throughout their marriage, Evan drugs Marigold each night so that she does not suspect his multiple affairs, and he rapes her while she sleeps. Tilly eventually reveals this to Marigold and, as revenge, Marigold drugs Evan and murders him. This suggests that Marigold wants to abuse Evan the way that he has abused her so that he knows how it feels to be mistreated. Tilly’s vengeance against the townspeople takes a similar shape: she destroys their homes so that, like her, they know what it is like to lose everything. Tilly blames the townspeople for her isolation (her mother and Teddy are both dead) because they have ostracized her and have indirectly contributed to the deaths of her loved ones. Tilly is alone in the world and has nowhere to go, so she wants the Dungatar residents to experience this as well. Tilly also robs the town of their insurance money because the townspeople have tried to rob her—they have not paid her for the outfits she has made them. Tilly feels that the only way to teach the townspeople a lesson and show them what it feels like to be alienated, cast out, and taken advantage of is to put them in this position themselves. This suggests that victims of abuse often use vengeance to make their abusers suffer what the victims have felt. 

Ham further suggests that even if no one takes revenge on people who are cruel to others, these individuals often suffer cruel fates themselves as a result of their behavior. For instance, Beula Harridene meets an unpleasant end as a result of her prying. One night, while Beula spies on Tilly, Tilly throws her old radio out of the house and, unknowingly, hits Beula with it and injures Beula’s face. Beula goes blind because of this and is forced to spend the rest of her days in the sanitorium. This suggests that negative behaviors often lead to negative consequences for those who practice them, with or without revenge. The same is true of Stewart Pettyman, who dies in an accident because he tries to bully Tilly when they are both children. Stewart runs at Tilly to headbutt her in the stomach, and Tilly, who is pressed against a wall, steps out of the way to protect herself. Stewart breaks his neck against the wall and dies, and this incident suggests that those who abuse others often end up hurting themselves. This is further demonstrated through the character of Gertrude, who literally goes mad with power as the director of the town’s production of Macbeth and is dragged off to the insane asylum. The cast of the play let Gertrude be taken away and do not defend her because she has mistreated them during rehearsals and, therefore, has brought this punishment on herself. In this way, Ham suggests that people who terrorize others will find no one on their side when they become victims themselves and that, either through vengeance or fate, people often suffer when they mistreat others.