This document analyzes themes and symbols in Virginia Woolf's short story "The New Dress". It identifies several key themes: Mabel's sense of alienation and insecurity at the party due to her social class and appearance; the metaphor of Mabel as a "fly" compared to the other upper-class women; and the symbolic power of clothing and fashion to enforce gender and class restrictions. The document examines how Mabel's dress acts as a metaphor for the oppressive power of societal expectations regarding women's appearances and the internalization of patriarchal views of gender. Quotes from the story are provided to support each theme.

1. Themes and Symbols
By: Mary Jane Ca ῇos

3.  Mabel’s sense of alienation appears
as soon as she reaches the party
While the other guests chat
with her, an intense self-consciousness
about her look and style allows her only to
converse with them at a superficial level,
which holds her in a bubble of
loneliness. (Wolf, 1990)

4. “… this thing, this Mabel Waring, was separate, quite
disconnected”
"I feel like some dowdy, decrepit, horribly dingy old
fly", she said, making Robert Haydon stop just to hear
her say that, …and so showing how detached she was"
"left alone on the blue sofa,… for she would not join
Charles Burt and Rose Shaw"

5. Describes the feeling of general unease or nervousness that
may be triggered by perceiving of oneself to be vulnerable or
inferior in some way
Just as when, Mabel kept on thinking of the ill things that
the other guests might be thinking a bout her and her dress
Lines that portrayed Mabel’s Insecurity in the story:
o “What’s Mabel wearing? What a fright she looks! What
a hideous new dress!”
o “I feel like some dowdy, decrepit, horribly dirty old fly”
o “… like magpies and perhaps laughing at her by the
fireplace”

6. A major factor that isolated Mabel from the rest of the guests at the
party and considered as one of the nurtured root that caused her
insecurity
Affected how she perceived herself when she was alone and in the
privacy of her workroom in contrast to Mrs. Dalloway’s Drawing room
which was filled with socialites
 Lines that portray Social Class:
o “What she had dreamed of herself was there- a beautiful woman”
o She was “ the core of herself, the soul of herself”
o “woken wide awake to reality”
o “This was true… this drawing room, this self, the other false”

7. Illustrated through “Frock Consciousness” –
clothing consciousness style used by Virginia
Woolf
-describes gender as a constructed
"clothing" and to show how patriarchal and
class discourse is internalized by Mabel and
put into action in everyday life.

9.  Metaphor for upper- class women
 Lines that portray this symbol:
o “Flies trying to crawl over the edge of the saucer”
o “She could not see them like that … she saw herself
like that- she was a fly, but the others were dragonflies,
butterflies, beautiful insects”

10.  Metaphor for gender and class restriction
 it imposes a new identity from the outside. Social coercions of class and
gender expectations launch an attack on her at the party, repressing her
individuality, telling her what an ideal woman should look like,
transforming both her view of her dress and of herself, leaving her
without self-confidence

11.  Metaphor for the power of sexism and
classism
 Symbolic tool that bring about Mabel’s
endless “Reflections’ of insecurity, embarrassment and
agony.
Also a symbolic tool for societal sexism reflecting dotsized images of women
Examples: Mabel- yellow dot
Mrs. Holman- black dot and black button
An oppressive device, commanding a proper compliance to
society’s dominant lookism and institionally challenging a
woman’s control of her body, clothing and appearance

12. Woolf, Virginia. 1989. The New Dress. In The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia
Woolf. Ed. Susan Dick. Harcourt Inc: San Diego. PP.170-177.
Virginia Woolf.1995 (1928). Orlando: a biography. Hertfordshire, Wordsworth
Classics: UK.
The Diary of Virginia Woolf, 1980. vol. 3, 1925-1930. Ed. Anne Olivier and
Quentin Bell. Hogarth Press: London.