Maharashtra Board Class 12 English Chapter 1.5 The New Dress Textbook PDF Download

1.5 The New Dress

Ice Breakers

(i) Write in Column 'B' the description of the clothes you would choose to wear for the occasions given in Column 'A'.

(ii) Discuss the criterion of the choice of your clothes with the help of the following points:

(a) Occasion

(b) Society (people you may meet at the venue)

(c) Availability

(d) Fashion

(e) Your wish/whim

(f) A suggestion or advice by someone (mother, sister, friend etc.).

(g) Any other than the above mentioned reasons

(i) Divide the class into groups. Discuss the role of costumes in enhancing your personality.

(ii) State whether you agree or disagree with the following statements and discuss the reasons.

(a) A simple dress makes one's personality look dull.

(b) We should not judge ourselves from the comments we receive from others.

(c) A fashionable and costly dress makes you look rich, intelligent and beautiful.

(d) We should choose a dress according to the fashion rather than our choice.

Teacher's Note

Clothes are very important for how people see us. In India, we wear different clothes for different events - a sari for weddings and simple clothes for school.

Exam Trick

Remember: What you wear shows what you are thinking and feeling. Just like your school uniform tells people you are a student, your clothes tell people about your personality.

Points to Remember

Different occasions need different clothes.
Your choice of clothes should match the place and people.
Money and fashion are not the only reasons to choose clothes.
What you wear should make you feel good and comfortable.
Simple clothes are better than costly clothes.

The New Dress

Mabel had her first serious suspicion that something was wrong as she took her cloak off and Mrs. Barnet, while handing her the mirror and touching the brushes and thus drawing her attention, perhaps rather markedly, to all the appliances for tidying and improving hair, complexion, clothes, which existed on the dressing table, confirmed the suspicion – that it was not right, not quite right, which growing stronger as she went upstairs and springing at her, with conviction as she greeted Clarissa Dalloway, she went straight to the far end of the room, to a shaded corner where a looking-glass hung and looked. No! It was not RIGHT. And at once the misery which she always tried to hide, the profound dissatisfaction – the sense she had had, ever since she was a child, of being inferior to other people – set upon her, relentlessly, remorselessly, with an intensity which she could not beat off, as she would when she woke at night at home, by reading Borrow or Scott; for oh these men, oh these women, all were thinking- "What's Mabel wearing? What a fright she looks! What a hideous new dress!"– their eyelids flickering as they came up and then their lids shutting rather tight. It was her own appalling inadequacy; her cowardice; her mean, water-sprinkled blood that depressed her. And at once the whole of the room where, for ever so many hours, she had planned with the little dressmaker how it was to go, seemed sordid, repulsive; and her own drawing-room so shabby, and herself, going out, puffed up with vanity as she touched the letters on the hall table and said: "How dull!" to show off - all this now seemed unutterably silly, paltry, and provincial. All this had been absolutely destroyed, shown up, exploded, the moment she came into Mrs. Dalloway's drawing-room.

Teacher's Note

Mabel feels very bad about her dress at the party. In India, many people feel worried about what others think of their clothes at social events.

Exam Trick

Remember: Mabel's main problem is not the dress - it is her negative thoughts about herself. Like a child who thinks everyone is laughing at them, Mabel imagines everyone is judging her.

Points to Remember

Mabel thinks her dress is not fashionable or right.
She feels inferior and sad about herself from childhood.
She imagines people are mocking and judging her dress.
Her own room and things seem bad when she compares them to Mrs. Dalloway's house.
Mabel's negative thoughts are destroying her happiness.

Virginia Woolf (1882 to 1941, London) was an English novelist and essayist. She is considered a modernist writer of the 20th century and pioneer of the 'stream of consciousness' as a narrative device. The glimpses of early modern feminism can easily be traced in her writing. 'The Voyage Out', 'To the Lighthouse', 'Orlando' and 'Mrs. Dalloway' are her remarkable novels. 'A Haunted House' is her famous short story collection from which the present story 'The New Dress' is adapted.

The present story is about a Mabel Waring, who is constantly thinking about her new yellow dress in negative terms. She herself has chosen the design, colour and pattern of the dress which she has decided to wear for a party at Mrs Dalloway. However, at that party she keeps thinking that the dress is old fashioned and everyone in the party is mocking at her dress. She thinks that she is a fly at the edge of the saucer, drowning deep and deep, as she comes seriously under the spell of her own negative mind and in a depression leaves the party. To show Mabel's suppressed desires, unfulfilled ambitions and meagre financial conditions of her childhood, Virginia Woolf has employed the stream of consciousness technique very effectively.

Teacher's Note

This story teaches us that our own negative thoughts hurt us more than what others think. A student in Delhi may worry so much about one bad mark that they think everyone will laugh at them.

Exam Trick

Remember: Stream of consciousness means we can see what is happening inside a person's mind - their real thoughts, feelings and memories all mixed together, like real life.

Points to Remember

Mabel chose her yellow dress herself but still feels bad about it.
She imagines everyone is mocking her old-fashioned dress.
Mabel compares herself to a fly stuck in a saucer of milk.
Her sad childhood with no money makes her feel inferior to rich people.
Virginia Woolf shows Mabel's real thoughts through the stream of consciousness technique.

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