Setting

The events described in the short story “The Dress” by Julia Darling take place in the home shared by Rachel, Flora, and their mother, and in the restaurant where the mother celebrates her 40th birthday. 

Flora’s room is one of the most important parts of the setting, as it mirrors the girl’s troubled state of mind: 

Rachel stamped up the stairs, pushing open the door of her sister's room, wading through disordered heaps of crumpled discarded clothes, empty cigarette packets, broken lighters, dried-out mascara brushes and lidless lipsticks. It smelled sweet and slightly rotten. Rachel wrenched the half-closed curtain back, so that the room was suddenly filled with floating specks of glistening dust. She snatched handfuls of clothes from half-open drawers, throwing them onto the floor.

While Flora appears immaculate and polished in Rachel’s dress at the café, her room suggests that her mind and life might be messier. 

Then, the kitchen where Rachel has left her dress suggests that the girls and their mother are most likely upper-class: “Rachel walked back into the blue kitchen, with its neat bowl of shining apples on the long table, and the purring silver fridge”. Furthermore, their social status i...