Dress Symbol Analysis

The brand new, fashionable blue gingham dress Mrs. Needham gives to Deza Malone as a gift represents the hope that the future will be brighter than the present. Deza’s family is desperately poor. The country is in the midst of the Great Depression, and Mr. Malone has been out of work for months. Deza’s clothing is old, ratty, and falling apart, which explains why the dress is so important to her: it’s more beautiful than she could ever imagine owning. Mrs. Needham also gives Deza the dress in the context of an offer to give her private tutoring and education. Deza is the most gifted student Mrs. Needham has ever taught, and she has the capacity to grow up to be something great like a writer or a professor or other kind of professional. Mrs. Needham wants to help Deza make good on her potential, partly for Deza, and partly for Mrs. Needham herself. She also wants Deza to succeed for the good of Black Americans generally, who suffer from profound racism, prejudice, and limitation.

Although Deza accidentally leaves the dress behind in Gary when her family moves to Flint, the hope it represents travels with her. She picks the hovel she, Jimmie, and Mrs. Malone live in at the encampment for unhoused people because it has a blue gingham curtain that reminds her of the dress. And when they’re forced to abandon the camp, Mrs. Malone takes the curtain along and turns it into a jumper for Deza. In some ways, the jumper isn’t as nice as the dress was—it’s smaller, and Deza must wear it with another hand-me-down, a shirt Mrs. Malone bought from one of her coworkers. But the jumper also shows that Deza’s hope is still alive, and in a way, it’s even more meaningful because it is the result of Mrs. Malone’s hard work. Together, the dress and jumper suggest that Deza will achieve success and have a happy life. But they also pointedly remind readers that this life won’t just happen for Deza—rather, it will be the result of hard work, unfailing hope, and a scrappy determination to do whatever is necessary to make things work out.