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Red Dress Alice Munro Analysis

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In Alice Munro’s story, Red Dress, a girl is going to a Christmas dance at her school. Her mother is making her a red dress to wear at the dance, but gets insecure when all of her friends are buying more expensive dresses online. Munro uses the mother and daughter relationship, the red dress, and the interaction with Mary fortune to demonstrate the vulnerability of youth.
In Munro’s story, the relationship between the daughter and the mother is an example of the vulnerability of youth. The girl in the story has friends that are buying their dresses online. One of the girl’s friends got her “dress given to me” (130). The girl was so caught up with her own emotions and her own desires and insecurity, she didn 't see the respect, and love that her mother was putting into the dress. As a 13-year-old girl, she wanted to have space while getting ready for the dance; she was so vulnerable to see all the hard work that her mother had put in. Her mother wanted to see her daughter put on the dress because she worked on it “All through the month” (129). …show more content…

The dress is red, is symbolism of love, the love the mother shows to the daughter. The mother worked on the dress “All through the month” (129). The daughter knew how hard her mother was working on the dress “The red velvet material was hard to work with”(129). The mother loved her daughter; she was showing love by all the hard work being put into the dress. The daughter “would come home from school…surrounded by cut up red velvet” (129). The red in the dress was also a symbol of hatred, the hatred of the red-dress-girl put on her mother “To leave us…I wish she would” (133). The red-dress-girl was so vulnerable to see all the love and hard work that went into making the dress “Me look like a golliwog… stuffed into red velvet” (133). The daughter showed no appreciation to her mother for making her the

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