The New Dress

In the readings of Virginia Woolf's The New Dress compared to the readings of S. De Beauvoir's The second Sex had a specific view a long with others that particularly caught my eye. There's importance when body image comes into play with women and their feminine appeal.

Thus shown in the story of "The New Dress" "Mabel's got a new dress!" he said, and the poor fly was absolutely shoved into the middle of the saucer. Really, he would like her to drown, she believed. He had no heart, no fundamental kindness, only a veneer of friendliness. Miss Milan was much more real, much kinder. If only one could feel that and stick to it, always. "Why," she asked herself -- replying to Charles much too pertly, letting him see that she was out of temper, or "ruffled" as he called it ("Rather ruffled?" he said and went on to laugh at her with some woman over there) -- "Why," she asked herself, "can't I feel one thing always, feel quite sure that Miss Milan is right, and Charles wrong and stick to it, feel sure about the canary and pity and love and not be whipped all round in a second by coming into a room full of people?"

Why does Mabel feel like she's worthless?

Constantly through out the reading the writer shows Mabel as being weak. Mabel lacks self confidence, character which is important as a person as well a female because at the end of the day you have to separate yourself from the rest with your own identified personality created by you. Mabel such as many other woman worry about what a man is going to think about them instead of just making her own rules of what looks good such as her new dress that some found to be ugly. It was up to Mable to make her dress known as something wonderful yo look at as well as the person wearing the dress.