The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes
"The Hundred Dresses" by Eleanor Estes is a children's novel that explores themes of friendship, bullying, and the moral responsibilities individuals have toward one another. The story revolves around Wanda Petronski, a Polish girl who faces ridicule from her classmates for her poverty and her claim of owning one hundred dresses. The narrative, presented through the lens of Madeline, a girl caught between her loyalty to the popular Peggy and her discomfort with their treatment of Wanda, delves into the complexities of peer dynamics and the consequences of silence in the face of injustice.
The book emphasizes the impact of bullying and the importance of empathy, as Madeline grapples with her inaction and the resulting harm to Wanda and her family. Wanda’s artistic talent shines through when she reveals her beautiful drawings of dresses, which ultimately serve as a poignant reminder of her kindness, despite the cruelty she faced. The story encourages readers to reflect on their own actions and the ethical implications of standing by during wrongdoing. Ultimately, "The Hundred Dresses" is not just a tale of childhood struggles but a powerful commentary on the need for compassion and the courage to speak out against unfairness in any form.
Subject Terms
The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes
First published: 1944; illustrated
Subjects: Education, friendship, poverty, and social issues
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Psychological realism
Time of work: The present
Recommended Ages: 10-13
Locale: A school in a small town
Principal Characters:
Wanda Petronski , a motherless girl who is overlooked by her teacher and ridiculed by her classmates for claiming to have one hundred different dresses in her closet at homePeggy , the most popular girl in the class, who delights in tormenting Wanda about her hundred dresses and pointing out that Wanda wears the same dress to school each dayMadeline , Peggy’s best friend, who is almost as poor as Wanda and who fears that standing up for the other girl will make her the object of Peggy’s derision
Form and Content
A Newbery Honor Book, Eleanor Estes’ The Hundred Dresses is a straightforward yet psychologically complex story about friendship and the ethical implications involved in standing by and saying nothing while another person is being harmed. Louis Slobodkin’s illustrations reinforce the message of this story, which is written in seven short chapters and narrated in the third person. Even very young children will be able to understand the premise of the story, while the adult who reads The Hundred Dresses to children will find the narrative both moving and substantial enough to compel his or her interest.
Wanda Petronski, whose Polish name sets her apart from her classmates as much as her address on Boggins Heights, the poor part of town, comes to school every day in the same faded, yet clean, blue dress. She sits in the last seat in the last row of her classroom, among the troublemakers, and is generally ignored by her teacher and by her fellow students.
The children pay attention to Wanda, however, after the day she claims to have one hundred dresses at home. Peggy, a privileged and popular girl, decides that it will be amusing to make fun of Wanda for this apparent lie, and Peggy’s friend Madeline, while uncomfortable with Peggy’s behavior, does nothing to stop it. Madeline is poor, although not as poor as Wanda, and fears that Peggy will turn her attention on her if she stands up for Wanda. After all, Madeline’s own dresses are castoffs from Peggy’s closet, and it would be painful and embarrassing to have Peggy point this out to everyone. Thus, while Madeline does not participate in mocking the other girl, she protects her own place in the classroom community and in Peggy’s good graces by doing nothing to prevent Peggy from having fun at Wanda’s expense.
Peggy, Madeline, and the other students soon learn that their teasing has had serious implications on the Petronski family’s life and happiness. They also learn that Wanda had not really been lying about the hundred dresses; she had actually drawn one hundred beautiful and original dresses for the class art contest. By the time that the students realize their error, Wanda’s father has withdrawn her from school and moved to the city where, he writes, “No more holler Polack. No more ask why funny name. Plenty of funny names in big city.” Wanda’s classmates’ games, it appears, had not been amusing to Wanda or to her family.
Madeline and Peggy go to Boggins Heights to look for Wanda, but the family has already moved. They then write to Wanda, who, in a letter to the class, replies that things are going well for her and that she would like Madeline and Peggy to have two of her drawings.
After a long period of honest and painful reflection about her own passivity in the face of Peggy’s cruelty, Madeline decides that she will never “stand by and say nothing again.” To observe an unfairness and not act to stop it, Madeline realizes, is at least as bad as committing such an act. In fact, Madeline realizes, she was more in the wrong than Peggy, since she realized that Peggy’s actions were wrong and Peggy had not. Neither Madeline nor Peggy will ever be able to make things right for Wanda and her brother and father, but Madeline will never again remain inactive before an injustice or an act of cruelty.
Madeline also learns a lesson about grace when she realizes that the pictures Wanda designated for her and for Peggy were, in fact, drawn especially for them: The girls wearing Wanda’s creations are Madeline and Peggy. Despite being alternately teased and ignored by Peggy and Madeline, Wanda had chosen to remain caring, generous, and sympathetic toward them. Her art was not an escape from her tormentors but rather a gift to them. The story ends with Peggy’s conclusion that Wanda liked them despite their behavior and with Madeline blinking away “the tears that came every time she thought of Wanda standing alone in that sunny spot in the school yard close to the wall.”
Critical Context
More somber in tone and subject than The Moffats (1941), Ginger Pye (1951), or Rufus M (1943), books for which Eleanor Estes became celebrated, The Hundred Dresses is less a celebration of childhood than an argument against the injustices that even children can perpetuate on one another. This plea against racism and discrimination toward those who are ethnically or financially different was published before the current concern with these issues. A psychologically complex examination of why people do not speak out against injustice, The Hundred Dresses is also a forceful argument for why people must do so. Estes’ narrative places readers in the mind of Madeline, who is not the victim of injustice, nor someone who has simply come across it. Rather, Estes has made the reader explore with her protagonist what it feels like to have done wrong to another person and how a person can atone for having caused harm.