Girls in Their Summer Dresses Summary

In The Girls in Their Summer Dresses, it is necessary to explore the personal differences that cause problems in the relationship of the couple. The details of the story will lead to a conclusion that for Michael the relationship could just be a mere convenience or an affection solely generated by his physical wanting of Frances, so with the way she looks and appreciates the girls of New York.

Frances calling the Stevensons shows her attitude which is passivity and lack of idealism to confront the relationship with his husband. She is going to call the Stevensons because, she and her husband have nothing more to discuss about.

Michael's way of looking on women as mere bodies could suggest a kind of degradation--which is to define a woman only as an erotic or sexual figure.

There is an irony in the relationship of the couple which is the bloodless horror from the truth expressed that somehow the things are not, and never have been, what they used to pretend about themselves.

It is clear in the details with Frances that she had an initial feeling of insignificance and she wanted to be loved and acknowledged by her husband. The sentence, "I'd do any damn thing for you" points to a certain desire to be recognized as a good wife because of some degree of sensitivity that a man is needed in the family as the head and without him everything is nothing.

The "desire to please her husband" could also be attributed to liberation--such that Frances tries to uphold herself among other women and not just allowing Michael to dissolve her in the common wave of women. Her crying could also point to liberation by showing that she controls her own desires.

The theme of the two stories revolves around the feminist issue of marriage. A common notion between the two short stories is that love is a failure and a mere comic when there is the failure to recognize the beloved as a person and not a mere convenience. The stories also deal with the 18th and the 19th century American life--declining in their spiritual and emotional lives.

As a convention, marriage for women has been a landmark of success. It is necessary for a woman to enter into marriage to be recognized by the society as successful. The requisites of marriage such as love and affection are often neglected in exchange for some financial value imposed by the husband. In The Story of an Hour it is exemplified in "a heart trouble"