The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes.

अभिव्यक्ति : कुछ अनकही सी (abhivyaktibyrcgaur)

The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes.

About The Author

ELEANOR ESTES (1906-1988), a children's librarian for many years, launched her writing career with the publication of The Moffats in 1941. Two of her books about the Moffats are Newbery Honor books, as is The Hundred Dresses. She won the Newbery Medal for Ginger Pye in 1952.The Hundred Dresses was one of her most noticeable work.

Characters Of The Story

1) Wanda Petronski.  : A Polish immigrant girl

2) Peggy.                       : Close friend of Maddie

3) Maddie.                   : Close friend of Peggy

4) Miss Mason.           : Teacher of room no. 13

5) Jack Beggles          : The boy who got the                                                 prize with Wanda.

Story Of Part - I

• Wanda Petronski was a polish immigrant girl, who take admission in an American school.
• She was poor and does not have any friend.
• She lives in Boggins Height (Remote,hilly and marshy place).
• In room 13 ,she sits at last row with the rough boys who get least marks and scuffing of shoes(rubbing shoes on ground).
• She never laugh loudly and smiles politely.
• Students made fun of her last name and her only one faded blue dress she wore to school every day.
• Peggy(the most beautiful and popular girl of the school) and Maddie are close friends.
• Peggy tease Wanda by asking her how many dresses she owns. 
• Wanda replied that she had a hundred dresses and this made everyone burst out in laughter.
• Maddie was Peggy’s best friend but she could never gather the courage to ask Peggy to stop teasing Wanda. 
• She thought that she should write a letter to Peggy to say that let’s stop asking Wanda how many dresses she has. However, when she thought of the possibility of her being the next target as Maddie was herself poor and wore hand me down dresses of Peggy she decided to drop the idea and tore the note she had started.
• Wanda was absent from Monday but no-one noticed it but on Wednesday Peggy and Maddie noticed it.
• On Wednesday Peggy and Maddie rushed to school because that day the winners of a competition that was held in the school were to be declared. 
• The competition was basically different for the girls and the boys. For girls, it was dress designing and boys it was designing motorboats.
• Peggy and Maddie were super confident that Peggy would win this competition.
• But when they entered the classroom there were drawings all over the room all beautiful designs of the dresses and that too in different colors, these were the drawings from the contest.
• The teacher declared that Jack Beggles got the prize in boys section one girl in Room 13 should be proud of herself as that girl drew one hundred designs and judges opinion was that all her designs were worthy of winning the prize. This girl is none other than Wanda Petronski, she wins the girl’s medal.
• Wanda has been absent from school for some days and could not receive her due.
• Both Peggy and Maddie were mesmerized as they never thought Wanda could design al these beautiful dresses and she did own a hundred dresses at least in her imagination. 
• Paggy and Maddie felt guilty about her behaviour towards Wanda.

Story Of Part - II

• The students were circling the room and admiring the dress designs made by Wanda. 
• A notice from the principal’s office came. Miss Mason told the class that she had received a letter from Wanda’s father. 
• In his letter, Wanda’s father had informed Miss Mason that Wanda would not come to the school any more. They were moving to the big city. In that city, nobody would consider her name funny and laugh at her.
• The entire class became silent and felt bad about Wanda. Miss Mason understood their feelings.
• Maddie listened to what Miss Mason said about Wanda. She could not concentrate on her studies. She had a sick feeling. 
• She wanted to meet Wanda and tell her that she had never meant to hurt her feelings. She made up her mind to go to her house and tell Wanda that she had won the contest and her hundred dresses were beautiful.
• Maddie told Peggy to go to Wanda’s house. They walked towards her colony. 
• After some time, Peggy and Maddie found Wanda’s house in the Boggins Heights. The house looked shabby but clean.
• Peggy knocked on the door. There was no response. Wanda and her family had already left the place. They came back.
• At last, she made a decision. She decided that she would not keep quiet if someone made fun of anybody before her. 
• On Saturday Peggy and Maddie wrote a letter to Wanda with the request that it be sent to her new address. A number of days passed but there was no answer from Wanda. Peggy had begun to forget the whole incident. Maddie tried to sleep at night making speeches about Wanda.
•  It was Christmas time. On the last day of the school, Miss Mason received a letter from Wanda.
• She had gifted the green dresses with the red trimmings to Peggy. She wrote that Maddie could have a blue dress. She wished Merry Christmas to all.
• They accepted the drawings. On the way home Peggy and Maddie held their drawings very carefully. They pinned the drawings in their bedrooms.
• Maddie was missing Wanda too much. There were tears in her eyes. She felt sad to think that she would never see Wanda again. 
• She gazed at the drawing for a long time. Suddenly, she noticed the face and head in the drawing. It looked like her own head and face. She was excited to find that Wanda had made that drawing especially for her. 
• Peggy saw her drawing also. There was Peggy’s face in the drawing. Peggy was also happy to see that the face and head of the drawing looked like her. Peggy told Maddie that Wanda really liked them. There were tears in Maddie’s eyes every time she thought of Wanda Petronski.

Character Sketch

1).Wanda Petronski

Wanda Petronski is a quiet, socially outcast student who sits at the back of Room 13 until she stops coming to school. Wanda is the child of Polish immigrants and lives far from the school in an impoverished area called Boggins Heights. She never laughs, though she sometimes twists her mouth into a crooked smile. She wears the same faded blue dress to school every day, though she claims to own one hundred dresses at home. Peggy teases Wanda for saying she has a hundred dresses.

2).Peggy

Peggy is the most popular girl in school. She has pretty auburn curls, and is confident and talented. Peggy instigates the "hundred dresses game," in which she teases Wanda.

3).Maddie

Maddie, the book's protagonist, is Peggy's best friend. Maddie feels guilty for standing by and letting Peggy tease Wanda. Maddie herself is poor; she secretly wears Peggy's hand-me-down dresses.

4).Miss Mason

Miss Mason is the teacher in Room 13. Though she initially doesn't notice Wanda's absence, Miss Mason expresses regret when Wanda's father moves his family to the city, where they are less likely to encounter prejudice.

Moral/ Theme of the story

This story is about the matter that doesn’t mistreat anyone for being different. This story is teaching everyone that we should never make fun of the unique differences of our fellow human beings and try to accept them as they are. We may point out the theme of story as follows:-

1).Reconciliation

Peggy and Maddie wanted to restore friendly relations with Wanda.They send a letter to her. However, these efforts only temporarily silence Maddie's guilt. Without a face-to-face reconciliation, Maddie will never know whether Wanda truly forgives her.  In lieu of a face-to-face reconciliation, Maddie receives information that allows her to believe that Wanda had liked Maddie all along.

2).Bullying

Wanda was the victim of Peggy's hundred dress game and she always make fun on her blue dress. In this way, the book captures the nuanced and insidious nature of bullying: from a certain perspective, it is just a game; from another, it is cruelty.

3).Equality

The theme of equality enters the narrative when Peggy and Maddie arrive late to class as their fellow students are reciting the Gettysburg Address. Room 13 reads the speech in unison every morning, which is ironic, given that the speech's message of equality does not reach the girls, who treat Wanda as a lesser human. Equality becomes increasingly relevant as the story progresses and Wanda rises from her lower status to a more equal social standing within the classroom.

4).Social Isolation

The theme of social isolation starting with the image of Wanda's empty desk at the back corner of the classroom, and ending with the recollected image of Wanda standing alone against the ivy-covered wall.Wanda's loner status at school mirrors her Polish family's social isolation in Boggin Height.

5).Class Difference

Wanda and her family belong to a lower social class than most of the students in Room 13. She has a Polish surname, she wears the same dress every day, her brother works at the school, her father's English is undeveloped, she lives in Boggins Heights, and she has difficulty reading aloud in class. Wanda's classmates tease her due to her lower class status.

6).Remorse

Maddie's guilt leads her to obsess over how she should have stood up for Wanda, and eventually sends her on a quest to reconcile with Wanda. Maddie's remorse is conveyed in the distracting thoughts she has during class, in her fantasies about protecting Wanda, in the trip she takes to Boggins Heights, and in the letter she and Peggy write to Wanda.

7).Poverty

 Poverty determines that Wanda and her family live far from school, and the mud  accumulates on her shoes during the long walk subsequently relegates her to the back of the classroom.Wanda's poverty also means she wears the same dress to school every day. Maddie's own poverty stops her from defending Wanda, because Maddie fears she herself will become a target of abuse if people found out that Maddie wears Peggy's old dresses.