60 pages • 2 hours read
Dumplin
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Themes
Society's View of the Female Beauty and Its Effect on Self-Image
A major theme of Dumplin’ is learning to find yourself beautiful, no matter what you look like, despite society’s traditional definition of “beauty.” Because Willowdean has spent her whole life in Clover City, she assumes that even more than football players and cheerleaders, the beauty queens are the ones who are the best off. Despite this, Will starts the novel self-confident despite her weight. She knows what people think of plus-sized women and curses the way they are portrayed:
I hate seeing fat girls on TV or in movies, because the only way the world seems to be okay with putting a fat person on camera is if they’re miserable with themselves or if they’re the jolly best friend. Well, I’m neither of those things (89).
Will only becomes insecure about her weight as she starts to spend time with Bo. She is convinced that Bo is going to turn his back on her when he sees people make fun of her at school. Despite his words and actions that say different, Willowdean is scared that Bo, once he touches her, will realize that she is fat and will no longer want to be with her. Will even starts to think like her mother when Callie approaches Will in the bathroom during a school dance and tells Will she would be better off if she tried harder with her appearance.
On Halloween, Mitch tells Willowdean he loves dressing up in costume because he can be whoever he wants to be. Willowdean thinks about what he means and applies to herself:
I get what he means, because I think I’ve played pretend my whole life. I don’t know when, but a really long time ago, I decided who I wanted to be. And I’ve been acting like her—whoever she is—since. But I think the act is fading, and I don’t know if I like the person I am beneath it all. I wish there were some kind of magic words that could bridge the gap between the person I am and the one I wish I could be. Because the whole fake it till you make it thing? It’s not working for me (240).
Willowdean realizes she is making life harder for herself by not being herself.
Attending Dolly Parton night at a drag bar helps Willow start to accept herself for who she is. None of the performers are traditionally beautiful; none of them are normal, yet each of them appear at ease with themselves:
We watch as drag queens every shape and size and color give it their all and leave everything they’ve got on that stage in this dingy little bar out in the middle of West Texas. They wear sparkling, elaborate costumes with incredible high heels and insane wigs. Each of them is their own brand of beauty (211).
It helps for Willowdean and her friends to hear that adults they know had a hard time growing into their own in the same way that the teenagers struggle now. It is almost a relief for Will to hear that Ellen’s mother, the most popular Dolly Parton impersonator in Texas, didn’t have the guts to enter the Miss Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant when she was of pageant age. El’s Mom tells Will: “But I wasn’t the same person I am today. I didn’t have it in me back then to pretend I felt good enough about myself to enter a beauty pageant” (111). Similarly, one drag queen, Lee Wei, tells Willowdean and Willowdean’s friends: “It got better […] Look at me. I’m living my dream. I’m in love. I’m happy. But I waited for that to happen to me. And y’all are making it happen now. Y’all are going for it” (268). It lifts Will, Millie, Amanda, and Hannah’s confidence that someone like Lee Wei admires them for who they are.
Willowdean also admires Loraine, Bo’s stepmother. Unlike her own mother, Loraine seems happy in her own skin, even though she is unlike the other Southern woman. When Loraine offers Will lemonade, Will notices the lemonade is made from a powdered mix: “Most women in the South take great pride in their iced tea and pass their recipes down from generation to generation. But Loraine is not most women” (279).
While Millie admires Willowdean for Willowdean’s confidence, Willowdean learns a lot about true beauty from Millie. Millie makes sure that Amanda comes to the dance with Millie and her date, Malik, so that Amanda doesn’t have to stay at home or go solo because Amanda doesn’t have a date. When Will sees the three of them having fun at the dance, she says: “My damn heart explodes. Because, to me, Malik and Millie are homecoming/winter formal/spring fling/prom king and queen combined into one” (200).
When, earlier in the novel, Amanda told Willowdean that Millie asked Malik to the dance, Willowdean asked Amanda what Malik said. Amanda tells her that Malik, of course, said yes. According to Will, Amanda “says it like, Duh, why would he not?” (191). Amanda is Millie’s best friend and sees Millie as beautiful; she can’t understand why a boy wouldn’t say yes to Millie. In many ways, Amanda feels the same way about Millie as Ellen feels about Willowdean.
Ellen notices Millie’s beauty, too. At the pageant, Ellen says: “God. She was born for this. There’s a beauty queen in that cute, little fat girl” (360). Willowdean says: “No […] That cute, little fat girl is a beauty queen” (360).
Throughout the novel, Willowdean cringes when her mother calls her “Dumplin’,” the nickname she gave Willow as a child. By the end of the novel, Willow has accepted the nickname and therefore has accepted herself. She says: “Sometimes figuring out who you are means understanding that we are a mosaic of experiences. I’m Dumplin’. And Will and Willowdean. I’m fat. I’m happy. I’m insecure. I’m bold" (366). Readers see an insecure Willowdean start to accept herself for who she is by the end of the story. Willowdean can’t help but notice that when she gets to know a person, their physical appearance doesn’t mean as much to her as their unique individual personality and talents and how they treat others. This teaches her that others feel the same about her.
Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover
The idiom “don’t judge a book by its cover” reminds people that there is more to others than what others look like. Along with learning to love herself for who she is, Willowdean learns that people are not always what she assumes of them. Willowdean makes many assumptions about people throughout the novel, and many of the assumptions turn out to be wrong.
Because Bo went to a private school, Willowdean assumes that he comes from a rich family. Her assumption is so far from the truth that it almost ruins Willowdean and Bo’s friendship. Similarly, Bo is surprised when Willowdean tells him that her mother works at a nursing home. Bo replies: “I thought she was the beauty pageant lady” (276). When Willowdean explains that the nursing home work is her mother’s full time job, Bo is surprised. He says: “Wow […] I never would’ve thought” (276).
When Willowdean reads Aunt Lucy’s email, she reads the e-invite sent to Lucy about Dolly Parton night at the drag club. Will meets Lucy’s friends at the drag club. Will was unaware that Lucy went to the club and was close to people who spent time there. Will is also surprised when she finds a pageant registration form that must belong to Lucy. Will is still finding out things out about Lucy that surprise her even though Lucy died months ago.
Millie admits to Willowdean that she liked hanging out with Lee Wei and Dale. Coming from a traditional religious family, Millie was taught that gay people were living in sin. After getting to know Lee and Dale, Millie knows that her assumptions about Lee and Dale’s lifestyles were wrong. She tells Willowdean: “I keep thinking about it and they’re good people. I wish everyone could see that” (294).
Coming of Age and Coping with Grief
Throughout Dumplin’, not only is Willowdean grieving about the loss of her Aunt Lucy, but other people miss Lucy as well. Willowdean slowly realizes this. When Ellen asks Willowdean if El can have Lucy’s favorite broach, Will thinks:
Since the day she died, I’ve felt that Lucy was only mine to memorialize and that if I faltered, I’d be letting her down in the worst kind of way. The realization that she wasn’t just mine comes as a painful relief (62).
Willowdean and her mother mourn for Lucy in opposite ways. Lucy’s mother wants to clean up Lucy’s room so that she and Will can move on. Will can’t let go of Lucy. When Will finds her mother going through Lucy’s stuff, Will panics thinking: “It scares me. Like, if I can’t hear her or see her, I will somehow forget her” (22). While Willowdean thinks that her mother wants to get rid of the memory of Lucy for good, her mother eventually tells Will that she thinks about Lucy every day. And while Will thinks her mother wants things to be different with Lucy gone, it is obvious that Will’s mother finds comfort in routine that started when Lucy was still alive:
For as long as I can remember, she’s always watched her shows in here because Lucy was almost always on the couch. But it’s been six months now since Lucy’s funeral, and she’s still watching her shows in the kitchen on her portable television (12).
Willowdean finds that she can’t come to terms with Lucy’s death without the help of other people. Will is comforted by Lee Wei when Lee Wei tells Willowdean:
There’s nothing good about losing someone […] But maybe Lucy wasn’t supposed to be your compass forever. Maybe she was there for you just long enough so you could learn how to be your own compass and find your own way. […] The universe is a strange thing (213).
Eventually, Willowdean learns that she doesn’t need Lucy’s physical things to remember Lucy. She also realizes that losing Lucy is not a feeling that is specific only to her. Willowdean wishes that Lucy could see Will’s new friendship with Lee: “I want Lucy to see this. To see that I’ve connected the dots of fragmented life, and here I am” (268). By the end of the novel, Willowdean realizes that she will never forget Lucy and that Lucy will forever play a part in Willow’s life. On the day of the pageant, Will receives well wishes from Lee and Dale. Will reads Lee and Dale’s card and thinks: “I wish Lucy was here. Not to see me compete, but to see this. Because this moment feels as much hers as it is mine” (355).
The Mother-Daughter Relationship and Its Effect on Self-Esteem
This book explores many of the characters’ relationships with their mothers. The mother/daughter relationship (as well as the mother/son relationship) is important to the overall meaning of Dumplin’. Although the central relationship that fuels the conflict in the novel is between Will and her mother, Will draws from her friends' experiences to help her accept her own mother, and ultimately, herself.
Willowdean spends most of her life resenting the Miss Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant, which causes her to also resent her mother, who spends most of her time wrapped up in the pageant. After Lucy dies, Willowdean thinks about her relationship with her mother: “I never knew how much was lacking from my relationship from my relationship with her until Lucy wasn’t here to fill the gaps. It’s the two of us now, fumbling around in the dark” (227).
When Willowdean’s mother brings a dress home for Willowdean to wear to the pageant, Will doesn’t know if it is a good idea to try it on: “There is no recipe for disaster so guaranteed as my mother clothes shopping for me. We’ve been there. We’ve done that. We still have the bruises” (256). Here, Willowdean is talking about emotional bruises. Throughout the narrative, Mrs. Dixon's continual criticism of her daughter's weight causes Will to internalize a negative self-image. Whereas Mrs. Dixon values appearance and the attention that appearance can bring, Will does not.
Willowdean bursts out crying when her mother talks about getting rid of all of Lucy’s things. At first, Will thinks that maybe her mother will hug her: “And I don’t mean her wrapping her arms around my waist, and commenting on how her fingers nearly touch. I mean a real hug. One I can sink into” (312). Will’s mother doesn’t hug her, and Will concludes: “We don’t have this kind of relationship. I don’t cry on my mother’s shoulder. We dance around each other, but never intersect” (312).
Bo talks with Willowdean about the loss of his mother and the part that Loraine, his stepmother, plays in his life: “I tried really hard not to like her. But the harder I tried, the more I wanted to like her. She doesn’t try to be my mom. Not like some other ladies would. She’s something else to me, though. Not a friend, but not a mom. I don’t know” (283). Willow relates to Bo and his relationship with Loraine because it reminds Will of her relationship with Aunt Lucy. Due to Will's strained and unsupportive relationship with her mother, Will viewed Aunt Lucy as both a mother and friend figure.
The book also explores the relationship that Millie has with her mother. Millie doesn’t tell her parents that she is competing in the pageant because when she asked for their permission, they said no. On the day of the show, her parents show up in the auditorium. Millie’s mother has been crying. Willowdean tries to help Millie by telling Millie’s parents: “Millie has to compete […] she’s worked hard. And she’s not fragile. She isn’t. She’s got this thick skin you don’t even expect” (349). Millie tells her mother that it is only her mother holding Millie back from competing in the pageant and there is no rule that says that “fatties need not apply” (349). While Millie’s mother cringes at the word “fatties,” she agrees that Millie can stay in the contest.
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