Girl in a Blue Dress Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Birth Control and Childbirth in the 19th Century and our BookBrowse Review of Girl in a Blue Dress.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

Longlisted for both the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize, Gaynor Arnold's Girl in a Blue Dress is an intimate peek at a woman who was behind one of literature's most esteemed men.This guide is meant to help your reading group in its discussion of this remarkable novel.

1. Arnold titled her novel Girl in a Blue Dress, yet for most of the book, Dorothea is a grown woman. Why did the author choose this title? In what ways does Dorothea's growth from a girl to a woman affect the narrative?
2. Victorian England is known for its restrictiveness and prudishness when it comes to discussing matters of the heart. If Mr. and Mrs. Gibson were to go into marriage counseling today to discuss their "issues," what would those issues be?
3. Mrs. Gibson never seems quite comfortable in her role as a mother. How was parenthood different in the Victorian world than it is in the present day?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Three Rivers. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.