The book “The Hundred Dresses, written by Eleanor Estes, talks about a poor and friendless Polish-American girl named Wanda. Although her grades are very good, she sits in the worst seat in the classroom and does not say anything when her schoolmates tease her. One day, after Wanda's classmates laugh at her Polish last name and the faded blue dress she wears to school every day, Wanda claims to own one hundred dresses, all lined up in her closet in her worn-down house. This obvious lie becomes a game, and the group of girls in her class, headed by Maddie and Peggy, mock her every day before school demanding that she describe all of her dresses for them. Her father, Jan Petroski, reveals that due to the constant discrimination directed at his family they must leave town. The teacher holds a drawing contest in which the girls are to draw dresses of their own design. Wanda enters and submits one hundred beautiful designs. Her classmates are in awe of her talent and realize that these were her hundred dresses thus leading the students to believe Wanda. The students who teased her feel remorse and want her to know this, but they are not sure how. They decide to write her a kind letter and send it to her old address, hoping the post office can forward it. Unfortunately, she has already moved away and does not realize she won the contest. Wanda gets mocked and bullied during schooltime, so I would introduce some tips in this essay.
If we want to stop from being bullied, we should stop them first. If we don’t stop the bullies first, they would continue to jeer we and make we angry. We don’t tell the teacher first because there are many types of bullying. For boys, they hit or say ridiculously bad words to each other; this is physical bullying. We could tell the teacher about physical and little emotional hurting. On the other hand, girls don’t hurt others physically. They mock them by isolating (making them alone or don’t let others play with them) or also say hurting words about a specific topic. Girls jeer others emotionally so we couldn’t tell the teacher. In the story, Wanda gets bullied by the girls about her blue, faded dress and her quote that she had a hundred dresses. We should stop the bully first as telling the teacher to solve the problem doesn’t work every time and solving a big problem is time consuming.
After we stop the bully, we should try to comfort the bully down. There are many ways of comforting. We could be a friend with the bully but on the other hand try to avoid him (We shouldn’t help them). We could also give the bully some eases so he or she would think we like them and would stop jeering we. In the story, after Wands gets mocked at school, her father faces discrimination too. He just decided to move away and try to make others like him. Making friends with a bully seemed ridiculous, but it is just on the surface. We should stop them in the inside.
After we made friends with the bully, (This is the best part) we could tell the teacher or other trusted adults. If we only stop and calm the bully down, it may still have the idea of doing harm to we. Now, the best thing is to tell trusted adults like we teacher, parents, or family members. In the story, after the teacher noticed Wanda being laughed every day, she held a drawing contest where every girl needs to submit a dress design. Wanda goes in and submits one hundred beautiful dresses. This makes all the other girls notice her talent. Wanda’s teacher knew that this is a wonderful way to let Wanda to use her power to prove herself.
In conclusion, The Hundred Dresses is about a girl named Wanda, who proves herself to the bullies who jeer about her faded blue dress and her quote of having a hundred dresses by submitting a hundred wonderful, fascinating dresses to her teacher’s drawing contest. This passage talks about how to prevent from miserable bullying. We should stop them, calm them, and finally tell adults.
Comments