Dresses symbolize transformation in Calico Captive. Miriam’s transformation from child to woman happens when she spends days leading up to the party at the cabin sewing a dress for herself:

In her own mind the bolt of blue cloth that James had brought in his pack had changed her into a different person. The dress that hung close to her head, waiting for the first rays of the sun to light it into beauty, symbolized the wonder of the past few days (13-14).

When Miriam wears the new dress, she feels like a woman, and Phineas tells her how he feels about her. However, Miriam’s transformative dress is destroyed by her journey, so it is just rags by the time she arrives at St. Francis. Miriam is transformed again when Felicité shares her second-hand dress with Miriam, and Miriam alters it until it is beautiful and so eye-catching that Madame Du Quesne is jealous.

Miriam uses her skills as a seamstress to make dresses for the Du Quesnes and then the marquise. These keep her and Susanna fed, clothed, and safe. In this way, the symbol shifts from the way that Miriam is transformed by dresses to Miriam transforming others and her own life through dresses; her sewing symbolizes her

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