| Sumario: | In Dodie Smith's novel I Capture the Castle (1948), Cassandra Mortmain writes the story of her sister Rose's courtship. In the novel, clothes perform the paradoxical work of, on one hand, helping create a version of Rose that is vividly original in her wealthy suitor's eyes, while on the other hand showing readers how her behavior is as stereotypical as the oldest of fairy tales. The novel uses three pieces of clothing in particular – a dyed tea-gown, a bear-skin coat, and a frilly pink dress – to create fairy-tale associations with Rose. The novel does so to show that reproducing the unoriginality of fairy tales cannot create happiness.
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