60 pages • 2 hours read
Dumplin
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Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapters 1-4 Summary
Willowdean Dickson, the narrator of Dumplin’, and Ellen Dryver started their friendship the summer before first grade when Willowdean’s Aunt Lucy and Ellen’s mother, Suze, bonded over their love of the country music star, Dolly Parton. Lucy and Suze Dryver would drink iced tea in the kitchen leaving the soon to be first graders in the living room. Willowdean and Ellen watched cartoons together awkwardly until the stereo played Parton’s song “Dumb Blonde” and the two girls broke out in song and dance, consummating the beginning of their friendship.
Despite their differences, Willowdean and Ellen remain best friends through high school. Willowdean describes herself as “fat,” while she perceives Ellen as traditionally beautiful. Willowdean describes her best friend: “Tall, blond, and with this impossible goofy yet sexy paradox going on that only seems to exist in romantic comedies. She’s always been at home in her own skin” (2).
The girls live in the town of Clover City, which is home to the Miss Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant, the oldest beauty pageant in Texas. Will’s mother was Miss Teen Blue Bonnet when she was a teenager and is always on the planning committee for the event.
Willowdean waits outside the high school to meet Ellen and Ellen’s boyfriend, Tim, after classes. From the parking lot, the three see girls dressed in matching pink shorts and tops marching around the school track, and Ellen tells Will and Tim that it’s “Pageant Boot Camp” (3) for girls planning on participating in the Miss Teen Blue Bonnet that summer. Ellen knows this because a girl she works with is taking part in the boot camp.
When Ellen and Tim drive off, Willow sees her classmate Millie walking toward Patrick Thomas and his friends. Patrick is making oinking noises like pigs. To spare Millie the embarrassment of Patrick’s bullying, Willow distracts Millie until the boys get bored and leave.
Willowdean works at Harpy’s Burgers & Dogs, a local fast food restaurant. Her work uniform is a short apron dress, which often draws unflattering comments—like the one from a man riding through the drive-thru who says, “Hey there, sweetcheeks” (6), as Willowdean rings the back door bell to be let into the restaurant.
Willowdean has a crush on her Harpy’s Burgers & Dogs coworker, Bo, who goes to a different school than hers. When she sees him, she admits: “A heat burns inside of me as it rises all the way up through my cheeks. […] The Truth: I’ve had this hideous crush on Bo since the first time we met” (7). When Bo talks to Willowdean, she becomes flustered: “What comes out of my mouth in front of Bo Larson doesn’t even qualify as verbal diarrhea” (8). One night, Bo’s classmates come into Harpy’s Burgers & Dogs, and Bo is uncomfortable.
Willowdean’s Aunt Lucy has recently passed away, leaving Willowdean to live only with her mother, who has deemed Willowdean “Dumplin’,” a nickname that Willowdean hates. Willowdean’s mother was not only a Miss Teen Blue Bonnet winner, but she still fits in the dress she wore for the pageant. As head of the pageant committee, she wears the dress every year to the competition.
The next day, Ellen tells Willowdean that she is considering having sex with Tim. It’s the last day of school and Willowdean is trying to study for a test. Willowdean and Ellen have this conversation often and this day, Ellen is distracting Willowdean from studying: “If El was actually going to go through with it, I’d have crawled over the table to have a nose-to-nose conversation with her about every detail. But she never goes through with it” (17).
Ellen asks Willowdean about work and Bo. She tells Willowdean that she is upset that they aren’t working together this summer. Ellen works for Sweet 16, a clothing store in the mall. As Ellen and Willowdean eat lunch, Millie walks by and waves at Willowdean. Millie is with her friend, Amanda. Amanda wears corrective shoes because her legs are uneven. Kids at the high school call her “Frankenstein.”
When Willowdean goes home after school, she finds her mother in Lucy’s room clearing out Lucy’s stuff. Lucy died after having a massive heart attack at 36, a condition linked to her obesity. Willowdean’s mom says: “God, she was a pack rack” (21). When Willowdean asks what her mother is going to do with Lucy’s stuff, her mother replies that she will donate it: ”You know how hard it is for women of size to find clothing, so I’m sure someone will greatly appreciate it” (21). When Willowdean asks if she can have some of Lucy’s stuff—“Not to wear. Just to Keep” (21)—her mother is confident there’s nothing Willowdean would want.
Later, at work, Willowdean talks with Marcus, her coworker, about life after high school. Marcus has plans to follow his girlfriend to college, but Willowdean can’t picture herself in college. Willowdean’s mother is asleep when Willowdean gets home. Wanting to see what her mother did to Lucy’s room while she was at work, Willowdean quietly checks out Lucy’s bedroom. Amid the boxes, she finds some newspaper clippings and Dolly Parton tapes.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
The first chapters of Dumplin’ introduce Willowdean, the main character of the book and the first-person narrator. Through Willowdean, we learn about the important people in Willowdean’s life and her relationships with them.
Willowdean is convinced that the best things in her life start with a Dolly Parton’s song. Will is a huge Dolly Parton fan. She first bonded with her best friend, Ellen, over Dolly Parton. Despite the years of friendship between Will and Ellen, the teens have noticeably different outlooks on body image. When Will mentions to Ellen that Ellen is much taller than Ellen’s boyfriend, Tim, Ellen shrugs off their difference in height. Willowdean’s biggest conflict in the novel is that she doesn’t believe that she is good enough to be with Bo, the boy she likes. Ellen, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to care what people think.
Bo Larson is Willowdean’s crush, and Will reveals the type of relationship she wants with Bo when she describes the relationship between Ellen and Tim. In the first chapter of Dumplin’, Willowdean says: “It’s not that I am jealous of Ellen and Tim […] I want what they have” (3).
With Willowdean’s narrative, it's evident early in the novel that she is self-aware and generally comfortable with her identity as a plus-sized girl. She explains that while people don’t like using the word “fat,” she can’t think of anyway else to describe herself. When she first meets Bo at the fast food restaurant where she works, she introduces herself: “Willowdean […] Cashier, Dolly Parton enthusiast, and resident fat girl” (8). At the end of Chapter 1, Willowdean continues: “But that’s me. I’m fat. It’s not a cuss word. It’s not an insult” (9).
When Bo says nothing after Will’s introduction, she says: “I mean, I am other things, too” (8). This foreshadows Will and Bo’s relationship later in the book. Bo will convince her she is more than just a “resident fat girl.”
Millie and Patrick are two of Will’s classmates, introduced in Chapter 1. Millie is also plus-sized. Willowdean wants to spare Millie embarrassment, so when the school bully, Patrick, waits by Millie’s car at the end of the school with his friends with the intent of making fun of Millie, Will distracts Millie until Patrick leaves. Willowdean feels bad that she looks at Millie and thinks that things could be worse: Will could be as fat as Millie. However, Will is still kind to go out of her way to help Millie avoid Patrick and his friends.
Willowdean’s mother won the Miss Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant when she was Will’s age, and this title weighs heavily on Rosie's identity: “The pageant is my mother’s single greatest accomplishment” (13). From when the reader first meets Rosie Dixon, the difference between her and her daughter is obvious. It’s pageant season, so Will’s mother is on a diet. Her mother comments that it looks like Willowdean is breaking out on her forehead and Willowdean sighs. Her mother says: “Now, Dumplin’, you know I hate when you sigh. There is nothing less attractive than a discontent young woman” (13). When Will tells her mom about being catcalled on the way to work that day, her mother thinks the attention is flattering. Will, however, thinks that behavior is “gross” (13).
Willowdean’s Aunt Lucy, Rosie’s sister, lived with Will and her mother until she passed away. The early chapters of Dumplin’ introduce the contrasting ways Will and her mother deal with Lucy’s death. Will’s mother wants to go through and get rid of all of Lucy’s stuff and move on, an idea that horrifies Will. In these chapters, we also learn about Will’s feelings about Lucy. Lucy was the mother to Will that Will’s mother wasn’t, yet, Lucy died alone having a heart attack at the age of 36, weighing 498 pounds. At the time of her death, Lucy never left the house: “No one saw her die. But then again, no one outside the house saw her live” (22). Will is afraid that no one will remember the good person Lucy was and only remember her as “fat.” Despite her usual confidence, Willowdean has the same concern about herself.
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