The White Dress Symbol in That Summer by Jennifer Weiner
What the White Dress Is in That Summer
The white dress in Jennifer Weiner's That Summer appears most concretely in a single object: a wedding photograph. When Diana Scalzi Carmody searches Vernon Shoemaker's Cape Cod house for evidence of the man who assaulted her, she finds a framed picture of Henry “Hal” Shoemaker and his bride. The woman—Daisy, whose legal name is also Diana—is described as “half-swallowed by an enormous pouf of a white dress.” The frame is monogrammed “Henry and Daisy Shoemaker, June 9, 2001.”
That one image carries the novel's central irony. The white dress is the garment of the bride, the symbol of a wedding Diana never had, worn by a woman who married the man who raped her. It is also the dress of innocence—the purity narrative Hal's world performs—while the actual loss of innocence happened to a fifteen-year-old girl in a yellow bikini at a beach bonfire.
The Yellow Bikini and the Summer That Wasn't
The prologue establishes what Diana wore that summer: a yellow bikini given to her by her sisters before she traveled to Truro. The bikini is the opposite of a white dress. It is casual, youthful, and unguarded—the clothing of a girl, not a bride. When Poe tells Diana she “looks like summer” at the bonfire, he is performing romance, dressing the moment in the language of innocence and beauty. The line is the verbal equivalent of the white dress: a costume of purity that conceals what is about to happen.
The white dress, then, is not just a garment in a photograph. It is the story Hal tells about himself—the respectable lawyer, the husband, the father—and the story his world tells about women. Diana, at fifteen, was not given that story. She was given a drink at a bonfire and assaulted by three boys while another watched.
The Wedding Photograph and the Two Dianas
When Diana finds the photograph, she is struck by two things. First, that the man she knew as “Poe” is Henry Shoemaker, a lawyer with a wife and daughter. Second, that his wife's real name is Diana. The discovery unsettles her almost as much as the assault itself: it makes her feel like the “rough-draft Diana, the one who got crumpled up and tossed in the trash,” while his wife is the “final version,” beloved and cherished.
The white dress in the photograph is the marker of that difference. Daisy got the dress. Diana got the assault. The dress literalizes the divide between the two women—one who was chosen, one who was discarded—even though they share a name and, eventually, a friendship.
The irony deepens when we learn that Hal himself renamed his wife. He asked Diana Rosen if he could call her “Daisy” instead, saying he “knew another Diana, once.” He gives her a “secret name” and calls her “my pretty little flower.” The white dress and the flower name are part of the same performance: Hal's need to control the women in his life, to rename them and dress them in innocence.
The Dress as a Symbol of What Was Taken
The white dress represents the life Diana Scalzi was denied. She did not get a wedding at the Four Seasons or a husband who practiced law in Philadelphia. She got a cottage on the Cape, a restaurant called the Abbey, and years of therapy for PTSD. When she finally marries Michael Carmody, the wedding happens quietly at the Abbey, after years of patient courtship.
The white dress, then, is not just about innocence lost. It is about the entire script of a woman's life—the wedding, the marriage, the family—that was stolen from Diana when she was fifteen. The dress is the symbol of the normal life she was denied, and the normal life Daisy got without knowing what it cost.
The Dress and the Performance of Identity
The white dress also connects to the novel's broader theme of performance of identity. Diana Scalzi spends much of the novel performing—as a consultant, as a cooking student, as a woman who belongs in Rittenhouse Square. She borrows clothes from Rent the Runway and from drag queens, applies makeup carefully, and practices smiles in the mirror. The white dress in the wedding photograph is another costume: the costume of the pure bride, the respectable wife.
But the dress is also a lie. Hal's marriage to Daisy is built on the foundation of his assault of another woman. The white dress cannot wash that away. When Daisy finally confronts Hal and calls him a rapist, the white dress of their wedding photograph is exposed as a costume—a performance of respectability that concealed a crime.
The motif also connects to bystander complicity and the culture of silence. Daniel Rosen, who witnessed the assault and kept quiet, later recommended his sister to Hal as a cooking instructor—serving her up, as Diana puts it, to the boy who'd done it. The white dress Daisy wears is, in part, the product of that silence.
The Dress and Healing
By the end of the novel, the white dress's meaning shifts again. Diana Scalzi has found a way to live with her past. She owns the Abbey, she has married Michael, she has told her story. When Daisy and Beatrice come into her life, the two women begin to heal together. Daisy leaves Hal. Beatrice grows up knowing the truth about her father.
The white dress is never reclaimed or redeemed in the novel. Diana does not get a do-over wedding. But the symbol's power diminishes as the story progresses. The dress that once seemed to mark the difference between the two Dianas becomes less important than the friendship they build. The final image of the novel is not a wedding but a paddleboard on Cape Cod Bay—Beatrice, the next generation, moving forward on the water.
For more on how the dress connects to the novel's larger concerns, see the themes of healing from sexual trauma as a nonlinear process, the moral complexity of revenge, and female friendship as a source of strength.
Study Questions
1. Why does the wedding photograph affect Diana so deeply, and what does the white dress represent to her?
The photograph affects Diana because it makes concrete the life she was denied. She sees the man who raped her as a respectable husband and father, and she sees his wife—a woman who shares her name—wearing the white dress Diana never got to wear. The dress represents the normal script of a woman's life: marriage, family, respectability. Diana's reaction—smashing a jar of seashells and running out of the house—shows how the image reopens her wound. The white dress is not just a garment; it is the proof that her rapist was rewarded while she was discarded.
2. How does the yellow bikini from the prologue contrast with the white dress, and what does that contrast reveal?
The yellow bikini is the clothing of a fifteen-year-old girl on a summer job—casual, youthful, unguarded. The white dress is the clothing of a bride—formal, ceremonial, guarded. The contrast reveals the arc of the novel's critique: girls are dressed for innocence and then blamed when innocence is taken from them. Poe's line that Diana “looks like summer” is the verbal costume that precedes the assault. The bikini and the dress are both costumes, but only one is treated as sacred.
3. What does Hal's decision to rename Diana Rosen “Daisy” have to do with the white dress?
Hal renames his wife because he “knew another Diana, once”—the girl he assaulted. The new name, “Daisy,” is a flower name that suggests innocence and purity. The white dress performs the same function visually: it dresses Daisy in the costume of purity, erasing the other Diana from the record. Both the name and the dress are acts of control. Hal is not just marrying a woman; he is rewriting history, replacing the Diana he harmed with a Diana he can own.
4. How does the white dress's meaning change by the end of the novel?
The white dress never stops being a symbol of lost innocence and stolen life, but its power diminishes as the story resolves. Diana Scalzi builds a life that does not depend on the script the white dress represents. She marries Michael on her own terms, owns a restaurant, and finds friendship with Daisy and Beatrice. The final image of the novel—Beatrice paddleboarding across the bay—suggests a future that is not defined by the white dress or the wedding photograph. The dress remains a wound, but it is no longer the whole story.