Summary and Analysis

The narrator begins "Tailor's Dummies" with a tone of regret for how the family had reacted to his father's exotic birds. He justifies his father's attempt to create magic and beauty. His father's madness was imagination, and his family didn't value it as such. Looking back the narrator applauds his father's efforts to combat the monotony and boredom of their lives with excitement and poetry.

In "Tailors' Dummies" we see a lot more of Adela. After everything that happened with the birds, Adela's position in the house becomes more noticeable. The family is bored with winter. The narrator makes a point to describe the family as empty in contrast to Adela who always has something to do. She is forever moving around the house. She is always cleaning, doing her make-up, bringing them breakfast. Shulz never speaks outright about...