The Prince and the Dressmaker

Fiction | Graphic Novel/Book | YA | Published in 2018

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-2

Chapters 3-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-12

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Background

Authorial Context: Jen Wang

Jen Wang is a writer, illustrator, and cartoonist born in California in 1984. She began drawing a webcomic while still in high school, and went on to publish her first graphic novel, Koko Be Good, in 2010 with First Second Books. In 2014, Wang collaborated with writer Cory Doctorow on the graphic novel In Real Life, which won the 2014 Cybils Award. (Cybils stands for Children’s and Young Adult Book Lovers’ Literary Awards.) The Prince and the Dressmaker was her third published graphic novel and boosted Wang to a new level of prominence. All of these books, as well as Wang’s 2019 middle grade graphic novel Stargazing, depict coming-of-age narratives with expressive illustrations and character-driven empathy. Wang credits her sensitivity to her use of her own experiences as inspiration, sharing that in The Prince and the Dressmaker, she wanted to create a book that her “younger, more questioning self” would love (Martin, Brittany. “This L.A. Illustrator Just Created the Gender-Fluid Fairy Tale We All Need.” Los Angeles Magazine, 16 Mar. 2018). In Stargazing, Wang channeled her experience as the child of Taiwanese immigrants, and included a character being diagnosed with a brain tumor, just as Wang was at age six.

In 2014, Jen Wang co-founded Comic Arts LA, an independent comics event and show in Los Angeles where she currently resides. Comic Arts LA was the first comic arts festival in the city, and continues to generate community for cartoonists and graphic novel creators. The importance of friendship and community is an ongoing theme in Wang’s work, reflecting her dedication to her real-life peers and personal relationships.

Cultural Context: LGBTQIA+ Coming of Age Graphic Novels

The Prince and the Dressmaker is part of a rich tradition of LGBTQIA+ coming of age narratives told through the medium of illustration and cartoons. One of the most well-known examples of this tradition is Alison Bechdel’s 2006 graphic memoir Fun Home, which details both Bechdel’s family life with a closeted gay father and her own journey to understanding her sexuality. More recently, Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer (2019) details the author’s path to eir identity, beginning as a young person at home. These themes of family conflict paired with self-discovery appear in The Prince and the Dressmaker, as well as in later graphic novels like Trung Le Nguyen’s The Magic Fish, a semi-autobiographical story about the child of Vietnamese immigrants facing the challenges of coming out to his parents.

The Prince and the Dressmaker includes another trope commonly found in the LGBTQIA+ graphic novel tradition—first love. 2010’s Blue is the Warmest Color by Jul Maroh portrays a lesbian love story set in 1990s France, while more recently Alice Oseman’s Hearstopper series (2016-ongoing) details the revelatory relationship between two young men at a British all-boys school. The Prince and the Dressmaker’s fairytale world-building evokes other graphic novels in the genre using elements of fantasy to enrich young adult narratives such as Lumberjanes, an LGBTQ+ comic series about a group of girls at a magical summer camp (2014-2020), to which Jen Wang also contributed art.

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Perhaps the most important throughline for LGBTQIA+ coming-of-age graphic novels is its participation in a long tradition of employing cartoons and illustrated works to tell the stories of historically marginalized people. Graphic novels render stories that have been hidden, erased or marginalized literally visible—allowing its characters to be both practically and figuratively seen. Just as many LGBTQIA+ individuals have had to construct their own identities, graphic novels employ distinctive artistic styles and carefully crafted imagery to give shape, texture and color to narratives that have historically existed outside of mainstream markets. In The Prince and the Dressmaker, Wang illustrates Sebastian’s identity as Lady Crystallia to great impact, but never attributes pronouns to Crystallia. Wang avoids labels for her character by letting the images of Crystallia speak for themselves and allowing a range of readers to identify with Sebastian.