She does not like the English dress

She thought that if Mary’s dress, which was singularly and gaudily decorated has a less savage aspect, she might look more natural to her; and she signed to her to remove the mantle she wore, made of birds’ feathers, woven together with threads of wild nettle. Mary threw it aside, and disclosed her person, light and agile as a fawn’s, clothed with skins, neatly fitted to her waist and arms, and ambitiously embellished with bead work. The removal of the mantel, instead of the effect designed, only served to make more striking the aboriginal peculiarities; and Hope, shuddering and heartsick, made one more effort to disguise them by taking off her silk cloak and wrapping it close around her sister. Mary seemed instantly to comprehend the language of the action, she shook her head, gently disengaged herself from the cloak, and resumed her mantle. An involuntary exclamation of triumph burst from Oneco’s lips. “Oh tell her,” said Hope to Magawisca, “that I want once more to see her in the dress of her own people—of her own family—from whose arms she was torn to be dragged into captivity.”
A faint smile curled Magawisca’s lip, but she interpreted faithfully Hope’s communication, and Mary’s reply, “ ‘she does not like the English dress,’ she says” (239.)

This passage from Catharine Maria Sedgwick's novel, Hope Leslie, may be one of my favorites from the entire work. Not only is it a striking scene between Mary and Hope, but on a shallow level I can relate to that, and certainly other girls like myself can as well. In my teen years, I used to identify with a variety of different sub cultures (punk, goth, indie, hipster, the list goes on) and by extension would dress in a style appropriate for the respective scene. In response to this, my family would be confused or horrified by what I chose to wear and begged for me to dress in something they considered to be more socially acceptable. Though my teenaged self's relation to culture and fashion may be trivial in comparison to Mary's, I like to think that we were vaguely on the same page with this topic. Fashion does play a part in the cultures we identify with, as evident in the above passage. Just as I dyed my hair black and forced myself to listen to my uncle's Bauhaus tapes when I identified as a goth during freshman year of high school, Mary has fully embraced the Native American culture she grown up with while in captivity, as we can see by the clothing she wears. Her refusal to wearing the cloak, a representation of "English dress," demonstrates her faithfulness to her own culture as well as the rejection of her born culture. To wear the cloak, she would be literally concealing her cultural attire, which in a sense would hide away her identity.

How I imagine Mary's Native American apparel.

I also noticed something interesting about the appearance of the "cloak" throughout the novel. The verb form of cloak implies the clothing or hiding away of something, which is precisely what Hope is doing to her sister. On one hand, Hope is covering her sister with this garment in an attempt to rekindle the image of the "English dressed" sister she had lost as a child. However, she is also concealing the reminder that Mary is no longer the sister she once knew, and now "savage" in dress and culture. In a sense, this exchange between sisters resembles English culture imposing their ways upon the Native Americans. Though Hope is in a sense trying to win back her sister, we can still view the attempt to cover Mary up with the cloak as an act of English influence trying to dominate the native culture.


On the subject of cloaks and domination, there is another passage in the text that mirrors these ideas, that being the scene of Sir Philip offering Hope Leslie his cloak:
"Now, thanks to my good stars, that I am so fortunate as to meet you; suffer me to wrap my cloak about you; you will be drenched with this pitiless rain."
"Oh no, no," she said, "the cloak will but encumber me. I am already drenched, and I shall be at home directly," and she would have left him, but he caught her arm, and gently detained her, while he enveloped her in his cloak" (201-202). I find this seemingly platonic exchange rather disturbing and to a point violating. The conversation doesn't seem to actually be about the clothing article, but rather a conversation about their relationship in disguised. (A cloaked conversation about cloaks, if you please!) The sentence "suffer me to wrap my cloak about you" sounds rather sexual, perhaps alluding to Sir Philip's desires to wrap himself about her. In addition, Hope's claim that the cloak will "encumber her" possibly suggests that Sir Philip is truly the one who is a burden on her, as I don't see how a cloak on a rainy day would be a bad thing. It is not the cloak Hope is refusing, it is the man. Nevertheless, we see Sir Philip's display of sexual dominance by forcing the shawl upon her despite her refusal. The word choices contribute to the particular disturbing quality of the scene. The fact that he is "detaining" her gives the sense that Hope is trapped, and the "envelopment" of the cloak around her conveys a smothering sensation.
I can surely understand why Mary is opposed to the English dress.