Short Story - Red Dress: How A Girl's Home and School Environment Determined Her Attitude Towards the Dance The short story "Red Dress" by Alice Munro is about a young girl's first high school dance. Her home and school environment determined her attitude towards the dance. This girl's home life was bad. She was constantly put down mentally by her mother, even in front of her friend Lonnie, to the point that the narrator envied Lonnie on account that her mother died and she lived alone with her father. "`I doubt if she appreciates it.' Sh ....