1. “My head ached. Why did I attract these weird old women? There was the famous poet, and Philomena Guinea, and Jay Cee, and the Christian Scientist lady and lord knows who, and they all wanted to adopt me in some way, and, for the price for their care and influence, have me resemble them” (My 263, probably around your 215-216).
This quote really struck me because it sounds like Esther is describing a role model. Jay Cee and the famous poet all differ from other girls Esther interacts with. Do you think any of these women (or any other character we see throughout the book) served as a role model for Esther? Someone to emulate and respect? Or do you think these characters only provide another source for negativity that Esther feeds off of?
2. What was it about Irwin that drew Esther to him specifically? Do you think Esther freed herself of a weight when she lost her virginity and why/why not?
3. How do you think Esther’s mental state has improved over the last chapters of the book? What changes do you see in Esther from when she spent that summer in New York to when she steps in for the interview and what do you think brought about these changes?
I am going to add to Marisa's questions with this, as a way to look at Plath's novel as a whole. The Guardian asked several writers to reflect on the novel four years ago, on its 50th anniversary. Go ahead and take a look at what they said here. I am particularly struck by what Lena Dunham, creator, writer, and star of Girls on HBO and writer/director of the film Tiny Furniture, wrote.
I wonder if Plath would have been saved had she been born in a different
time: in a time when psycho-pharmacologists are no more shameful to
visit than hairdressers and women write celebrated personal essays about
being bad mothers and cutters and are reclaiming the word slut. Would
she have been a riot grrrl, embracing an angry feminist aesthetic?
Addicted to Xanax? A blogger for Slate? Would she, like me, have found a
cosy coffeehouse environment on the internet, a way to connect with
people who understood her aesthetic and validated her experience? Would
she have been less dependent on the approval of viewers and critics and
more aware of the positive effect her book was having on splintered
psyches and girls with short bangs everywhere? Or would that kind of
connectedness and access to unmitigated and misspelled negativity have
driven her even madder?
Feel free to comment on what Dunham or any of the writers wrote—I'm interested in what you think of their views, whether you comment here or if this comes up in class. But first, address what Marisa's asks. See you all tomorrow.
1. I think that Philomena Guinea only adds to the pressures that Esther feels to be a certain way. Her scholarship from Guinea is because of this outward persona that Esther has created and feels she must maintain. We don’t learn much else about Guinea except that she wants this “college and success” path for Esther, so I don’t see her as a role model figure. I think Jay Cee could be a role model for Esther, but she is involved with Esther at the exact wrong time. Perhaps if Esther met Jay Cee a bit earlier in life, she could have seen her as a role model. She is a woman who is successful, smart, married, and yet doesn’t look the way the society wants women to look and doesn’t seem to always conform to society's expectations. However, Esther only meets Jay Cee in one of her darkest moments. In this time Esther is doubting herself and spiraling out of control, and Jay Cee’s comments only drive her further into confusion. In the context of this story, Jay Cee cannot really be a role model for Esther because Esther is not ready to accept her as one. She judges Jay Cee for her flaws, and doesn’t have the ability to focus on her as a role model.
ReplyDelete2. We don’t know that much about Irwin, but we do know that he seems to have affairs with quite a few women. So maybe it wasn’t unusual for him to become quickly interested in some woman he met on the street. Other than that, it’s unclear why he would be drawn to Esther. Possibly because she seems witty and interesting. I think that in many ways, Esther did free herself of a weight when she lost her virginity. Virginity is just another expectation that the society around her has thrust upon her. By losing her virginity, Esther is able to make a decision for herself. She can chose not to conform to the idea of purity until marriage. Whatever anybody else thinks about that doesn’t matter now, and she was able to make a decision and disregard the pressures and expectations of her time. It can be seen as a symbolic act. She knows what people expect of her (in terms of being a virgin), and yet she is finally able to disregard their opinions and make a choice on her own.
3. Esther says, “What was there about us, in Belsize, so different from the girls . . . in college . . .? Those girls, too, sat under bell jars of a sort”. This is a very perceptive point, and I think it shows one of the changes Esther has undergone. Esther now is considering the mental state of others and how they perceive the world. At the beginning of the book, and in her worst phase, Esther was trapped in her own mind. She was perceiving things in a very strange way, and didn’t have the time to think about others. By this point in the story, Esther is thinking n a much more far reaching way. She sees that others have similar problems to her, and simply the fact that others have varying perceptions of reality. She even talks to Doctor Nolan about Joan's death. Although earlier she expressed no empathy for Joan and said she didn't life her, now she is grappling with emotions about her death. She displays a lot more depth of feeling and empathy now.
1. Esther feels she is a project to many of these older women, as Marisa's quote shows. They all play their assigned roles in this strictly defined world, it seems to me: Jay Cee may be one role Esther would like—"Eee Gee"—but even she adheres to the set structure, with her prim clothes and advice, realistic as it might be, for Esther to learn two or three foreign languages to make her stand out. Doctor Nolan, on the other hand, seems to me to be the role model Esther has desired and needed; motherly but not her mother, caring and honest, always honest, and insightful as to what it means to be a young woman in this world. When Esther asks her what a woman sees in a woman but not a man, she pauses, searching for the right answer: "'Tenderness'" (219). And, of course, she laughs at the Defense of Chastity and immediately writes Esther directions to where she can get birth control. Nolan is unique in this book, unique in Esther's life. If Esther had seen her insteadof Gordon, so much terrible things wouldn't have happened to Esther; and she is a woman, a person, Esther can emulate.
ReplyDelete2. Good question, Marisa. I'm not sure. My first response is that Esther is attractive, despite her own criticism of her own appearance. Second, when we see them at a French restaurant, she is assured and charming—a part of Esther we haven't seen much of in the book. "'I suppose you have lots and lots of affairs in Cambridge,' I told Irwin cheerily, as I stuck a snail with a small pin..." (227). Basically, what Mira said above: Esther is witty and interesting (a glimpse of a healthy Esther perhaps). As for Esther freeing herself by losing her virginity...hmmm. The result of her having sex with Irwin is terrifying—I don't know if this is autobiographical, but it does, for me, fit thematically into the novel. Little is what Esther was told it would be. The Alp in her eye appears not to have happened. But she is different: "I felt part of a great tradition." I've never been sure how to read that, but she smiles as she thinks of it. And she has gained freedom, as she thinks as she gets fitted for her diaphragm (I believe). She is free of having to marry someone like Buddy should she have gotten pregnant. She can experience her sexuality free of that fear. Which had to have been huge at that time, seeing how birth control "was illegal—in Massachusetts, anyway" (220).
3. The hundred dollar question. The short answer is "yes." She is free of the desire to kill herself, she is behaving "normally," she has a clarity of thought and self that she didn't have completely when the novel opened. That said, with clarity comes clarity—and she is still a young woman in 1954 who does worry about who will her marry her after she's been in a psychiatric hospital. And as Mira quoted and talked about, can she and the other women, many of whom are mirrors of her, ever know whether the bell jar will return. When she goes for her interview with the board she is "scared to death" (243). And what makes this evaluation, as she dresses in a way that makes her think of marriage, any different than all the evaluations she has experienced in her life? Still being judged.
1. I agree with Mira. I think that Jay Cee could have been a role model for Esther but because of the circumstances under which they met, she was not. Jay Cee is smart, independent, bold—she embodies so much of what it seems to me Esther wants for herself. Esther wants to write, to be paid to write, to have people enjoy reading her work. She wants to be respected and maybe feared just a little bit; in short, a force (W;t, anyone?). Esther wants to be accepted as a part of society but free to make her own choices; she wants to marry, like Jay Cee, but still have a formidable career. I don’t think that Esther has a role model in this book, and this is one of the reasons she falls into depression. There are so few women who she can look up to in 1954, before second-wave feminism—most women were silenced and forced into submission through marriage. If Esther had a role model she may have been able to hold onto her aspirations and find meaning in her life, but she didn’t, and that lack of meaning, that purposelessness, was what led her down the path of mental illness.
ReplyDelete2. Irwin is a mathematician, a full professor at age 26. He is smart and successful. Esther is smart and successful. She is attracted to intellect. So I think that is the first thing that pulls her toward Irwin. The second thing is what Mira discussed, the fact that he has sexual experience. Because Irwin is a stranger to Esther, his allure is greater and she has no ties to him, no strings attached. I think that Esther does free herself of a weight when she loses her virginity. She needs to feel strong and independent, and sexual freedom is a way to do that. She lets go of some of society’s pressures and expectations when she rebels by having sex before marriage. She also frees herself of her attachment to Buddy Willard. By having sex with someone else, Esther is breaking the emotional ties that she has to Buddy and healing the wound that was created when she discovered that he had sex with that waitress over the summer. She frees herself of societal expectations and from Buddy when she sleeps with Irwin, but she also bleeds. A lot. She loses something with that blood, her innocence.
3. I agree with Mira (again) about this idea of forging connections with other people. We have discussed in class Esther’s need to “find a man” or to find a true, good friend; whichever side you are on, we agreed that she needed emotional connection in order to heal. When Esther has sex with Irwin, she is forming a deep, primal bond with someone who was a stranger at the beginning of the evening. This is a huge step—she is opening herself up, showing vulnerability, to someone she barely knows. She is learning about him, his thoughts about the world, and she seems to care about what he has to say. The change between the way she sees, say, Constantine, at the beginning of the novel and the way she perceives Irwin is profound. At the beginning of the book, thought the book, she had no hope. When Esther steps in for her interview she has hope.
1. I think, like Mira, that these women add to the pressure Esther feels to pick a life, a future, a fig. These women, while slightly more progressive than others such as Do Conway, still seem to view Esther as a project, as someone they can shape into whomever they please. Esther is drowning in all these women’s ideas of what femininity should be and how best to live life so as to perpetuate these ideals. These women all believe that the way they see the world is the only way to see it, and anyone who disagrees with them isn’t worth their time, or so it seems to me. Esther, not yet knowing who she is or how she would like to lead her life, finds herself following her mother’s path to matrimony and boredom, so she finds someone else to follow, Jay Cee, but then she realizes that’s not fulfilling enough for her, so she sets out to forge her own path, to be her own person, to break the mold, and what does she find? She finds that the world is a whole lot bigger than she had imagined. She can do so many things, be so many people, but with this realization comes the fear of choosing just one path, just one self. She loses her mind in the crowds of other minds all trying to take control of her body, and she doesn’t find it for a very long time.
ReplyDelete2. I don’t think there was anything all that particular about Irwin that drove Esther to do what she did with him; I think it had more to do with the state Esther was in, a state of recovery and openness. Esther was opening herself to other people for the first time in a very long time, first Irwin, then Joan. So, yes, I think Esther freed a part of herself in the act of losing her virginity to someone else. It takes two to tango, and here is Esther allowing herself to connect to another person, for however short a time it lasted. I think Irwin was the perfect person for Esther to do this with, to take the first step with, because she really didn’t have to see him ever again. She could dip her toe in the water without fear of repercussions.
I think the biggest change I’ve noticed in Esther is that of her newfound understanding of where she fits in in the world at the end of the book. In the lines Mira quoted, I think it’s rather clear that Esther can now see beyond herself, beyond her bell jar and to other women. I had previously seen Esther as being instinctually self-centered in a dramatic kind of teen-angsty way, but by the end, her thoughts revolve less around “what’s wrong with me” and more around “where do I go from here” and I think it was Joan’s death that was the major cause of this change. Esther often mentioned how Joan seemed to be some sort of warped shadow version of herself, but it wasn’t until she hanged herself that I think that really set in, that this
1. I think there's a tension there. Philomena Guinea and Jay Cee definitely understood Esther, and served -- somewhat -- as role models for her. Jay Cee and Philomena Guinea show that success is possible for women to succeed as writers and editors. I think that it was important for Esther to see those women, to give her hope for her future. Yet, at the same time I also feel like they did more harm than good. While Jay Cee, for instance, shows Esther she can succeed as an editor, she also shows Esther that she cannot succeed as an editor as long as she isn't married -- a convention that her experiences with men make Esther skeptical to follow. Philomena Guinea, too, shows Esther that she can only succeed as a writer if she does not write about big things that affect people's lives, but petty dramas. Esther does not want these limits -- she wants every fig from the fig tree -- and to see her only role models constrained like this, I think, drives her further towards depression. So yes -- I agree with Nell/Mira/John.
ReplyDelete2. While I think losing her virginity was not the transformation that she expected, I think that, ultimately, Esther does gain some freedom. Esther describes her virginity as a "millstone around [her] neck" -- she is relieved to lose it. Furthermore, I think that Esther showed some maturity, self-control and agency in the process. She finds a man that meets her sharp criteria - Irwin is smart, experienced (Olga) and she isn't likely to see him again. She just wants to get it over with -- wishing for someone "impersonal, priestlike...as in the tales of tribal rites" -- and she gets him. She didn't have to have a fig chosen for her, she chose the fig herself. She decided when she was going to lose her innocence. She made sure that she was protected. The whole episode was a remarkable display of forethought, which is something we haven't seen much of, only Esther's rashness. She chose her path forward, she chose not to cling to purity but to embrace the future, to step out of the bell jar.
3. I think the biggest change came in the form of Doctor Nolan. Before, Esther had been staring at the world and realizing that every single future she could imagine for herself was horrid. She had no role models -- like I said in question one -- and she had no idea what she was going to do with her life, plus no sense of personal agency that she could change things. Yet she finds a mother figure in Dr. Nolan. Her worry when Dr. Nolan tells her about shock therapy isn't about the therapy, its the possibility that Dr. Nolan betrayed her, after Esther "placed her trust" in Dr. Nolan "on a platter." Later, Dr. Nolan hugs Esther "like a mother." Dr. Nolan is the first person in the novel that Esther has said she trusts, and the one scientifically proven method to fight depression, besides medication, is strong personal relationships. She is able to be vulnerable with Irwin. And not only able to feel sympathy for Joan -- Esther asks Dr. Nolan if its her fault Joan's dead -- but is able to share her feelings with Dr. Nolan. Yet, not only did her relationship with Dr. Nolan allow her to be vulnerable, it also let her have a role model. Dr. Nolan, too, calls the chastity book "propaganda." Dr. Nolan lets Esther get birth control. Esther can see that there are ways, however small, around the seemingly omniscient patriarchal society she'd been trapped in during her stay in New York. So there is hope for Esther and her future. She is free of the fig tree, has started to form vulnerable friendships, has freed herself of Buddy (being remarkably mature in the process, I might add, while assuring Buddy that it wasn't her fault she went to an asylum) and is about to be released. That's cause for celebration. Yet, I will say too that the book's outlook wasn't entirely sunny blue skies. For Esther still knows that "someday, the bell jar, with its stifling distortions [could] descend again." So while she's safe now, there's a sense that she has to be vigilant to avoid falling into the same trap again as she fights against the relentless tide of the outside world. I wouldn't call it foreshadowing, I think that would be jumping the gun a bit. But there's definitely a small seed of doubt planted as to her full, lasting recovery (although we know about the baby) if she doesn't maintain relationships and try to cultivate good common sense instead of descending into poisonous self doubt.
ReplyDelete1. I totally agree with Mira that Jay Cee would have been an excellent role model and resource for Esther at a different juncture in her life. She’s a woman who apparently has it all: a husband and a career. Somehow, Esther does not seem to appreciate the significance of this, and she continues to think of marriage and having a career as mutually exclusive. As for Jay Cee’s direct treatment of Esther, pushing and criticizing her in the way she did certainly did not help Esther’s insecurity. There’s no way Jay Cee could have anticipated the results of her criticism, of course. Dr. Nolan is, quite simply, awesome. She’s open, honest, involved, and unpretentious. I think Esther owes her recovery almost entirely to Dr. Nolan’s steadfast support. Maybe the thing that separates Dr. Nolan from the others is that she alone does not wish for Esther to resemble her. Her only stake in Esther’s life is in her mental health, not her future academic or marital success.
ReplyDelete2. It seems to me that Irwin’s primary attractive quality was his harmlessness. Esther described him as having the “pale, hairless skin of a boy genius”(228). This is not a particularly flattering depiction, but clearly Esther cares less about his attractiveness than his unthreatening nature. She doesn’t want someone like Marco, a violent, temperamental woman hater. I think that, by losing her virginity, Esther freed herself from a weight, but only because she thinks she did. Sure, it’s great that she’s breaking social norms, but I think she could have just as well released herself from this burden by realizing the arbitrariness of virginity and deciding to not let it define her. What I’m saying is that having sex isn’t the only way to free herself from this social burden, but it works, and there’s nothing wrong with that approach (though she did almost die).
3. The biggest change that I see is that she takes action to save her life when it is in danger. After having sex with Irwin and starting to hemorrhage badly, she goes to Joan’s apartment and seeks help. Instead of just taking this opportunity to bleed out and die, she encourages Joan to get her help as quickly as possible and cooperates fully with the doctors. I think that the combination of mental and physical rest, EST, and, most importantly, Dr. Nolan, are what brought about this change in her. We said in class that what Esther most needed was a friend, a man, or just someone to really talk to. Dr. Nolan finally fills that role, allowing Esther to be heard, comforted, and respected. Human connection is what keeps her tethered to the world.
1. In any other book, they would have ben role models. If Esther hadn't crumbled under pressures, expectations, doubt and confusion and self-hatred, Jay Cee would have been the ideal mentor for a successful young female writer in New York - she hand picked Esther TO mentor, after all. Yet, in any other book, Esther would have basked in the glamorous opportunities she had - she would have snatched up a fig, knowing exactly what it was she wanted, and fought at every turn until she emerged triumphant, the envy of every girl her age. In any other book, Esther would be who her teachers and her peers thought she was at the beginning of The Bell Jar. Instead, the fact that these women "should" have been role models, but weren't, succeeds in further removing the story from one about the life that a young talented girl "should" be living; Esther's awareness of this distancing of her life from one of success further discourages and stresses her, exacerbating her condition.
ReplyDelete2. Irwin was everything that a young woman looking for a husband would look for in a man. Wealthy, intelligent - a professor. He was the kind of man her mother married - the kind that Esther very likely would have married, had she stayed "on track." Simultaneously, he was someone she could very easily detach from and never see again; he was, essentially, a no-strings-attached test run. Seducing him was sort of like dipping her toe into normalcy -and it landed her bleeding uncontrollably in the emergency room. Despite this, I believe that she relieved herself of a mental weight. Sleeping with Irwin was, as she saw it, a milestone in her life - if an unpleasant one. It satisfied her curiosity and her need to "check it off the list" - now, with it out of the way, she doesn't feel the need to obsess over it anymore.
3. Esther ends the book being more familiar with not knowing, and being scared, and that familiarity is allowing her to find her footing - but, perhaps more importantly, she is being treated like a real person. She began the book firmly believing that she needed to have her life planned out - she even said that she had her whole spiel about wanting to be an author memorized and at the ready at all times (though it crumbles during her meeting with Jay Cee). Now she knows that you can have no life plan, and still be loved - still survive. Just being is more important than being something, "I listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am" 243. This improved stability came from the care she received at the asylum - she was listened to, she had nothing expected of her, and she was treated like a person who needed help, rather than a creature in study. Nothing was expected of her in turn for aid, and she was introduced back into society as PART of her healing process, rather than being locked away from real people until she was "back to her old self." Even at the end of the book, she still guides herself by other people's perceptions - "The eyes and the faces all turned themselves towards me, and guiding myself by them, as by a magical thread, I stepped into the room" 244. With this continual reliance on others' opinions, having people willing to perceive and treat her like a human being was, I think, key to her recovery; once she was treated like a responsible and reasonable person (talking with her instead of about her, telling her what her treatment would be like rather than just treating her, not having bars on the windows or guards to haul her away screaming, giving her town privileges, etc.) she began acting like one. At the beginning, the world was expected of her and she just couldn't give it, and when she couldn't meet expectations she crumbled and sank - at the end, when all that was needed of her was just for her to exist, and just for that she'd be loved, Esther felt like a person again.
ReplyDeleteI'm appreciative of what Sharon Olds ends her passage with, "I tell [my students] to talk back to any inner voices they may hear saying mean things about them. I tell them their lives are a treasure to us all. I tell them to take their vitamins," because it recognizes the familiarity many readers have with the text. Not, perhaps, with things so serious as suicidal thoughts, but with negativity and struggle with expectations that so many people face in their lifetime (especially, or maybe just with unique intensity, people coming of age who are experiencing these obstacles for the first time) - she acknowledges and works to counteract struggles among the people in her life. I think that's one of the best things you can take from this book.
Role models? Jay Cee maybe, since Esther “likes her a lot” and appreciates her intelligence (5-6). The other women just seem to pile on conflicting pressures. Mrs. Willard seems to be constantly nagging at Esther from inside her head to get married and have children, while other women like the poet and Philomena Guinea try to confine her focus to her studies. Both of these pressures cultivate an unhealthy and paralyzing attitude in Esther, who now cannot find meaning in either of them.
ReplyDeleteIrwin seems to be somewhat of a Buddy analogue, although without the good looks. A young and well educated man, who is a “well-paid professor of mathematics” seems to provide a strong counterpoint to Buddy's hostess. Esther certainly feels much better when she loses her virginity, she describes it as being “part of a great tradition” and smiles after it is done. It hardly seems like Esther wanted to have sex for the sake of sex itself, she doesn't even comment on the act.
The EST definitely helped. Changes in Esther's attitude can even be traced as far back as her school year before summer. Earlier, she describes the formulas she encounters in her physics class are “hideous,” “cramped,” and “scorpion lettered,” but while in Irwin's apartment, there are “huge formulas inset artistically on the page like poems.”(226) Esther has also reverted back to her old self in many aspects. Just as before she had only prized her kiss with Buddy for its social implications, she seems to only have sex with Irwin to get rid of her virginity. For Esther just to convert back into her old self concerns me somewhat, for it suggests that she could easily relapse: she hasn't really grappled with many of the problems she faces, such as balancing a possibility of a family with a possibility of a career.
1) I don't think any of the women in the book are role models for Esther. That has nothing to do with the women’s capability to serve as role models and all to do with the pressure Esther puts on herself. Most of the woman were very admirable. Jay Cee, for example, was ambitious and accomplished a lot even for a man. I'm sure she was a role model for plenty of girls, especially the ones who attended the program in New York. Unfortunately, Esther wasn't in a state to be able to take advantage of women like Jay Cee as a resource. I hate to call on the fig tree metaphor again, but I feel like it fits. If the branches of Esther’s fig tree are different life paths, the women in Esther’s life are materializations of those branches. Jay Cee is the editor branch; the famous poet is the poetry branch; Dodo is the wife branch; Doreen is the free-spirit branch. Esther can't benefit from any of these because of the pressure she puts on herself to accomplish everything these women have done. But of course, she can't choose a path to take so she ends up accomplishing nothing. She's just left “sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because [she] couldn't make up her mind…”
ReplyDelete2) I think Esther is very clear about why she was interested in Irwin, and now that she is somewhat better I feel more comfortable taking what she says at face value. She liked him because he was intelligent and visibly successful. She liked him bacause he was “experienced” (it's interesting how much different she views Buddy after having sex with one woman and how she views Irwin). Irwin also appealed to her because she could move on from him relatively quickly after she got what she wanted. On to your second, more difficult question. Before these last few chapters, I was under the impression that Esther had moved on somewhat from ideas of sexual innocence and purity. She hadn't mentioned it for a while and there was a lot going on in her life. I thought, at the very least, her virginity took a back seat to everything else. It's clear that it hadn't as she says, “It had been of such enormous importance to me for so long that my habit was to defend it at all cost. I had been defending it for five years and I was sick of it.” With that, I do think she freed herself from something. Unfortunately, we don't get to see her reflect on it much because she starts bleeding, but I think it was an emotionally positive experience. I think the most important part is how she decides she's going to have sex. Before with Constanin it was “I'll let him seduce me.” Now it's “I decided to seduce him.” She's starting to do things on her own terms through her own motivation, not by pressure from others.
3) Well one is what I just mentioned in the last question. She's taking control of her own life and making decisions on her own accord. She's letting other people’s opinions have less of an impact on the decisions she makes. Of course she's still dependent on some people, Dr. Nolan specifically, but she's come a long way. Of course her views on sex and purity have changed, as she's finally able to let go of her virginity. In general, I feel she's just a lot less all over the place. The book has become much easier to read as she's recovered. At her worst, the book was very confusing to read. Reality mixed with Esther’s mind and the past may as well have been the present. Esther’s mind, and the book in turn, became a lot clearer towards the end.
1. I think that the only consistent role model had was Jay Cee and Doctor Nolan. While both appeared at different points in the book, they were the only two that actually taught Esther something of substance. They were honest with her and allowed for her to interpret the truth as it was, instead of feeding her some diluted version already interpreted for her. Some of the women were there at certain points of her life, but they watched as she made mistakes instead of teaching her and showing her what she did wrong. Like when the famous poet just let Esther drink the bowl of rose water instead of educating her and telling her it was meant to wash your hands in.
ReplyDelete2. She says she was drawn to him because he was "intelligent" (228), "experienced" (228), and because she didn't know him. I think she was also mostly drawn to him because she didn't know him and she didn't have any real connection to him. She could easily cut him out of her life and remain unchanged for there on out. I think this made her feel safe, knowing that she had control over her future. I think Esther did free herself of a weight by losing her virginity. It was ironic how losing something enabled her to gain a sense of normality. She talked about how she "felt part of a great tradition" (229) and how in a sense she had become apart of the other women by adopting this conventional value. She had finally done something normal like the other women.
3. It feels like she's found her reality and that she's finally found some kind of foundation to keep her standing. She's accepted herself for who she is which is her gaining a sense of confidence as well. This enables her to make decisions I think based on what she really wants rather than acting because of things other people want for her to do. It feels like she's finally living for herself, and even though she has to compromise seeing the time period she lives in, it feels like she's making the best of it and that she's seeking what keeps her alive instead of internalizing what doesn't.
1. Throughout the book, Esther is so critical of everyone and everything that it is hard for her to see a person like Philomena Guinea or Jay Cee and get past their flaws. One or both of these two might make an excellent role model one day for Esther because they both seem to be women who have fought against their expected roles in their society while at the same time being respected by their society. And Esther seems to crave the same thing. However, Esther is too wrapped up in her own thoughts to think about another person as someone who she looks up to.
ReplyDelete2. I don’t think Irwin is especially attractive to Esther, but she is attracted to him because she is so ready to lose her virginity, and he appeared at the right time. I think she is freed from a huge weight when she loses her virginity. She thinks back to Buddy’s affair with the waitress and how she is told by the world that it is more ok for men to have affairs before they are married, than for women. It goes back to what the woman lawyer said: “The best men wanted to be pure for their wives, and even if they weren’t pure, they wanted to be the ones to teach their wives about sex.” (81) Esther is fighting against this and gaining control of the expression of her sexuality. This is also freeing because Esther is still hurt by Buddy’s reveal that he had been sleeping with the waitress three times a week for an entire summer and this is her way of making things even.
3. A huge change for Esther was being able to put her trust in someone who saw the world in a similar way. Esther trusts Dr. Nolan possibly more than any other character in the book and this provides her with the anchor she was in need of so badly when she was in New York and after she got back. I think the EST also helps her immensely. After her first time of having correctly administered EST, Esther says, “All the hate and feel had purged itself. I felt surprisingly at peace. The bell jar hung, suspended, a few feet above my head. I was open to the circulating air.” (215) In general, Esther seems to view the world a little less negatively. She once again can see value in other people, the world, and in herself, an ability that she lost with devastating consequences at the height of her crisis.
1. While I read the book, I thought that Esther could really benefit from a role model or two but I realize now that a role model in the traditional sense wouldn't help Esther. As many people have said, Esther would feel more pressure than inspiration from the women. The women are successful and part of what Esther wants is success, but what she wants is to know that other women are also having the same thoughts and confusion about life that she has. These women wouldn't give Esther that sense of security about her current state, they would just add to the list of expectations that Esther has.
ReplyDelete2. I think Esther was mainly attracted to the no strings attached aspect of it all. This was a way to lose her virginity without having to really think about all that came with it afterwards. She could finally get it over with and not have to worry about having to marry him or not because that was never in her head to begin with. He was smart which only made her more attracted to him. Him being experienced also gave her some sense of safety and allowed her to let go.
3. Esther is sort of accepting who she is and a little bit of her situation in that she doesn't feel the need to be what is expected of her as much anymore. She feels more comfortable with her wants. Would argue that this isn't the end of her illness because she is still young and these thoughts are common with anyone her age (perhaps not as extreme). There will defiantly be some ups and downs, but she is better at the end of the book than she was at the beginning.
1. These women hope to be role models for Esther. Each of them thinks they know what path will make Esther happiest in the long run. And, since they are all rather happy with the life they have chosen, that often means becoming more like them. There are some things Esther could learn from them. At the very least, all of these women have confidence and pride in what they do. For much of the book this is what Esther lacks. She doesn't need to choose one of them to follow, but seeing how they have succeeded and failed could help Esther to think about herself.
ReplyDelete2. Irwin is a man, and a smart one at that, but unlike many of the men we see in this book, he's not a know-it-all. Buddy is confident in everything he does, while Irwin seems more nervous. Esther says that she chose him because he's intelligent, so she respects him, and experienced. While this is true to some degree, she doesn't want Buddy Willard, who is no doubt intelligent and apparently at least somewhat experienced. The modesty of Irwin is what attracts her. When Esther lost her virginity, it was not particularly romantic or pleasant. That said, it did lift a weight. What was important was not that she had had sex, but that Esther defied the abstinence only policy of the day. She chose her own road, and left behind the expectations of purity and perfection she felt on her.
3. She tells us what changed in her. In New York she is "sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in [her] own sour air" (185). Now, the bell jar is lifted and Esther is "open to the circulating air" (215). She is able to communicate with people outside herself. She can process her emotions and share them with others. Rather than coming up with elaborate lies, Esther is able to speak the truth. And she can listen to what others have to say. Before, her best way to relax was to take a bath. She would sit there in silence and try to just forget about the world around her. This provided a momentary relief, but ultimately just let her mind sit and let her illness grow. Now, she speaks openly with Dr. Nolan, and is able to process what has happened to her. She is in a building full of women who have gone through and are going through a similar experience. Esther is no longer isolated.