The Bell Jar Reflection #5

Chapters 5-6 (pgs. 41-60)

The next morning, Esther gets a telegram from Jay Cee telling her that she can have the day off to rest and get over the food poisoning.  Esther is thrilled and excited to spend the day relaxing with no disturbances; however at seven o’clock she gets a call from an unusual number.   She answers the phone and a strange man asks for Miss Esther Greenwood.  She tells him that it is her and he tells her that his name is Constantin.  She has no idea who he is, but then she remembers that a woman named Mrs. Willard had mentioned trying to set them up.  He asks her if she wants to grab a bite to eat later, and Esther agrees hesitantly. 

 She begins getting ready, and starts thinking about her only real relationship with a man named Buddy Willard.  She tells us about how she was crazy about Buddy, until the day she realized he was a hypocrite.  They had known each other and were family friends.  He even went all the way to her college a few times to visit her, even though he attended Yale.  One day, he came and gave her a letter inviting her to the Yale Junior Dance.  She gladly accepted and all of the girls in her dorm were jealous because Buddy was very good looking and smart.  They went to the dance and had a great time; Esther even got her first kiss that night.  They continued to hang out for a couple of months until “the day the baby was born.” (pg. 50)  This is the day that Esther found out Buddy was a hypocrite. 

She had gone with him to view a child birth because he was in medical school.  Although it disgusted her and made her not want to have children, she dealt with it since she got to spend time with Buddy.  Later that night, they went back to Buddy’s place and drank some Dubonnet and while they were there, they got curious.  Buddy asked Esther is she had “ever seen a man?”  She told him no and he asked her if she would like to and out of curiosity, she said yes.  She was a little disappointed claiming that it looked like a turkey neck and turkey gizzards.  She asked if he had ever slept with someone before, expecting him to say no, but he said that he had slept with a slutty waitress at his hotel about thirty times that summer.  Esther was furious!  Buddy came from a very conservative family, always valuing virginity; therefore, Esther starting viewing him as a hypocrite.  Also, unlike today, losing your virginity before marriage was a huge deal. I think she was just jealous, but she never wanted to talk to him again. A few months later, she heard that Buddy had caught TB and she was happy that she could use that as an excuse to tell her friends why they no longer saw each other.

hyp·o·crite

/ˈhɪp ə krɪt[hip-uh-krit]   

noun

a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, especially a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.