The Bell Jar Reflection #6

Chapter 7 (pgs. 60-71)

Constantin picks Esther up and they head out on their date to the UN.  Although he is shorter than her like she expected he would be, Esther finds Constantin attractive.  While they are talking at the UN, Esther listens to Constantin talk about all the things he is good at and Esther realizes that she has not been truly happy since the age of nine.  She talks about how she was never good at cooking, dancing, horseback riding, skiing, etc. and for the first time she feels inadequate.  She begins thinking though, and decides to let Constantin seduce her to get even with Buddy Willard.  He asks her to his room and Esther becomes very nervous, but excited.  She knows that she could become pregnant (since this book was written before birth control was around) but she does not even care.  She talks about how she does not find it fair that woman are expected to be pure until marriage but that it is okay for men to brag about sleeping with women before marriage.  She decides that if men can do something like that, then she will to. 

Constatin and her talk of his porch and Esther starts becoming upset when he does not try to make any moves.  She finally gets to the point where she claims she is tired and she goes and crawls into his bed.  He goes and crawls in with her but just goes to sleep.  Esther starts thinking about how that’s how things would be when she got married, and she decides she does not ever want to get married.  At around three in the morning, Esther and Constantin wake up and he tells her he will drive her home.  When Esther gets home, she lays in bed depressed, thinking about how bad her left leg hurts.  She thinks “Buddy Willard made me break that leg. No, I broke it myself.  I broke it on purpose to pay myself back for being such a heel.” (pg. 70) Esther is really starting to scare me as I read on in this book.  This chapter showed us that she has physically harmed herself before and that she feels depressed and inadequate; these are not good signs.

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