In “Intimate Apparel”, by Lynn Nottage took place in 1905 where we come across an African American woman named Esther. Esther is something now in days we call as a hopeless romantic, she is 35 years old and one of her most important dreams is to have a good man by her side which she will marry and have a life with. Throughout the play we noticed that her self-esteem as a woman is not very high. Esther suffers from self-confidence were she find herself to be unattractive and old. She believes that this is one of the reasons why she still hasn’t found a good man based on what she thought she looked. We can relate this in today’s world where appearance seem to be more important that the human-being itself. Many women now in days are never satisfied by the way they look based on what society has made them believe what characteristic a “beautiful women” should have , for example; beautiful hair, nice body, perfect skin and so on.
Women are always being in competition with other women in who is looking better, who is wearing the latest fashion and who have a better life etc. When in reality these things shouldn’t really matter everyone is unique in their own way no one should never feel less of a person than anyone else because at the end they are both people. I think many women in today’s world live their life based on what others think of them, just like Esther. Esther believed that because she was in her thirties the chance of her having her own family were very limited and that’s why she only focused so much on her job as a seamstress. Another question I ask myself is why Esther felt as she the urgency to have a man by her side? Did women back them were looked down if they weren’t married by a certain age? I can relate this in today’s world because of course everyone in one point of their life will like to find someone to share their life with, a person that will be there for them when no one is, a person that they call a soul mate but what’s the rush? Now in days many people will decide to be in a relationship with each other for all the wrong reasons without really spending time and effort in to knowing who the person really is. Even worst many enter a relationship without evening knowing who they are THEMSELVES.
One of the major reason why I believe there is a lot of broken homes now in days. In this play we see that Esther meets George through letters. Can we really get to know a person throughout ink and paper? How can we know if they are being sincere or not? When Esther marries George he turns out to be the total opposite of who she “thought” he was. He ended up being a manipulative that took advantage of her wanted to find true love to take her saving and use her hard work in useless things.
