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.

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Everybody wants to love and be loved; so much so that one sometimes may invent love. Intimate Apparel, by Lynn Nottage, is all about projecting feelings. That’s what happened to Esther, who convinced herself to marry a man she had never met before. If I had to summarize the play in one short passage, I would use Mrs. Van Buren line that says “I recall being in love with the notion of love.”

If the play had been a Disney production, Esther and George’s story would have had a happy ending. Nottage’s take is a more realistic one. Once the Armstrong couple started living as husband and wife, Esther saw that the image she had created of her spouse did not mirror reality. He was not the gentleman his letters’ cursive persuaded her into thinking he would be. She took snippets of what had been given and created a George of her own. How could she not be disappointed?

Aside from not being what Esther though her husband would be, he was the opposite to what she was hoping. She was Virginia Woolf’s “Angel in the room” for long enough to have George take advantage of her various times. She was, though, able to take action and leave him — being the exception to the rule of married women of the time (early 1900s).

Even nowadays it is possible to see men and women make the same mistake: to marry someone just because they feel they have to. Projections and expectations may blind a person into marrying somebody for the sake of not being alone. If asked, Esther would probably say you’re better off sewing undergarments.

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The story Intimate apparel by Lynn Nottage touches on tissues of race, religion and traditions.Not only does Nottage speak on these issues, she also addresses love and marriage. This is done through a 35 year old African American women name Esther.  Esther moved from North Carolina to New York City to seek her fortune as a seamstress. She sews gorgeous lingerie for wealthy white clients. Esther is extremely great at what she does and prey’s to one day own a beauty salon. With such great talent under her belt she is still lonely and dreams of a good man to marry. Esther seeks love when she meets George.

When Esther marries George, he was  nothing like the man she wrote letters to back and forth. George didn’t have the same genuine feelings that Esther had for him. He proves himself to be an opportunist who takes all her savings and use it on foolishness. He squanders her money on drinks,gambling and prostitutes that Esther despise greatly.

Even though Esther marries the man she wanted to marry, he turned out to be not a good man. Their love and marriage didn’t last. I can definitely relate this to many marriages in today’s society. Women get so excited to finally get married but in the end they end up disappointed. The excited they once felt disappears and all they are left with is a new beginning.

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Intimate Apparel is a play written by Lynn Nottage that takes place in 1905. The play follows Esther, a 35-year-old African American seamstress that makes her living in Manhattan. Esther has worked hard her entire life, from picking berries to sewing. Esther is very relatable to woman: she longs for love, she aspires to open a beauty salon, she is self-conscious and a caring humble woman. Many aspects of Nottage’s play resonate with the experiences and feelings of many women, past and present. This is because the characters in the play feel authentic, dealing with real issues many women face. Esther seeks love, but doesn’t feel she is pretty or that anyone will even be interested in her. Here, Esther’s self-doubt in her and in her looks is a very real aspect of Nottage’s imagined world. When Esther gets a letter from George, a panama man who is courting her, she must ask others to read and write letters back as she does not know how to. In 1905 this seems reasonable that Esther wouldn’t have learned to read or write in her economic status. Another way in which Nottage’s play felt authentic was the romantic tension between her and Mr. Marks, a Jewish man who sells her fabrics. Esther opens up to Mrs. Van Buren, saying, “I fear my love belongs someplace else” but disregards her feelings as they come from two different worlds, and he has a fiancé he has not yet met. Nottage’s created world yet again connects with our real world, as interracial relationships would have been greatly looked down upon for someone in Ether’s position in the early 1900’s. A woman would be expected to stay within her race or class and not doing so would result in a social stigma.

Another interesting character that has her own very real issues is Mrs. Van Buren. Esther and Mrs. Van Buren are also from two different worlds, but get along great as friends. Mrs. Van Buren confides in Esther about the pressuring questions she gets from her peers about having a child, and how important having a child is to an important man like her husband. She admits to Esther that she is unsure if she is able to bear any children although people speculate that vanity is the reason. In what I find to be crucial part of the play, Mrs. Van Buren says “By the way, I bled this morning, and when I delivered the news to Harry, he spat at me. This civilized creature of society. We, us women, we all bleed, Esther. And yet I actually felt guilt, as though a young girl again apologizing for becoming a woman”. This part struck me a lot, as a woman trying to imagine the situation in which the character was place; is heart wrenching. Another reason being that many women really do experience this in their life.

The play itself is different than the format of other readings, using a dialogue between characters and descriptive information about the background setting. The advantage in this was being able visually conceptualize the play. For example, George’s infidelity with Mayme was shown rather than spoken in dialogue. The format of the play is able to draw on these scenes that are wordless between characters but speak volumes in the storyline.

Question: I didn’t exactly know what to take on the scene between Esther and Mrs. Van Buren, when Mrs. Van Buren kisses Esther and then says its because she wanted to show her “what it’s like to be treated lovingly”? Then later in the scene Mrs. Van Buren calls Esther a coward. I didn’t understand the motive behind Mrs. Van Buren’s actions in this scene. (Act 2, Scene 3)

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