Tag Archives: Intimate Apparel

intimate apparel

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In the play Intimate Apparel written by Lynn Nottage takes place in 1905. the protagonist Esther a African-American seamstress who lives in a boarding house for women and sews intimate apparel for women clients from different social class, from wealthy white patrons to prostitutes. Esther’s dream is to open a beauty parlor for African American women who will be treated as royally as the white women she sews for. And to find the right man she could spend her life with. Esther began to receive letters from a man named George who is working on the Panama Canal. Being illiterate shows how Esther never had an education because she started working at a very young age. so she had Mrs. Van Buren and Mayme to respond. Time has passed and becomes more and more intimate. George persuaded her to get marry. But Esther cannot because she feels affection toward Mr. Marks the shopkeeper but its complicated, because of his religion. Esther agreed to marry George. When George arrived to New York he turned  out not to be the man to be in the letters, and he took away with Esther’s savings and spend it on whores and liquor. Esther Deeply wounded by the betrayal. Esther returns to the boarding house determined to use her skills, gifted hands and her sewing machine to refashion her dreams and make them a new from her life’s experiences.

Lynn Nottage wrote the whole play with special details where we could actually visually see the scenes. started from a room in the and the direction of each character in the stage. Nottage’s play depict a similar world for women because even today women are still being betray and miss treated when they deserve more for being hard workers. But the also come out more determine to keep on their dream.

Women Of Today Vs. Women in 1905

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I really enjoyed reading Intimate Apparel because Lynn Nottage was able to fully grasp my attention throughout the entire play. Although Nottage’s play was taken place in 1905, I believe it depicted many similar ways of what women go through till this day.
One example is from the character Mrs. Van Buren who is seemed to be an attractive white woman in her early thirties, who believes that she is not good enough for her husband. It seems as if Mrs. Van Buren is always trying to be up to date with the latest styles and fashion to keep her husband interested. She tries different things and changes up her looks to catch her husband’s attention which most of the time ends up failing anyway. I feel that she relates to many women in our society today, because I think a good amount of women up to this day are still so insecure with themselves and are always trying to impress our men because their eyes are so easily distracted.

Another example is from the character Esther who just turned thirty-five and is pretty much ashamed of herself for not being married or seeing anyone since she’s always so taken up with working. It also seems as if she has very low self-esteem and doesn’t think that anyone would want her but mainly because she’s always been working since the age of seventeen. She feels like it’s a disgrace and too late because she’s getting older and no one will really be interested in her. I believe this issue relates to women of today in some ways but not all. Some women today, just like Esther begin to give up once they reach a certain age because they feel they are not worthy enough anymore meanwhile other women of today don’t care how old they are, they’re still out there meeting people on social networks, dating and having fun. I feel that Esther hasn’t had much of an opportunity to meet anyone she’d be interested in other than George that wrote her because she had always locked up working.

The effect that I have of reading a play is much clearer and easier to me rather than just reading a regular narrated story. It’s much more simple for me to put the characters together and picture a scene of whom it is and how they’re acting in my head.

Esther’s Dream

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The play “Intimate Apparel”, by Lynn Nottage takes us back to 1905, where  Esther, a 35 year old African American is a talented seamstress, whose clients range from pampered Fifth Avenue society wife Mrs. Van Buren, who hates her life, to a prostitute named Mayme who could have been a successful pianist but instead she sells herself.  All Esther wants is a good man to marry. She finds herself unattractive.  On one side there is man who she married meeting through letters and on the other side there is this charming, sensitive man but his religion and traditions turns Esther’s love into nothing but a dream.

Through this play script Lynn Nottage touches on issues of race, women’s sense of worth, and the struggle against compromising one’s dreams.  Plays explore life through storytelling and acting. It becomes entertaining when performing and visual act comes together. Reading a play script is different than reading a narrated story. A play script consists almost entirely of dialogue. This helped me to engage and to be alert by going into a certain character’s world. I found myself become a part of the whole experience like watching a movie.

Also, through this play Lynn Nottage helped me explore questions like How do we love? How do we find happiness by also looking at themes like religion and traditions.  Each character is boxed into certain excepted norm of what their role is in the society and their struggle to be heard.  For example Mr. Marks who owns the store where Ester buys fabrics. He is an observant Jew who respects old world traditions, but his affection for his favorite customer is obvious.  “It isn’t often that something so fine and delicate enters the store,” he says, referring to a particular fabric but perhaps meaning Esther herself. Their love, obviously, can never be.

I felt like Lynn Nottage uncovered and interpreted her past and present through characters by this play. It helped us to enter the world of the play writer. Although set in 1905, Esther and her world speak to our everyday struggles like traditions, religion, race, self worth and one’s dreams.

Responding to Intimate Apparel for 3/4

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For next week, we’re reading Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel. Although it was written in 2001, it takes place in 1905, a time much more similar to the worlds depicted in our other readings so far this semester.

One topic you might consider in your post for Tuesday is in what ways does Nottage’s play depict a similar world for women? In what ways is it different, and how do you account for those differences–that is, why is another author’s imagined world different than the imagined world in Intimate Apparel?

Another topic you might consider has to do with genre: what effect does it have on your reading that this is a play? You might think about how it affects your reading, but also how it conveys information that a narrator usually conveys. How do you know what you know differently than when you’re reading a narrated story? In what ways does that affect your interaction with the text and your understanding of it?

If there is another topic you would like to consider, please do, but remember for any post, please adhere to our blogging guidelines.

Remember, also, that later in the week we will be commenting on these posts. If you would like to ask a question or present an issue in your post for commenters to address, please do.