Race plays an important part in this book. Itâs hidden within the texts but I feel like Esther uses racist comments to describe herself whenever she looks ugly. When Esther was going back to the hotel in New York after being at Larryâs apartment she was drunk and felt ugly and she confused herself with a Chinese women. She says, âThen my ears went funny and I noticed a big, smudgy-eyed Chinese women women staring idiotically into my face. It was only me of course. I was appalled to see how wrinkled and used up I lookedâ (Plath, 18). Another example of when she explained that she looked ugly was when she felt sick as an indian. âThe face in the mirror looked like a sick indianâ (Plath, 112). The last example that I have of when Esther uses racism to explain ugliness is when Doreen told her about the Peruvian, she said âTheyâre ugly as aztecsâ. The Bell jar doesnât ignore racism at all, it just camouflages it in between the text. I believe that Esther does this unconsciously, sheâs being a racist without meaning to be one.
âCertainly there are very real differences between us of race, age and sex. But it is not those differences between us that are separating us. It is rather our refusal to recognize those differences, and to examine the distortions which result from our misnaming them and their effects upon human behavior and expectationâ (Lorde, 115) I feel like this paragraph explains Esther because in my perspective, Esther is unaware of her racist acts. At least not the examples that I have provided. The reason why I didnât use the ânegroâ example was because that was taken place in the 1950âs and racism wasnât much of a disrespect for white people.
Wow I did not realize Esther did that through out the book, that was an excellent example.
There is one more scene and I think that’s the only one I believe she doesn’t mean to be racist because of being in the asylum. I believe she intentionally used other races to describe herself in a negative way.
I too believe it is inherently racist when you describe negative features of yourself with the analogy or metaphor based on other races.With that being said I am of two minds on passing judgement on Esther. She is obviously mentally unbalanced and having to live in a world where superficial values tend to be a major determinant it is almost expected that she would express herself the way she does. How sad is that!! The other mitigating factor is that Esther seems to be an equal opportunity critic of whoever she encounters
While I don’t condone Esther’s analogies using race, I don’t think she intentionally means to be racist. I think it has more to do with how she felt about herself throughout the book. When she made all these descriptions about herself she was falling deeper and deeper into her depression.
You’re absolutely right. I totally forgot about the comment she made in the elevator about how she looks like a Chinese woman. she does make ugly remarks every now and then when she wants herself to look bad or ugly physically. She also refers to herself as an ugly Indian woman starring back from the mirror. She doesn’t state it anywhere but Esther seems to be pretty racist.
Race does play a secret role in this book and there are a lot of unrecognized racism in this book that you pointed out. Esther makes these comments to suggest she is racist without realizing it. I also think she is being more ignorant than racist because her comments might derive from what is being said around her.