Race plays an important part in this book. It’s 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 Larry’s apartment she was drunk and felt ugly and she confused herself with a Chinese women. She says, “Then 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 looked” (Plath, 18). Another example of when she explained that she looked ugly was when she felt sick as an indian. “The face in the mirror looked like a sick indian” (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 “They’re ugly as aztecs”. The Bell jar doesn’t ignore racism at all, it just camouflages it in between the text. I believe that Esther does this unconsciously, she’s being a racist without meaning to be one.

“Certainly 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 expectation” (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 didn’t use the “negro” example was because that was taken place in the 1950’s and racism wasn’t much of a disrespect for white people.

As I was reading “Components of Gender” I admired her braveness in fighting against her fears. I thought that she what she meant by refusing to play gender games was refusing to act the way society expects her to act according to her gender. This has to do a lot with fear because it meant not fitting in and being judged by everybody around her. As she explained in her passage “I didn’t know how I would survive humiliation”(Franks,51), “I didn’t know how to face my friends again”(Franks51), I interpreted these quotes as if she was trying to say that she fears that she would be rejected and pushed away by everybody and just not being accepted. There are times that Esther has feared not being able to perform the expectations by society, but I don’t recall reading a part where she would act like what society expects her to. One example would be when she wants to hang out more with Betsy because she was very feminine and therefore she was respected. She ended up hanging out with Doreen, someone who doesn’t show pureness and respect to herself the way other “normal” women do.
A scene in which Esther doesn’t properly perform gender role is when she doesn’t keep correct hygiene. She says “ It seemed silly to wash one day when I would only have to wash again the next.”(Plath,128). In those times, and even now, a women is expected to keep herself clean and neat even if it means doing it every single day. Esther didn’t care what every body else thought, she didn’t even care about her odor. I feel like she doesn’t really care what society think of her because she feels that she won’t be able to succeed as a female in the future.

Hi, I’m Nancy Morales. Prefered pronouns are she/her. I am from Mexico but live in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, 21 years old and single (Fortunately). I recently changed my major from Liberal Arts to Human services because after 2 years I have finally decided what to do with my life. I enjoy helping people as much as I can. I hope that I can find a job at a hospital within my career field sometime in the future after I earn my Bachelor’s degree.

The current love of my life has been with me for about 3 years and a half, his name is Toby. He has the mind of a 24 year old, but he is actually 3 years old and he’s a Siberian husky. He’s very playful and friendly and enjoys being around children. I don’t have children of my own, but I can say that I consider him my child because I practically raised him and he’s always preferred to be with me than with anybody else. Toby is the best birthday present, so far. Below is a picture of him being a bit silly.

I feel like I don’t know much about females in general, and this is 1 reason why I’m taking Women’s studies this semester. My goal is to finish this semester with some knowledge about women’s rights in order to be informed and be able to take advantage of all the opportunities that I have. I’m also taking this course because I need it for my major and I hope to keep enjoying it as much as I have been this first week.