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Act 2, Scene 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Intimate Apparel, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Intimacy and Friendship
Race, Class, and Exploitation
Gender and Expectations
The American Dream
Summary
Analysis
Mayme lounges in bed, wrapped in the smoking jacket. Someone knocks at the door and Mayme opens it. She's surprised to find Esther and says that she has someone coming soon and Esther needs to leave. Esther gathers herself and says that George left her and has another woman. Mayme asks how Esther knows, and Esther says the woman herself told her. Mayme refers to the woman as a "cruel heartless heifer." Esther says that this isn't true: she intended to hurt this woman, but the woman will find out the truth soon enough. Mayme tries to get Esther to leave, but Esther blurts that she gave George the money for her beauty parlor. Aghast, Mayme asks why Esther did that. Esther says that she wanted to be held.
Mayme has no idea that she's the one who "stole" George away, so it's easy for her to speak disparagingly about Esther's adversary. Esther, however, suggests that there's more to this than just being Mayme's adversary in the fight for George: both of them will find out the truth and have to deal with the consequences of having loved a dishonest man. Esther suggests too that both of them were wrong to trust George; all the money or sex in the world can't make him treat either of them how they actually yearn to be treated.
Themes
Esther trails off and then says that she stayed up all night, waiting for him to come home. She asks if Mayme knows where George is, and says that she's wearing the smoking jacket that Esther made George. Mayme rips off the jacket and asks why Esther never said anything. Mayme says that Songbird came in last night wearing a new suit and threw dice all night. She laughed when he said he wanted to buy draft horses—“The world [is] changing.” He offered to take Mayme out, but Mayme didn't have anything to wear. Mayme says that she thought about Esther's beauty parlor and how nice it'd feel to be pampered, but she saw that dream get further away every time Songbird rolled the dice. When the money was gone, she knew it was George.
Mayme's note that the world is changing in reference to the draft horses shows that George's version of success is even less possible than may have been initially apparent: draft horses won't be useful in the changing modern world before too long, and they represent a vision of the American dream that even in 1905 is long gone. Connecting the dice to Esther's beauty parlor suggests that Mayme is beginning to see the value in a dream like the beauty parlor, as it seeks to elevate black women as a whole—something that can't happen when men fritter away women's money.
Themes
Esther asks why Mayme didn't stop George, and Mayme says that George belongs to her too. She hands over the smoking jacket and Esther says that she's just a foolish girl from the country. Mayme insists this is false and says that she's not worthy of Esther's forgiveness. She points out that Esther has never treated her like a whore.
This moment speaks volumes about the strength of Esther and Mayme's relationship, and the fact that it's built on true, positive regard for each other. This is why Esther hasn't treated Mayme like she's less than; as black women, they share more in common and Mayme's job doesn't change this.
Themes
George knocks on the door, and Esther asks Mayme to not answer it. George knocks and shakes the door, shouting for Mayme. Esther shouts for Mayme to let George go: he's not real, and they'll both spend their lives chasing him. George knocks for a while longer and finally stops. Mayme sits and Esther leaves with the smoking jacket.
Urging Mayme to let George go allows Esther to truly admit that George was a dream that's never going to come true for either of them. Attaching their dreams to a man is futile; the only way they can get ahead is on their own.
Themes
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