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Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Physics:
Throughout the novel, Esther reflects upon past events in her life, particularly during her time at college, in flashbacks. In one flashback, she recalls her first experience learning about physics in college:
The day I went into physics class it was death. A short dark man with a high, lisping voice, named Mr. Manzi, stood in front of the class in a tight blue suit holding a little wooden ball. He put the ball on a steep grooved slide and let it run down to the bottom. Then he started talking about let a equal acceleration and let t equal time and suddenly he was scribbling letters and numbers and equals signs all over the blackboard and my mind went dead. I took the physics book back to my dormitory.
While Jay Cee, Esther’s boss at Ladies’ Day magazine, criticizes her for failing to pick up the skills necessary to work as a professional editor, Esther’s mind drifts to the past. In a flashback, she recalls her first day in physics class. Despite maintaining high grades in general, Esther struggles with physics, recalling that the professor, Mr. Manzi, “started talking about let a equal acceleration and let t equal time” and then began “scribbling letters and numbers and equals signs all over the blackboard.” Though she ultimately receives an A in the course through sheer effort, Esther has a difficult time with physics. Throughout the novel, she demonstrates a difficulty interpreting numbers.
Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—Medical Specimens:
In a flashback, Esther reflects upon a past incident in which she encountered various medical specimens including deceased infants with birth defects:
[One] Friday I cut all my classes and came down for a long weekend and he gave me the works [...] Buddy took me out into a hall where they had some big glass bottles full of babies that had died before they were born. The baby in the first bottle had a large white head bent over a tiny curled-up body the size of a frog. The baby in the next bottle was bigger and the baby next to that one was bigger still and the baby in the last bottle was the size of a normal baby [...]
While dating Buddy, a medical student, Esther requests that he give her a tour of his medical school. She watches as Buddy and the other medical students cut up human cadavers, and afterwards, he takes her into a hall full of medical specimens, including “babies that had died before they were born.” Most of the specimens have notable birth defects, and Esther fixates on these images of dead and deformed infants. This flashback, then, further develops Esther’s morbid preoccupation with death. Throughout the novel, she frequently recalls this incident, occasionally comparing her own experience of mental illness to that of the medical specimens.
Related Themes:
