Both in class and on our blogs, I see some looking down upon Esther Greenwood. One interpretation of the novel says she is coldhearted and presumptive in her mental dealings with others. This has some support but there is more to the story.
There are times when Esther is flat out rude, particularly at the height of her mental breakdown. The one that comes to mind is her reaction to her mother's birthday gift of flowers. However, while she is still in New York, her critical eye is in high gear and she makes plenty of downbeat judgements, likely owing to the cloud over her mental state.
A common talking point is Esther's views on Buddy. Perhaps I trust the narrators of first-person novels too much, but I highly doubt that Esther's views of Buddy stem from some immaturity in the sense of a character flaw. At worst, Esther is in the midst of an internal mental struggle that she has to sort out, in which case we should sympathize with her, not deride her. At best, she is completely justified. In the text, she talks about his remarks towards making her a housewife. We see his initial rejection of poetry and his attempts to make inroads, with the publication of his poem and Esther's nightly poetry readings to him. Esther's decision making is impaired by this point, so perhaps she should have given Buddy the bad news without waiting for him to get better. Her reason seemed to be in his best interest. Then we have his label as a "hypocrite" which has been beaten to death. Along the entire spectrum, we cannot excuse Buddy for his hypocrisy (as Esther does justify in the novel as a double standard) any more than we can excuse Stradlater for being a prick.
I agree that we can't simply take Esther's instances of rude behavior or her judgment of Buddy as a hypocrite at face value. Not only am I sympathetic toward how she sees others because of the distortion that comes from her mental illness, but I also see her criticisms of people as reactions to other life experiences. Since she is writing about these events in retrospect, perhaps the way she characterizes Buddy as a hypocrite early in the book is a reflection of later interactions she has with him (like when he openly wonders who would marry Esther).
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