Joan

One thing that I found interesting in tonight's reading was the reappearance of the character Joan. Joan is a character we first meet (to be accurate we don't meet her, Esther just talks about her) when Esther is completely sane and then meet again when Esther is not sane.  She is really the only character (so far) that appears when she is sane and when she is insane. You could argue that maybe her mother counts too, but her mother has witnessed her progression down the road to insanity. Joan's impression of Esther has gone straight from sane Esther to insane Esther with nothing in the middle, so you would expect her reaction to be very interesting. Unfortunately, this reaction is not quite the objective response we would hope for because Joan is now in the asylum herself.

Instead of providing an interesting perspective on how Esther has changed since the beginning of the summer, Joan provides an interesting comparison. When we first here about Joan, Esther is very much following in Joan's footsteps. Joan came from the same town and Unitarian church Esther did and is a year ahead of Esther in college. Joan is "a big wheel" meaning she was involved in the school and had a large presence. I get the feeling that Esther is always trying to compare herself with Joan, trying to be an even bigger "wheel" than Joan and step out of Joan's shadow. This can be seen particularly with Buddy. Joan kind of dated Buddy before Esther did, and Joan went with Buddy to the Sophomore Prom before Esther went with Buddy to the Yale Junior Prom. In a way it seems like Joan does all the trial runs for Esther. She goes to this college and Esther follows, she goes to prom with Buddy and Esther follows too.

When we meet Joan the second time, their positions are reversed. Esther became depressed and tried to kill herself, so when Joan reads about Esther she becomes depressed and also tries to kill herself. At first Esther is almost insulted to hear that she has a copycat, but quickly she warms up to the idea. She cannot help but be outraged by the same things that outraged and depressed Joan, like the idea of group therapy. In contrast to the beginning, Joan seems to be in Esther's shadow here. When Esther asks how she tried to kill herself, Joan "grinned sheepishly," ashamed by how juvenile her way of suicide seemed compared to Esther's.

Interestingly, when we get to chapter 17 Esther is following Joan again. Joan had moved to Belsize earlier and now Esther will do the same. Joan seems to be doing great, studying physics as well as playing golf and badminton, and fitting into the crowd at Belsize. Esther has goals to do the same, although she does't want Joan there while she is following in Joan's footsteps. At Belsize Joan doesn't act as a mentor like I expected. Instead she puts Esther down to try and make herself feel better (e.g., showing then Esther's picture in the fashion magazine). This made me realize there was a more competitive edge to their relationship than I had previously thought. I have no idea where their relationship might move from here, but I am definitely interested to find out.