Esther's Goodbye to New York

One of Esther’s most symbolic scenes during her time in New York comes right at the end. After finishing her internship and struggling with serious challenges that came to her in the city, Esther stands at the window of her hotel, the Amazon, and slowly releases pieces of her wardrobe into the wind of the night, one after the other. This scene is not only reflective of Esther’s mood after she returns to her hotel that evening, but it is symbolic of her entire time in New York and her struggles during her stay there. While the scene is powerful by itself and in its simplest form, I think that there may also be lots to unpack and analyze in these final paragraphs of Esther’s New York chapter.

To narrate Esther’s experience, Plath first writes, “at that vague hour between dark and dawn, the sunroof of the Amazon was deserted” (111). This sentence helps to set the tone for the coming paragraphs and also sets a scene that is representative of much of Esther’s time and feelings in New York. The word “vague” perhaps suggests Esther going through New York in her “dream-like” and detached state, and how through her time, nothing was entirely clear to Esther and she wasn’t completely certain of everything. Each time she thought that she knew something, or expected something to happen, things didn’t exactly go as she planned. We see this begin not only in her interactions with Buddy Willard (before New York), for example, but also develop during her entire stay in the city. For example, when she tells Jay Cee that she truly doesn’t know what she wants to do in the future which “shocked” her (32), or how she was “supposed” to be having a great time, but she really did not and moved from event to event like a “numb trolleybus” (2, 3). Second, in this sentence, Esther describes that the Amazon was completely “deserted,” reflecting how through most of her time in New York, Esther either was physically or felt entirely alone and distant from others. This extends anywhere from staying alone in her room to her interactions with Hilda on the Rosenbergs, where she cannot emotionally connect and feels alone in her thoughts.

The third paragraph states, “a stiff breeze lifted the hair from my head. At my feet, the city doused its lights in sleep, its buildings blackened, as if for a funeral.” This sentence primarily reflects the upsetting environment of the city to Esther. While others may see the nighttime as a time of rest from the busy and chaotic day, the phrase that Esther uses to describe the city through her eyes is “like a funeral.” This segment may also represent how through her time in New York, her body and health were slowly draining away. As we see Esther falling more and more into an urgent and distant state, the funeral that she describes may represent a funeral for herself and a better period of her life. Her spirit was crushed, culminating in her leaving New York feeling hopeless and more empty than before as we see later in the suburbs. What makes this statement even more powerful is that Esther directly follows with “it was my last night,” to make it clear that everything was leading up to this moment for her.

Next, Esther carries her dress to the window and says, “I waved it, like a flag of truce, once, twice… The breeze caught it, and I let it go.” This sentence is particularly powerful because it demonstrates Esther “surrendering” to New York with that flag of truce. She felt defeated, and instead of growing and taking on more of an adult role from this internship, she had to let go of New York and what she had tried to work towards there. Although it was offered to her as an opportunity to grow and experience more responsibility, Esther did not fit in and had to shed the potential adult identity she had formed in New York. Through letting go of her wardrobe, she represents letting go of her time there and the outward appearance and persona that she had adopted.

Then, Esther says: “the wind made an effort, but failed, and a batlike shadow sank toward the roof garden of the penthouse opposite.” This sentence is interesting because, if going along the same assumptions of the meaning of the passage, it suggests how New York was supposed to “lift” Esther and help her come of age, but it failed. Instead of flying and taking advantage of the opportunity, Esther found that she couldn’t and saw herself sinking further. Additionally, a shadow is like a dark reflection of oneself, like a silhouette of their outer appearance. In this case, the clothing could be a shadow and representation of Esther herself. Not only does New York not "lift" her, but to purify herself again, she “dissolves” her outward shell and her troubles, as she does in the hot bath earlier, to release herself from the city (20). 

Lastly, to conclude the passage, Esther narrates:

Piece by piece, I fed my wardrobe to the night wind, and flutteringly, like a loved one's ashes, the gray scraps were ferried off, to settle here, there, exactly where I would never know, in the dark heart of New York.

In this sentence, representing the rest of her final moments in New York, Esther continues to release all of her outward identity from the city “piece by piece” and letting it go wherever it lands. She illustrates that this identity was dead in a way (like “ashes”) and will no longer be a part of her life. Further, Esther says that she would “never know where [the clothes] landed.” Here Esther demonstrates that the identity she formed in New York is not something she will care about or return to in the future. Rather, she must start over and find a new path, a challenging and uncertain task.

Through this short yet meaningful scene, Esther ends her journey in New York and with the internship. She parts with her time and identity there, at this point not yet having come of age or found her place. She doesn't know where her clothes and identity will land but just lets them go into the empty space and darkness of night, "purifying" herself and trying to begin again before she returns to the suburbs.

Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. New York, Harper Perennial, 2005.

Quick citation note: all quotes from Esther’s last scene in New York are from page 111. Thanks!