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Esther + Buddy
Esther and Buddy start dating in June, she has been eyeing him for a while and suddenly the feeling becomes mutual.
Later in 1952, Buddy takes Esther to the Yale prom. -
Proposal
Buddy proposes to Esther when she visits him at the sanitarium he's living at to be treated of his tuberculosis. Esther turns him down because she feels betrayed after finding out that he is not a virgin even though he has been pretending to be one. -
Ski trip
Esther breaks her leg in several spots at a ski trip, while Buddy is trying to teach her downhill skiing. Throughout the story she continuously mentions feeling pain in these areas. -
Internship
Esther starts her month long summer internship in New York as a guest editor at "Ladies' Day" magazine, which she was selected for among a group of other young girls. At this time, Esther was nineteen and had just finished her junior year at Harvard University. -
Ladys' Day lunch
Before going to a lunch with the other girls working for the magazine, Esther has a conversation with Jay-Cee, her boss at the magazine. While talking to Jay-Cee, Esther realizes how uncertain she is about what she wants to do with her life because she wants to do so many things, but can only do some of it. At a lunch hosted by the Ladies' Day magazine, many of the girls at the lunch get food poisoning from ptomaine found in the crab meat that was served, and Esther falls ill. -
Photo-day
On the last day of Esther's internship at Ladys' Day magazine, all of the girls get taken pictures of. When Esther goes to get her picture taken, she breaks down from anxiety and cries uncontrollably. This symbols her depression starting. -
Country club dance
One one of her last days in New York, Esther and her friend Doreen go to a country club dance. At the dance her date, Marco, tries to rape her. Esther escapes and goes back to the hotel where she throws her clothes out of the window. This marks the beginning of her careless 'nothing really matters' attitude that later contributes to her depression. -
Returning home
Esther goes home to the suburbs in Boston, where Esther's mother notifies her that she did not get into the reading program lead by a famous author that she wanted to go to for the summer. This means Esther has to stay in the suburbs over the summer, which she has never done before. -
Depression
As Esther gets more free time to think about her opportunities on what to do after she has finished school, she realizes that none of her options appeal to her. She falls into a deep depression, resulting in her not being able to sleep, read or eat. As a result, Esther's mother takes her to a psychiatrist: Dr. Gordon. -
Shock therapy
Esther receives electroshock therapy by Dr. Gordon. This makes her worse, and results in a fear of ever getting electroshock therapy again. Due to this, Esther tells her mother that she does not want to go to the psychiatrist again, and she goes out of treatment. -
Suicide attempt
Esther attempts to kill herself, for the first time, by hanging, but fails because her body resists. She has other half hearted attempts during this period as well, all failing. -
Grave
Esther visits her father's grave, and breaks down. He died from sickness when Esther was a young girl. She has not let herself grief over him until this moment. -
Near death
Esther attempts to kill herself for the last time, swallowing a lot of sleeping pills and hiding in a crawlspace under her family home. -
Saviour
Esther is found by her mother after she heard noise from the covered up crawlspace in the cellar. She is taken to a hospital where she wakes up and does not recognize herself anymore.
She is then moved to a psychiatric hospital. -
Joan
An old friend of Esther's, Joan, is put in the same hospital wing as Esther after attempting to kill herself. Joan tells Esther that she was following the investigation of Esther's case, and shows Esther some newspaper clippings from the days before she was found after her suicide attempt. -
Improvement
Esther starts to get better by the help of a good psychiatrist: Dr. Nolan. Despite her resisting, Esther gets shock therapy once again, but this time it is performed in a different way that makes her tolerate / enjoy it. She goes through other types of treatment as well, resulting in her getting better and therefore receiving benefits such as more freedom and being able to go into the city sometimes. -
Hemorrhage
After getting a contraceptive from Dr. Nolan, Esther feels that she finally has sexual freedom and that she does not have to worry about a baby. Therefore she wants to have her first sexual experience. She hooks up with the first suitable man she finds, Irwin, who is a math professor with a lot of sexual experience. This sexual encounter causes Esther to bleed / have a hemorrhage. Irwin takes Esther to Joan's apartment, and Joan ends up calling the hospital and taking Esther to treatment. -
Joan dies
Esther is woken up in the middle of the night being informed that Joan has killed herself. This is shocking to everyone because Joan had been doing very well. Prior, Joan had gotten so well that he was allowed to live in an apartment in the city with a nurse, instead of in the psychiatric hospital. -
Exit interview
The last pages of the novel are about the day that Esther has her exit interview, where she was going to talk to some psychiatrists to decide if she was well enough to leave the hospital. We never get to know how the interview goes, as the book ends with Esther entering the interviewing room.