Esther feels jealous when Joan is released from the hospital before she is. I believe that Esther thinks that she is not doing as well as Joan, therefore she envies her. Esther does find a man to take her virginity, and she genuinely enjoys his company. Irwin, the man who ends up taking her virginity, fits Esther’s profile for the man to do the job. Esther wants to find someone who is “impersonal, priestlike official, as in the tales of tribal rites.”. I feel like she went back to the idea that losing her virginity was more of a quest than a special thing. The way she goes about the whole thing makes me believe she is doing it for all of the wrong reasons. The love is not present, and that should be key in something like this. When she lost
