The Daydreams of a Drunk Woman

What does the woman’s thoughts about other people reveal about her true personality?

While she was at dinner with the businessmen she critically judged both a woman who passed by and the waiter. As the woman walks by her she things “She felt the urge to give that blonde prude of a woman playing the grand lady in her hat a few good slaps on the face….she was nothing more than a fishwife trying to pass herself off as a duchess” (2807). I think the drunk woman was critical of this woman because she hates that the other woman is truly happy and looks beautiful. The drunk woman isn’t happy with her current state in life and resents every other person in life that is happy. So instead of trying to work through her trying times in an unhappy marriage and children, she drinks her sorrows away. The drunk woman constantly tries to escape reality and find happiness in the bottom of a bottle. Once the effects of the alcohol wear off she returns to that unhappy state that she is all to familiar with.She wants to find a man that she is truly in love with and wants to spend the rest of her life with. The drunk woman wants to be the happy woman who can get dressed up and be classy and have the waiter “serve her full of gestures and finesse” (2807.)  Her thoughts of other people show that she is truly insecure and unhappy with her current stage in life.

The drunk woman is constantly worried about ruining her self-respect. Do you think she really cares about her self-respect?

After oversleeping and missing her chores the drunk woman says, “God, I’ve lost my self-respect, I have! My day for washing and darning socks…What a lazy bitch you’ve turned out to be” (2805).  She mentions self-respect many other times in the story like she said “What a slovenly, lazy bitch you’ve become.” describing her unclean floors (2808). I think the woman cares about her self-respect and image to an extent. Basically, I only think she cares about herself when she is sober. Such as, when I mentioned above on page 2805 she only says that after recovering from a drunken evening and sleeping it off all day. While drinking and drowning her sorrows she becomes completely oblivious to how she treats herself and others. She sleeps the day away and awakens only a few short hours before her children are supposed to be home and the house is still a mess. The drunk woman doesn’t have a job, the least she could do is remain sober for a few hours and clean the house, versus laying in her bed all day (2804-05). Also she displays a vast amount of public drunkenness which she shows herself off to the public by falling around, and barely walking.  The drunk woman truly respects herself only when she is sober. When she is drunk and delirious her view of respect is skewed and she ends up not having respect for herself at all.