But, if on one hand she is driven to date, Esther can't stand Buddy for his hypocrisy. Yet she needs him. This, in turn, makes her as much a hypocrite as Buddy. Esther is dishonest with Buddy about her responses to the hospital situations, and she can't even tell him her reaction to his naked body.
Esther's training in social manners contributes to her being trapped. She is rebelling from an excessive emphasis on "be nice, be nice." Thus, she mocks people even when it is not necessary. Esther is too acutely aware of manners and styles. For example, when Constantin asks her for a "bite to eat," she knows, and hates, that phrase because it belongs to Mrs. Willard. If Constantin has "intuition," as Esther thinks he has, perhaps that is why he doesn't seduce her, because in spite of the "electric shock" he gives her, she is mainly interested in "getting even" with Buddy for his "infidelities."
Torn between the "should's" of her New England upbringing and the pressures of her peers to have men in her life, Esther cannot reconcile her feelings about men — much less have warm relationships with them. She has no way to deal with her negative thoughts, which her social training tells her are, if not wrong, at least unattractive. But if Esther cannot avoid men, or be successful just using them, at least she could give them a piece of her mind occasionally. Yet she never even writes to Buddy to tell him about her insights on his poem, his "piece of dust." Surely, even for Esther, that would have been permissible. But she keeps all this inside herself, and then it comes out in peculiar ways, mostly harmful to Esther herself.
