The Bell Jar: Chapter 2

Journal Entry
#4
November 7, 2007
Chapter 2
Page 20 paragraph 6
Quote:
"The china-white bedside telephone could have connected me up with things, but there it sat, dumb as a death's head. I tried to think of people I'd given my phone number to, so I could make a list of all the possible calls I might be about to receive, but all I could think of was that I'd given my number to Buddy Willard's mother so she could give it to a simultaneous interpreter she knew at the UN."

Esther is thinking about phone calls. In the Catcher in the Rye, Holden was always thinking about calling someone so he could talk to them, but then he would decide that he didn't want to talk to the people after all. Esther is also thinking about the phone, but she is thinking about people calling her, not her calling someone else. She also doesn't want to talk to the person who has her phone number, just like how Holden didn't want to talk to people that he was going to call. Also, when Holden felt like calling people he was sometimes drunk, and Esther is drunk right now too.