The Daydreams of a Drunk Woman

Why does the woman in “The Daydreams of a Drunk Woman” drink?

            Just like we can see in today’s society, the woman appears to drink because she is unhappy with her own life.  Early in the story it made it obvious that she was not happy with her own marriage or did not even care about her marriage.  She said that she did even care about what her husband looked like when it was his day to do business on the city and even that she “despised him beyond words” (2804 and 2806).  She also did not appear to be happy that she had children because it was said that she “took advantage of their absence” (2804).  She also did not appear happy because she seemed to be jealous of others, especially the woman she was talking so bad about in the restaurant.  She did not seem happy that the woman in the restaurant was prosperous and that she was not (2807); she said that she would have liked to slap the woman, which does not make her appear as a happy person.  She seemed as if she really enjoyed drinking because she said “how satisfying to lose” her soul, which probably relates to her forgetting all her troubles when she was drunk (2806).  She is unhappy with several different aspects of her life, so she drinks because she believes that the daydreams she has when she is drunk is better than her reality.  Although she thinks drinking will solve her unhappiness, she will eventually have to face the problems she is facing.

How does the woman in “The Daydreams of a Drunk Woman” view herself?

            In the beginning it seems as if she thinks of herself very fondly because it says that “her eyes did not take themselves off her image” as she was standing in front of the mirror (2804); because of this, I assumed that she was a person who thought a lot of herself.  However, it seemed as if when she was drunk she viewed herself much differently.  When she was drunk she scolded herself and even called herself a “lazy bitch” (2805).  She saw herself as being sensible, but this irritated her (2806).  Also when she was drunk she viewed herself as a very unhappy and miserable person; she found her husband “ridiculous” and in the restaurant she even said that she was “so miserable” (2806-2807).  Even though she may not have realized it, she also appeared to be a very jealous person when she was drunk.  It was when she was drunk that she talked so bad about the women in the restaurant who was “all dolled up in a hat and jewelry, glittering like a false icon” (2807).  At the end of the story, she even called herself a slut (2809).  Although she seemed to think a lot of herself when she was sober, it was when she was drunk she viewed herself very negatively.  It is possible that the way she viewed herself when she was drunk was who she really was; she saw herself as lazy and she did not appear to have any job or to do any housework and she saw herself as a slut and she was not in love with her own husband.  The way she viewed herself changed dramatically depending on whether or not she was drunk or sober.