DeeDee

DeeDee is a patient at Belsize whose musical performance and easy participation in the ward’s social life give Esther Greenwood a view of institutional life that is not defined by treatment alone. She joins jokes about men, plays songs on the grand piano, and moves among other patients with an air of privacy and familiarity; Esther’s encounters with her expose both the liveliness of the women’s community and the limits imposed on it.

Identity and Introduction

DeeDee appears among the women at Belsize, where Esther listens to supper-table chatter after arriving for treatment. Several patients are fashionably dressed and made up, and their talk turns to shopping, visits, and private jokes. DeeDee contributes one such joke, saying she could call Jack at a place where she knows he would be in. The exchange presents her as socially confident and flirtatious, but it does not explain who Jack is or establish the nature of their relationship.

The women’s conversation also includes the short, spry blonde patient at Esther’s table, who laughs about almost getting Doctor Loring where she wanted him and says she would not mind trading Percy in for a new model. The episode places sexual banter and marriage talk within the everyday social atmosphere of the institution. DeeDee’s own remark about Jack belongs to that shared current of teasing conversation rather than to a developed personal history.

Music and Social Life at Belsize

After supper Esther decides to put a lid on the women’s talk and walks down the hall, a blanket draped around her shoulders. For the rest of the evening, she listens to DeeDee thump out her own songs on the grand piano while the other women sit around playing bridge and chatting. The scene resembles a college dormitory, with the telling qualification that most of the women are a decade beyond college age. Belsize’s social life is not simply a background to Esther’s treatment: in this room, patients occupy an ordinary communal rhythm of music, games, and conversation.

DeeDee’s song called “The Milkman” is the clearest instance of her performance. The other women say it ought to be published and would be a hit. Its arrangement is described through two melodies: one begins with a tune likened to the hoofbeats of a slow pony, then another enters like a milkman whistling, and the two continue together. The song is both a piece of entertainment for the women and an example of DeeDee’s own musical authorship. Esther answers with a conversational compliment, joining the audience without suggesting that she shares the group’s full ease.

Joan leans on one corner of the piano, leafing through a fashion magazine, while DeeDee smiles up at her as if they share a secret. The small gesture establishes a suggestive intimacy between them without disclosing what, if anything, the secret contains. DeeDee is thus seen not only entertaining a group but also making a private connection within it.

Privacy and Boundaries

The boundary around DeeDee’s personal space becomes important when Esther knocks at her door, hoping to borrow two-part sheet music. After waiting a few minutes without hearing an answer, Esther assumes DeeDee is out and enters, thinking she can pick up the music from the bureau. At Belsize, doors have locks but patients do not have keys; a closed door nevertheless means privacy and is respected as if it were locked. Esther remembers this custom as she stands inside the dark room, recognizing that she has crossed a boundary even though the door was not physically secured.

When Esther’s vision adjusts, DeeDee rises from the bed and gives a low giggle. She is lying back on the pillows, bare-legged beneath a green wool dressing gown, with a cigarette glowing between the fingers of her right hand. Her pale eyes and mocking smile make the encounter feel pointed, but the scene does not say what had been happening before Esther entered. DeeDee’s room, unlike the shared piano area, is a private space whose social rule Esther has violated; the moment reveals how institutional living still depends on boundaries that patients must negotiate among themselves.

Treatment, Transfer, and Narrative Role

DeeDee’s social world stands beside Esther’s fear of shock treatment. Esther worries about whether Doctor Nolan can know that a patient really sleeps during treatment, imagining the possibility that a person might appear asleep while still feeling the electrical current and hearing its noise. Against that apprehension, DeeDee’s music, the card games, and the women’s jokes offer a daily life that continues within the hospital. The contrast matters without making DeeDee a symbol of recovery: the evidence gives her activities and social presence, not a diagnosis, treatment history, or account of her inner life.

Later, after Joan’s death, DeeDee has been moved to Wymark for a while, but she is back among the women at Belsize by the time Buddy visits Esther for afternoon tea. From across the table she watches Esther and Buddy over the rim of her teacup, like an envious cat. Her return supplies a concrete change in her institutional circumstances, while the look registers her as an observer of Esther’s encounter with Buddy. The novel does not explain why DeeDee was transferred, what she thought of Joan’s death, or what prompts her apparent envy. What it does establish is a recurring presence: DeeDee helps make Belsize a place of music, jokes, friendship, privacy, and watching, rather than a setting reduced to Esther’s treatment alone.