NAFF_Online -
O’Brien, H 2007 ‘The bell jar: adolescent novel or cultural crisis, NAFF_Online 5.1 (2007): pp. 21-25.
Bundtzen believes the The Bell Jar (2005) is an 'adolescent crisis novel'. (Bundtzen 1983, p.111). The Bell Jar is likened to the author, Sylvia Path's tumultuous life; the imagery in the novel is bizarre, almost surreal. Her writing of the novel is like her poetry, rather macabre and sardonic. Hughes (1981, p. 16) believed, 'her writing depended on a supercharged system of inner symbols and images, an enclosed cosmic circus' in a very descriptive narrative. Rose (1991, p. 1) describes her poetry, 'Plath wrote a great deal about haunting and ghosts. "All the long gone darlings, “she called them; "they get back, though, soon, soon". The character of Esther Greenwood seems to display this morbid fascination with death throughout the text.
The novel explores a young adolescent girl attempting to discover herself in a world of expectations, her feminist ideals, and her slow descent into depression, and seeming madness. She is disillusioned by the world; at the start of the narrative she is ambitious and optimistic about her future, but as events unfold she becomes cynical and negative. For a girl in late adolescence she develops a very adult perception of life. She does not seem to understand her behaviour, at times she believes she needs help, but she is subdued by her condition. She continuously struggles to find her place in society, never sure which path to follow to accomplish all her dreams and become whole. The Bell Jar is a dark representation of one woman's adolescence.
The Bell Jar could be interpreted as an 'adolescent crisis novel’; however, I believe there is much more depth to the narrative than the teenager in the adult world struggling to belong. Esther Greenwood is not your average teen, obviously suffering from severe depression which causes her to display uncharacteristic behaviour. She seems puzzled by her condition, realising she does not conform to society, but not believing herself to be unwell. Bundtzen (1983, p. 111) believes, ‘She does not know what is wrong with her and her behaviour is symptomatic rather than explanatory. This is captured in Esther’s own bewilderment at her emotional detachment’.
There are themes that a young adult could relate to in the novel, such as romance, first sexual encounters, and marriage versus career. However, I do not believe the novel aims to present a normal teenager's life in the 1950s. Her descent into a depressive state and suicidal attempts distinguishes The Bell Jar from an adolescent crisis novel. Perhaps in a more in-depth way, the novel addresses teen depression and suicide. It is suffice to say there are many teenagers who would experience this feeling of ostracisation and being disappointed with their life, which could lead to feelings of depression. Baldwin (2004, p. 21) describes the novel as a 'pseudo-memoir' which represents a female Bildungsroman, 'a rite of passage from adolescence into womanhood, psychic distress into mental stability'. In the 1950s there was a very different approach to these feelings, depression was not labelled as such and not recognised as it is today as a very real illness. Perverse methods such as shock treatment were used to attempt to abolish these thoughts.
It is also difficult to detach oneself from the fact that the author, Sylvia Plath, who was experiencing these feelings before her own suicide, if the reader is familiar with her tragic life. Cooper (1997, p. 90) explains, 'Plath's only novel, The Bell Jar was written in 1961-2 and published a month before her death in January 1963…The Bell Jar is contiguous with Plath's mature poetic work and can be usefully situated in its context'. Sylvia Plath's own life is mirrored in The Bell Jar, her writings influenced by her marriage breakdown to the poet Ted Hughes. Some of her most inspired works were written as a single mother, after Hughes left her for another woman. Her poetry is more sardonic than ever during this transition. Plath had made a number of suicide attempts, and then six months after her separation with her husband, she succeeded in killing herself. Priest (2006, Introduction). The Bell Jar is written in a very poetic, descriptive form as if we are reading Esther's deepest, darkest, thoughts and it is an insight into the inspiration for Plath's literary works. Tucker (1994, p. 18) associates The Bell Jar with the Freudian female journey, her behaviour a result of cause and effect, spiralling into madness.
The novel begins as a seemingly simple storyline, portraying a very ambitious young girl who exceeds in her grades and has won a temporary stint as an employee of a fashion magazine in New York, Lady's Day. Esther does not seem excited at all at the prospect of working at the magazine. Plath (2005, p. 2):
[I] was supposed to be having the time of my life…I just bumped from my hotel to work and to parties and from parties to my hotel and back to work like a numb trolley-bus…I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.
Esther discovers the shallow world of the fashion industry, seeing it for what it is worth, not sharing the excitement of some of the other prize winners. Esther distinguishes herself from the other girls staying at the Hotel Amazon, believing them all to be of wealthy standing, attending secretarial schools like Katy Gibbs, waiting to be snapped up and married to wealthy executive-types. (Plath 2005, p. 4). Esther does not envy them, and almost feels sorry for them. Plath (2005, p. 4), 'These girls looked awfully bored to me. I saw them on the sun-roof, yawning and painting their nails and trying to keep up their Bermuda tans, and they seemed bored as hell'. Esther herself has the opportunity to marry Buddy Willard, an intern, and believed she was in love with him for a long time, until she found out what a ‘hypocrite’ he was.
Buddy came from a very religious background, and his mother believed him to be pure. Esther thought he was a virgin like herself, and then she discovers he had an affair with a waitress. This disillusion of the world seems to form her basis for life. Esther struggles with her identity; she is living in a time where a woman’s place is in the home. She does not aspire to be married and have children, which is the societal expectation. She does not seem to know her place in the world, or if she even belongs in it. Women during this era, after the war years and in a time of peace, were encouraged to perform the dutiful role of housewife. 'It was 1956; after all, a time when it was an established maxim that, as Sylvia contemptuously put it, "a woman cannot cook and think at the same time". Priest (2006, p. 10) Esther describes her attitude toward marriage. Plath (2005, p. 81):
[i] began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterwards you went numb as a slave in some private, totalitarian state.
Birkett & Harvey (1991, p. 6) believes:
[w]hat Plath's heroine Esther Greenwood experiences as devastating private and personal oppression is a general condition with specific political and historical parameters. Esther is the product of the 1940s and 1950s, and the context of her story is American society in the grip of social conservatism.
Sinclair (1997, p. 119) believes Esther represents the struggles educated women experienced in the 1950s, as Plath herself discovered growing up in this era. It was a challenge to progress in their careers, as women still were influenced by their inherent sense of social conformity. Friedan (cited in Sinclair 1997, p. 119) explains the message to women was ‘not to get interested, seriously interested in anything besides getting married and having children, if she wanted to be normal, happy, adjusted, feminine’.
An aspect which infuriated Esther about Buddy Willard was that he denigrated her interest in writing, believing poems to be 'a piece of dust'. Esther struggles with her identity; she uses the symbolism of a fig tree to describe her predicament. At the end of every branch is a different fig at her grasp like a bright future. Some figs in her elusive tree represent a successful career, a poet, professor or editor. Another fig symbolises a happy home with a husband and children. She does not seem to be able to determine a path to lead, and she cannot see a compromise, in her mind it is all or nothing. Esther expresses this conflict of interest. Plath (2005, p. 73) 'I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig-tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose'. Sinclair (1997, p. 124) believes, ‘a great part of Esther’s rage, eventually turned inward to suicide, is that she cannot have all the figs’. Esther strives for a career, but is not immune to the wiles of the traditional female role. Sinclair (1997, p. 124) explains, ‘She embodies the conflation of her 1950’s female generation bridging the span between women solely groomed for matrimony and motherhood and those college graduates newly entering the market economy as sellers rather than consumers’.
Plath (2005, p. 52). Buddy attempts to propose marriage to Esther, and he declares her as being neurotic because in a one of his psychology questionnaires she could not live in either the country or the city. He insinuates that he understands this quirkiness about her. Esther declares: Plath (2005, p. 90), ‘If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I’m neurotic as hell. I’ll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days’.
In the novel, Esther reflects back on her experiences that have helped her to form the views of marriage and children. She witnesses a very raw account of motherhood, by witnessing a birth. Buddy Willard is an intern, and she gets a chance to follow him in his rounds. Esther watches on while Buddy helps deliver the baby. Her view of the ordeal was disturbing, believing the stirrups to look like 'some awful torture chamber'. Plath (2005, p. 61).
The stint at the magazine does little to enthuse Esther, and it is as if she sets herself up for disappointment all the time. She is going through the motions, and not really experiencing life. She is like a shadow of herself. Esther seems genuinely confused by her attitude towards life. Plath (2005, p. 29):
[I]was college correspondent for the town Gazette and editor of the literary magazine and secretary of Honour Board, which deals with academic and social offences and punishments - a popular office, and I had a well-known woman poet and professor on the faculty championing me for graduate school at the biggest universities in the east, and promises of full scholarships all the way, and now I was apprenticed to the best editor on any intellectual fashion magazine, and what did I do but balk and balk like a dull cart horse?
Esther is driven by her desire to succeed, however she is disillusioned by this as well. She is seemingly very melodramatic and acts as if she is well beyond her nineteen years. Plath (2005, p. 72):
[t]he one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and prizes, and that era was coming to an end. I felt like a racehorse in a world without race-tracks or a champion college footballer suddenly confronted by Wall Street and a business suit, his days of glory shrunk to a little gold cup on his mantel with a date engraved on it like the date on a tombstone.
Esther does not seem confident in herself, and her striving to win awards seems to be a way to validate herself and her value. Sinclair (1997, p. 127) describes Esther as, ‘caught between poles: she feels too keenly the world around her, while noncomitantly growing numb and zombie-like’. Sinclair (1997, p. 127) explains Esther is an observer rather than a participant in life, detached from her experiences. She is deeply analytical and a perfectionist, which serves to alienate her from her peers, ‘the outsider looking in on a world where everyone else is actively engaged and is comfortable’. This idea is symbolised through the aspect of the bell jar throughout the text.
The novel tells of Esther’s rite-of-passage into womanhood, attempting to find herself in the ethers of her youth. Esther associates with Doreen, whom she believes is sophisticated and attractive to men. During these times, she discovers drinking for the first time. She was disappointed with this initiation. Plath (2005, p. 15), 'My drink was wet and depressing. Each time I took another sip it tasted more and more like dead water'. She seemed to want to take on an alter-ego when she socialised, wishing to become someone else and taking on a role. She believed herself to be immune to the wiles of men, and looked down on Doreen with her fraternising with them. In social situations she acted more like a wallflower. Plath (2005, p.15), 'I felt myself shrinking to a small black dot against all those red and white rugs and that pine-panelling. I felt like a hole in the ground'. She also thinks of socialising as something dirty. She explains that she uses a hot bath to cure her. Plath (2005, p. 19):
Doreen is dissolving, Lenny Shephard is dissolving, Frankie is dissolving, New York is dissolving away and none of them matter any more. I don't know them, I have never known them and I am very pure. All that liquor and those sticky kisses I saw and the dirt that settled on my skin on the way back is turning into something pure.
During Esther’s time at Lady’s Day, the Editor of the magazine, Jay Cee, denigrates her, suggesting she is not interested in her work. Jay Cee feels she is not performing to the best of her ability. This is a blow to Esther as she respects Jay Cee as an intelligent career-minded woman.