“The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath is a fantastically well-written story that takes a harrowing deep dive into feminism and mental health.
Originally published by Plath in 1963, “The Bell Jar” takes place in 1953 in Boston and New York City. The story follows 19-year-old college student Esther Greenwood, who has a lot of similarities to Plath. The novel is considered roman à clef, which means it mixes real-world events with fiction overlaid. I love roman à clef as I think the true stories are interesting and the fictionalized aspects make them even more interesting.
Esther starts the story in an all-women’s hotel in New York City due to a summer internship. She has flashbacks of her old boyfriend Buddy Willard to whom she looks back with contempt for his hypocrisy.
Buddy was studying to become a doctor and shows Esther a woman giving birth. Buddy tells her that the woman is on a drug that will make her forget the pains of labor. This leaves Esther disgusted because even if the woman forgets her pain, it does not erase that the pain existed.
Plath wrote, “Here was a woman in terrible pain, obviously feeling every bit of it or she wouldn’t groan like that, and she would go straight home and start another baby, because the drug would make her forget how bad the pain had been, when all the time, in some secret part of her, that long, blind, doorless and windowless corridor of pain was waiting to open up and shut her in again.”
I also find the idea of people just forgetting their pain to be a problematic view. The pain is not erased and just because someone does not have a conscious memory of pain does not mean they did not suffer.
After watching the births, Esther and Buddy go off and undress in front of each other. Esther learns that Buddy is not a virgin which leaves her disgusted by the hypocrisy between the expectations of women and men.
Esther is disgusted by purity culture expecting her to remain a virgin until she gets married while it is seen as fine for Buddy to have sex with others. Plath’s words express how harmful it is to judge someone based on the status of their virginity. This is a sentiment I agree with. Whichever way it goes, the amount of people someone has had sex with does not determine their value as a person and it is wrong to judge someone based on that.
On top of the feminism in the novel, there is a heavy focus on Esther’s depression, which is as disturbing as it is excellently written. Upon returning to Boston, Esther is hospitalized due to depression and given electroshock therapy, which does not help her at all. Later, Esther makes several half-hearted suicide attempts followed by a more serious one using many sleeping pills.
Esther describes her depression as if she is trapped underneath a bell jar and her depressive episodes can be seen throughout the novel. The metaphor of the bell jar shows so much expression of Esther’s depression and how it traps her. I like the metaphor a lot and it is no wonder it is used as the title as well. During a photoshoot, Esther bursts into tears and buries her face in a couch and when she stops she realizes that she is all alone.
Sylvia Plath committed suicide just one month after her only novel was published. It is tragic that not enough was done to give her the proper health she needed. I hope The Bell Jar can give those with similar feelings a sense of comfort knowing they are not alone.
Nico Brazill can be contacted at
nbrazill@kscequinox.com
