One of the most striking aspects of The Bell Jar for me is how quickly Esther's paranoid behavior escalates. As I read through Chapter 9 of the novel, I thought of Esther as a character troubled by her circumstances and others' misogynist views, not as someone who would repeatedly attempt suicide and never fully be a part of society again. But the transition from Chapter 9 to Chapter 10 is a significant change of tone. Esther not only emphasizes the ideas of death and depression more, but her behavior rapidly shifts from relatively normal (as a successful college student who hangs out with friends) to very isolated, unhealthy, and dangerous.
Part of what makes Esther's spiral into mental illness seem so fast is the language Plath uses at the beginning of Chapter 10. Esther says on page 113, "A summer calm laid its soothing hand over everything, like death," she feels she "had nothing to look forward to" on page 117, and she references the idea of not recognizing herself a few times throughout Chapter 10, including on page 120 when she decides she would create a disguise for herself named Elaine. Though Esther often has negative views on things in Chapters 1-9, much of her discomfort is related to her environment. While she criticizes Buddy Willard's behavior and describes the awkwardness of being wth Lenny and Doreen near the beginning of The Bell Jar, I think Chapter 10 marks a point in the novel when Esther directs her concerns, hatred, and discomfort more toward herself. Her escalation into serious mental illness comes from how she can no longer deal with problems she sees around her, and begins to see any criticism she has with others as a flaw with herself. The first nine chapters of the book act as a way to build up some of the qualms Esther has with her surroundings--from her first view of the rough sexuality between Doreen and Lenny, to the scene when Marco acts as a "woman-hater"--and the rest of the book is how Esther internalizes such issues.
An example of how Esther can no longer cope with problems later in the book is the fact that she stops bathing. In Chapter 2, Esther says, "There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them." She uses baths as a way to both physically and mentally cleanse herself of any disgusting, uncomfortable situation she has just been in. Yet several chapters later, Esther hasn't bathed in weeks, separated from what she saw as the universal way to contemplate problems and feel better. I think this is one reason why the second half of the book felt very disjointed from the first half to me, and possibly why many people in our class find it harder to relate to Esther by the end of the book than at the beginning: instead of simply seeing problems with things on a large scale (e.g., how American women were often treated in the 1950s), Esther feels that she is unusual for noticing such issues and abuses herself for them.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Power Struggles in The Bell Jar
During a class discussion about The Bell Jar the other day, we talked about what could be wrong with Esther Greenwood and why she feels negatively about a lot of things. I think much of what Esther dislikes about Buddy Willard is the idea that women don't have much power in marriage or medicine. Esther is bothered by Buddy's comment in Chapter 5 that Esther's poems are nothing but pieces of dust that won't matter in the long run. She gets the sense that Buddy doesn't care about what she has to say and that she won't be able to do what she loves--writing poetry--if they get married.
Another section of the novel that contributes to Esther's feelings that women have very little power or control over their lives is when she and Buddy witness a child birth. Mrs. Tomolillo, the woman having the baby, is very passive throughout the scene. She is put in the hands of a male medical student who has never delivered a baby before and fears he will drop the baby. Esther's description of this event associates doctors and medical students, who have never had babies themselves, with incompetence and apathy toward patients. On page 66, Plath writes:
"I thought it sounded just like the sort of drug a man would invent. 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."
Esther is uncomfortable with how the baby is delivered because the doctors seem to treat Mrs. Tomolillo in a way that limits her choices as a patient so that they don't have to more thoroughly interact with her. An interesting parallel to this scene is to Esther's other observations about men and sexuality. From both her own experiences and what she has seen occur with Doreen and Lenny, Esther is under the impression that women are entirely under the control of men. Toward the beginning of Chapter 2, Doreen says she wants Esther to stay with her at Lenny's apartment, alluding to the fact that Doreen would be pretty helpless if Lenny tried anything on her.
Similarly in Chapter 9, Esther's date with Marco bolsters her feeling that women are relatively powerless when interacting with men, and she is deeply bothered by that. She says Marco is an "invulnerable woman-hater," and the language she uses to describe the scene ("I didn't know where I was," and "the ground soared and struck me with a soft shock") add to the idea that Esther is powerless against Marco's manipulating physical strength.
These parts of The Bell Jar make me think that one of Esther's primary issues with others is that women lack control when it comes to both sex and child birth. She has witnessed numerous men who abuse and take advantage of women sexually, and her presence at the hospital during Mrs. Tomolillo's child birth rounds out the sense that women don't have much say in anything sex-/pregnancy-related. It will be interesting to see more examples of this in the upcoming chapters of the book and how Esther is affected by them; it already looks like these feelings have played a role in Esther's disgust with Buddy and their relationship, so there are a number of ways this theme could influence Esther's decisions later on in the novel.
Another section of the novel that contributes to Esther's feelings that women have very little power or control over their lives is when she and Buddy witness a child birth. Mrs. Tomolillo, the woman having the baby, is very passive throughout the scene. She is put in the hands of a male medical student who has never delivered a baby before and fears he will drop the baby. Esther's description of this event associates doctors and medical students, who have never had babies themselves, with incompetence and apathy toward patients. On page 66, Plath writes:
"I thought it sounded just like the sort of drug a man would invent. 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."
Esther is uncomfortable with how the baby is delivered because the doctors seem to treat Mrs. Tomolillo in a way that limits her choices as a patient so that they don't have to more thoroughly interact with her. An interesting parallel to this scene is to Esther's other observations about men and sexuality. From both her own experiences and what she has seen occur with Doreen and Lenny, Esther is under the impression that women are entirely under the control of men. Toward the beginning of Chapter 2, Doreen says she wants Esther to stay with her at Lenny's apartment, alluding to the fact that Doreen would be pretty helpless if Lenny tried anything on her.
Similarly in Chapter 9, Esther's date with Marco bolsters her feeling that women are relatively powerless when interacting with men, and she is deeply bothered by that. She says Marco is an "invulnerable woman-hater," and the language she uses to describe the scene ("I didn't know where I was," and "the ground soared and struck me with a soft shock") add to the idea that Esther is powerless against Marco's manipulating physical strength.
These parts of The Bell Jar make me think that one of Esther's primary issues with others is that women lack control when it comes to both sex and child birth. She has witnessed numerous men who abuse and take advantage of women sexually, and her presence at the hospital during Mrs. Tomolillo's child birth rounds out the sense that women don't have much say in anything sex-/pregnancy-related. It will be interesting to see more examples of this in the upcoming chapters of the book and how Esther is affected by them; it already looks like these feelings have played a role in Esther's disgust with Buddy and their relationship, so there are a number of ways this theme could influence Esther's decisions later on in the novel.
Holden's Problems: Impossible to Solve
I think one of the primary issues Holden Caulfield of The Catcher in the Rye has with growing up is that he can't do anything about it. There is a sense that what Holden wants to preserve--life, childhood, innocence, and happiness--will someday disappear, and it appears to Holden that he is the only one who wants to reverse the deterioration he sees around him.
Holden analyzes things very closely, which can make a lot of his views of things negative. Even being a lawyer (which Holden thinks could be rewarding by freeing innocent people) begins to seem fake as he imagines lawyers who have the job just for the social status and wealth. By visualizing how situations could turn sour or impure, Holden is completely turned away from much of what the future has to offer.
What adds to Holden's feelings that it is impossible for the future to get better is that he doesn't come up with any solutions to such problems. He finds issues in every area in life because he thinks anything could be made worse by people's phoniness or malicious intentions, yet doesn't propose change explicitly and doesn't exactly say what he would rather have. I think that is because Holden doesn't know how things could be completely improved; since even an apparently good, helpful job in law could be sullied by a person's greed, Holden sees that he has little control over if the world becomes a better place or not.
Holden's uneasiness with the fragility of life contributes to how he feels many problems are inevitable or impossible to fix. He understandably thinks his brother Allie's death is unfair, and that feeling is rooted in the fact that Allie's death was out of his control. According to Holden, growing up is not only a loss of the happy, carefree attitude many children have in exchange for a greedy, phony lifestyle many adults have. He also sees it as a symbol of not being able to avoid death, and I think that is why he has such a problem with adulthood throughout The Catcher in the Rye.
Holden analyzes things very closely, which can make a lot of his views of things negative. Even being a lawyer (which Holden thinks could be rewarding by freeing innocent people) begins to seem fake as he imagines lawyers who have the job just for the social status and wealth. By visualizing how situations could turn sour or impure, Holden is completely turned away from much of what the future has to offer.
What adds to Holden's feelings that it is impossible for the future to get better is that he doesn't come up with any solutions to such problems. He finds issues in every area in life because he thinks anything could be made worse by people's phoniness or malicious intentions, yet doesn't propose change explicitly and doesn't exactly say what he would rather have. I think that is because Holden doesn't know how things could be completely improved; since even an apparently good, helpful job in law could be sullied by a person's greed, Holden sees that he has little control over if the world becomes a better place or not.
Holden's uneasiness with the fragility of life contributes to how he feels many problems are inevitable or impossible to fix. He understandably thinks his brother Allie's death is unfair, and that feeling is rooted in the fact that Allie's death was out of his control. According to Holden, growing up is not only a loss of the happy, carefree attitude many children have in exchange for a greedy, phony lifestyle many adults have. He also sees it as a symbol of not being able to avoid death, and I think that is why he has such a problem with adulthood throughout The Catcher in the Rye.
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