Where the bell jar hangs
Throughout Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, Esther describes a Bell Jar that has enclosed around her and distorts her views on others. This distortion causes her to see the people around her as 1 dimensional and caricatured, frequently negatively commenting on people’s looks and behaviors. Besides just distorting her outlook on life and others, the bell jar also isolates others from understanding her and being understood. While she’s in the mental asylum, Dr. Nolan gives her shock therapy to help bring her out of her deep depressive state and it succeeds. Esther comments that “all the heat and fear had purged itself. I felt surprisingly at peace. The bell jar hung, suspended a few feet above my head” (Plath 215). While in this state without the metaphorical distorted glass around her, she should be seeing clearly and see the people around her for who they are. Instead, she comments on how “Joan looked so horsey, with such big teeth and eyes like two gray, google pebbles” (216). This would suggest that perhaps the bell jar isn’t suspended over her head but rather it is slightly lifted to allow fresh air to flow in.
This interpretation gives a darker take on Esther’s story and would be read as a more dire risk of a relapse. The continued warped perception could also signal that the people around her at the mental institute still have bell jars around them. The presence of bell jars surrounding everyone could explain why Esther thinks of everyone as some kind of caricature. Esther wonders how the people in the asylum were any “different from the girls playing bridge and gossiping and studying in the college” (238). She hypothesizes that everyone has some sort of covering that could eventually become too stifling to continue surviving. If this is true, it could speak to the isolation that people feel since no one will fully understand them because they are the only ones who know what they are thinking. While not everyone will have the type of bell jar that Esther is suffering through, on some level there’s a distinct separation between someone and the world outside.
Another thing the warped perception could mean is that the glass bell jar encapsulating her has moved to be above her, but it has been replaced by another barrier that allows her to breathe fresh air but still affects her views on others. In this case, she’s still able to live a comfortable life where she no longer feels stifled, but the feeling of isolation and lack of understanding of others could still be prevalent for her. One part of the book that supports this even after her electric shock therapy is when she discovers Joan is a lesbian. She can’t wrap her head around why a woman would like another woman, although this could also be explained by the social atmosphere back in the mid-1900s. Esther, even when she seems to be almost recovered, still can’t see clearly and doesn’t feel fully connected to the people around her.
This was a really interesting blog and I never thought about how even with the bell jar lifted up, Esther still commented harshly on people's appearances. I wonder if it was because the bell jar distorted her view for so long that it's hard for her to see any other way. It also never occurred to me that other people might have some type of bell jar that distorted how they acted, which added to Esther's warped perception of them. To be honest, it doesn't seem to me that Esther's renunciation of Joan being a lesbian is related to her bell jar considering her racist tendencies throughout the book; it could very well just be her view on life.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post. As I was reading the book, I was more concerned about how Esther's internal state would be affected by the raising of the bell jar, not so much how her perceptions of other people and the outside world would be affected. I agree that despite the bell jar being raised, Esther's perception of other people remains largely unchanged because the of the wall between her and society (which reminds me a bit of Holden Caulfield).
ReplyDeleteIt's true that the "distortions" we see throughout Esther's narrative do persist after her therapy--at least when it comes to Joan. For other characters we meet during this later period (like Irwin the baller math-nerd), or even for the final scene with Buddy, it does seem like her distortions have eased somewhat. Buddy is more three-dimensionally "human" in this final scene than anywhere in the novel, I'd say.
ReplyDeleteBut you're absolutely right that Joan remains the conspicuous exception--and throughout the book there seems to be more deliberate and petty *meanness* in her unkind depictions of Joan throughout. Can she maybe ease up on the horse imagery just ONCE when referring to Joan? Have we heard enough about her oversized teeth or the allegation that she smells like a barn? It's possible to dismiss this as something like jealousy--Joan is also an ex of Buddy Willard, so Esther might feel some competitiveness with her, and she definitely sees Joan as something of a poseur or wannabe, following HER example and getting herself committed to an institution due to a suicide attempt.
I would argue that Esther's meanness toward Joan DOES eventually get mitigated, once Joan dies. I don't mean this to sound like a morbid joke, but we can be sure Joan isn't a "poseur" (in Esther's view) once she succeeds at ending her own life. Esther does seem shaken by Joan's death, and she doesn't even make a snide comment when Joan's mother describes Esther as Joan's best friend. Thankfully, we don't get any horse-girl stuff in the funeral scene.
A big part of Esther's later distaste for Joan has to do with her apparent romantic relationship with DeeDee--and perhaps there's a bit of jealousy here, too. At the very least, Joan and DeeDee make Esther feel like she's the innocent and naive one who hasn't picked up on what is right under her nose, and notably, Dr. Nolan shuts down her homophobic "What does a girl see in another girl?" line of questioning with her perfect one-word reply ("Tenderness"). Esther seems more comfortable when she thinks Joan is trying to be like her--it's easier to dismiss Joan and be mean about it, when she believes Joan will always be there to kick around (so to speak). She already feels like she's losing something of this status in Joan's mind when she realizes that Joan and DeeDee have grown much closer than Esther has ever been to anyone.
Hey Jonathan, I find the idea of there being another barrier once the Bell Jar is lifted to be interesting, though I personally interpreted Esther's behavior towards Joan to be independent of the Bell Jar, at least at this point. Esther has such a complicated relationship with Joan (mostly due to the Bell Jar distorting her view of Joan) that even without the Bell Jar, Esther still finds Joan inferior and repulsive. But like others have mentioned, Esther did end up treating Joan a little better, so perhaps the Bell Jar being remove did help Esther more than we may think.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of having the bell jar only be partially lifted is really interesting and great symbolism for suggesting how true mental clarity is still unattainable for her. I also really like your speculation that everyone else also has their own bell jars around them. It really brings a parallel to Catcher in the Rye and how phonies seem to act in their own world.
ReplyDeleteYour analysis of Esther's behavior before and after her shock treatments, where she claimed that the bell jar had lifted up was really interesting. The fact that Esther's attitude on herself and others really doesn't change makes you wonder how much the shock treatment did. I like how you talk about Esther's comparison of the social setting at the mental hospital to the college dorms and how you use that to make the point that maybe everyone has a bell jar hanging over them. Great post, Jonathan!
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