The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar opened up much needed conversations about mental health in a time when knowledge on the subject was extremely limited. The novel enables readers to understand and identify with a protagonist suffering from depression, and the novel highlights the ways in which the derogatory stigmas that society associated with mental illness at the time, and to a certain extent still today, further isolated and oppressed those suffering. The Bell Jar is a semi-autobiographical novel in which Plath humanises mental illness and highlights the vital needs for a better understanding of it, demonstrating how the ignorance at the time, and therefore the incorrect and sometimes barbaric treatment offered to patients, caused many to become worse or commit suicide.

Esther’s descent into depression is written with both sensitivity and bluntness; Plath committed suicide just a few weeks after the publication of the novel, and so it can be argued that it’s likely she drew from her own experiences to an extent, giving the novel an added edge of realism and accuracy for the topic it explores. The protagonist attempts suicide multiple times in the novel, and the reader has an emotionally intense insight into Esther’s fragile mental state at the time. Plath writes: ‘[it] was as if what I wanted to kill wasn’t in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get at’. This unveils to the reader the highly complex inner battle she is facing, and how it is the illness within herself that she wants to kill, rather than her physical self; this is emphasised by the powerful line ‘the skin of my wrist looked so white and defenceless’. Plath’s writing is heart-breaking and artfully done in these moments of reflection, provoking sympathy and understanding from the reader.

Furthermore, Plath does not shy away from difficult conversations in the novel, including the dialogues between the Esther and her mother. Her mother calls the patients in the mental hospital ‘[those] awful dead people’, and states ‘I knew you’d decide to be all right again’. Calling the patients ‘dead’ shows that in her eyes they are beyond help; so far from normality, and so broken from the shock-treatments that they are not even viewed as living anymore. Stating that being ill is a choice with ‘decide’ also reflects the common belief at the time that is highlighted repeatedly throughout the novel. Esther’s fears of what will happen to her if she does not recover before her family runs out of money to treat her privately are also described. She thinks: ‘I would be moved to a state hospital, with hundreds of people like me, in a big cage in the basement. / The more hopeless you were, the further away they hid you’. This treatment is animalistic, and also reveals the vulnerabilities of the poorer side of society. The descriptions of many of the people in the medical field in the novel are quite threatening: ‘conspiratorial grin’ and ‘hissed’, creating a sense of fear in the reader as one begins to realize the extent of the damaging and dehumanising way the patients are treated.

In addition to this, Esther also suffers in her relationships with men. Although there are numerous kind male characters in the novel, the ones that play the most crucial roles are often conceited and highly unlikeable, and it can be argued instances such as Marco’s physical and verbal abuse to her early in the novel play a large part in Esther’s opinion of the opposite sex being tainted further. She fears being oppressed with societal expectations of the time, having to choose between family and her desired career, and her frustration with the risk of childbirth putting women in an unequal anxiety about exploring their sexuality. She expresses this to Doctor Nolan: ‘What I hate is the thought of being under a man’s thumb, [. . .] [a] man doesn’t have a worry in the world, while I’ve got a baby hanging over my head like a big stick, to keep me in line’. However, whilst Doctor Nolan tries to help free Esther of this anxiety and empower her with knowledge of available contraception at the time, the effects were calamitous and the result, although not stated explicitly, most likely caused Esther to question further what was so wrong with her, with being ‘one in a million’ who haemorrhage after using the contraception. This illustrates to the reader that even when Esther is empowered and given a chance at normality and enjoyment, her body rejects it, and it symbolizes her never truly being free of the grips of her illness and feelings of isolation and belonging to ‘otherness’

Furthermore, the character of Buddy Willard is crucial to Esther’s relationship with all of the male characters in the novel. When Buddy tells Esther he spent the summer sleeping with a waitress she states: ‘something in me just froze up’. She suffers feelings of injustice and anger at him leading a ‘double life’ in pretending to be pure and virginal as young people, especially women, were expected to be at the time, when in fact he had betrayed her and removed the equal grounds between himself and Esther. This further demonstrates why Esther feels that men don’t ‘have a worry in the world’, for if she had been the one to sleep with another man when she was ‘practically engaged’ she would have been reprimanded by her community, and Buddy would never have taken her back, as he expected her to.

Buddy also symbolizes the harsh hypocrisy between illnesses; despite losing a little confidence from suffering from tuberculosis, a purely physical illness, he still considers himself perfect marriage material as there was no stigma behind his ailment. In contrast, however, upon his visit to her in the hospital near the end of the novel when he learns about her mental illness, he rejects her, and wonders aloud who would marry her now that she has been tainted by being a mental patient. Esther also acknowledges the fact that Buddy is most likely right, and she can’t imagine who would possibly consider marrying her now. However, the reader is given a degree of closure on this issue as in the beginning of the novel the older Esther who is narrating the story mentions ‘the baby’, so despite the uncertainty she expresses in this tender moment with Buddy, she does in fact ultimately have a family. Nevertheless, the closure is limited, as a husband is never mentioned and so it is left unclear whether Esther ever has a family or becomes a single mother. Also, as the novel is semi-autobiographical the reader is aware that it is highly unlikely that Esther can ever fully recover from her depression.

To conclude, I highly recommend this novel to anyone with an interest in mental health; it is a beautifully written story and has a powerfully emotive effect on the reader, remaining with one long after the book is finished.

Rating: 4.5/5