Emma Kim '23 — Reflections on The Bell Jar

Reflections on The Bell Jar

Emma Kim ’23

When I first read The Bell Jar, by the late poet Sylvia Plath, I felt seen and heard in a way I had never before. It was as if my innermost thoughts were poured out onto a page and written for everyone to see. Watching Esther Greenwood, the protagonist of the novel, slowly break down and unravel was like watching someone else go through my own, unique experiences; the feeling similar to that of floating above my sleeping body in a dream. I too prided myself in my accomplishments — my ability to win awards and even to attend a prestigious school such as Lawrenceville — but I often felt lost and misguided. That feeling of stupor permeated my waking moments and I would spend hours lounging on my bed doing nothing but wanting to do everything, scrolling through social media with no goal and feeling disgusted with myself.

The Bell Jar, however, is not sacred to me in the way that the Bible might be to Christians or a Torah might be to Jews, but more like a diary is to the loner protagonist in a coming of age movie. “In order for a book to have a [meaning], a book has to have someone reading it, interpreting it, applying it to their world” and that is exactly the case with Plath’s novel. It’s changed the way I’ve thought about women, success, and even mental health (Fuerst and Goodwin). When I was struggling with dark thoughts and pushing away my emotions, I always thought I was so alone in my strife. But being able to read the story of a young woman who went through my experiences and made it safely to the other side helped me to realize I wasn’t alone. The Bell Jar has also had a large effect on society in general and has become a symbol of feminism, women, and depression, which slightly misconstrues Plath’s actual, darker material. To further understand the text, “we must also learn to read how those texts are reproduced and woven into other cultural outlets” (Nye 155). Identifying how Plath’s book is represented in other media can lend to our understanding and interpretation of it. For example, a copy of The Bell Jar is found next to Heather Chandler’s dead body after she presumably commits suicide in Heathers, and next to Mallory Knox from Natural Born Killers as she is sleeping, a scene that predates the murder of her sexually abusive father and neglectful mother by her and her boyfriend. In this context, Plath’s The Bell Jar can be seen as a symbol of a female’s mental instability and isolation from society. It has also been used as a prop for feminist female characters that go against the grain; Kat Stratford in 10 Things I Hate About You, Lisa Simpson in The Simpsons, and even serves as a symbol of post-breakup depression for Rory Gilmore in Gilmore Girls, to name a few. This interpretation may be due to Esther’s mindset of not wanting to get married and have children, along with her desire to defy society and lose her virginity before marriage. In this way, The Bell Jar has become a staple text in today’s culture, used to describe angst-filled, depressed women. Although I disagree with this interpretation, as I find the novel to be about a woman who grows into herself and pulls herself out of a dark place, it is worth noting that “because the world is changing, books are always changing” (Fuerst and Goodwin).

“All those who embark upon reading the Quran — Muslims and non- Muslims, religious and secular people — can learn something about the world and about themselves through engagement with it,” says Ingrid Mattson in an article titled “How to Read the Quran” (1587). I would argue the same for Plath’s The Bell Jar since the discoveries I made within myself have quite literally changed my life and my view of the world. I used to always think that growing up and “coming of age” meant discovering who you were and what you wanted to do in life — transforming from a caterpillar to a butterfly. Everyone else was flying around with their new, beautiful wings, and I was still stuck in my cocoon. “All I could see were question marks” when everyone else around me felt “sure and knowledgeable about everything that lay ahead,” (Plath 257). But through Esther Greenwood, Plath showed me that it’s alright to not know the answer to everything. Through this text, I learned that finding yourself isn’t like those scenes in coming of age movies where inspiring music is playing and the character is dancing in slow motion, but rather the scenes that you don’t see, the ones where the character is crying in the hallway alone but pulls herself back together and continues on.

Another interesting aspect of The Bell Jar is how Esther, the protagonist, goes from seeing herself through thin description and starts to see herself through thick description. This discovery has led me to believe that most of society analyzes itself using thin description instead of thick, with myself being complicit as well. In the beginning, Esther measures her self-worth through “winning scholarships and prizes” and “studying and reading and writing and working like mad,” (Plath 33, 81). She leads a life of envy, filled with “promises of full scholarships all the way [while being]... apprenticed to the best editor of an intellectual fashion magazine,” (Plath 33). Towards the end, however, she begins to see past herself until she truly begins to see her soul. For instance, at the asylum, Esther doesn’t even recognize herself in one of the fashion magazines, something she would’ve proudly displayed previously, demonstrating her emotional and mental growth. Although the process is grueling and takes a large mental and physical toll, she emerges “patched, retreaded, and approved for the road,” (Plath 257). Similar to how Esther previously judged herself solely through her accomplishments, Malcolm X prematurely thought of the “‘white man’ [as]... complexion only secondarily [and as] primarily [describing] attitudes and actions… toward all other non-white men,” (383). He undergoes a radical change in mindset after Mecca and later sees white men not as white men but as examples of “sincere and truth brotherhood,” (391). In this same way Esther saw herself as more of her exterior, and subsequently taught me as well: No one knows what someone else is going through at any given moment. How could we judge someone for not getting married by a certain age when they had to care for their ailing parents? Or for not getting a job when they just got dumped by their partner? We are more than the sum of our parts, and we need to stop judging ourselves and others by what they’ve materialistically achieved and rather value them as a person.

Although The Bell Jar covers many dark topics, from depression to grief to rape to sexism, I maintain that it is a “tonic” text, at least in my interpretation. This book has helped me get through extremely difficult times and let me know that I am never alone. Esther paved the way for women-inmaking like me, teaching us that we are our own person, unburdened by children or marriage, and are fully capable of becoming anything we want to be, while at the same time reminding us that we don’t have to have shiny medals and trophies to be worth it. At the end of the novel, Esther realizes that it’s okay to not know the answers to everything as long as you are confident in yourself. Despite everything she has endured, she persevered. She taught me that I am strong enough to be broken down, and still build myself up again, for I am worth it, I am stronger than I know, I can love myself. “I am, I am, I am.”

Works Cited

Elias, Naomi. “How ‘The Bell Jar’ Became Pop Culture’s Code For Female Sadness.” Nylon, 26 Oct. 2017, www.nylon.com/articles/bell-jar-female-sadness.

Fuerst, Ilyse Morgenstein, and Megan Goodwin. “What the Heck Is Religion, and What the Heck Is This Podcast? - Keeping It 101: A Killjoy’s Introduction to Religion.” Buzzsprout, keepingit101. buzzsprout.com/810974/2466752-what-the-heck-is-religion-andwhat-the-heck-is-this-podcast.

Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. The Study Quran: A New Translation with Notes and Commentary. HarperOne, an Imprint of Collins Publishers, 2015.

Nye, Malory. Religion: The Basics. Routledge, 2003.

Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. Faber, 1999.

X, Malcolm, et al. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Ballantine Books, 1992.