Esther's Healing Process and Escape From Societal Roles
Buddy Willard emotionally injures Esther when he tells her he is not a virgin, shattering Esther's image of him and her feelings for him. Esther claims she isn't bothered by that; it's the fact that he had pretended otherwise that bothered her. However at the time, it was expected that men would sleep around, and other girls at Esther's college told her that was perfectly normal. Perhaps Buddy didn't feel the need to tell her because of this. But Esther felt cheated, like Buddy had one-upped her, and she couldn't continue to be with him knowing that he wasn't a virgin. She couldn't "get even" because of the threat of pregnancy and worries about having to marry the wrong man. Also, the double standard that men could sleep around while women were expected to remain chaste greatly upset her.
Later in the novel Dr. Nolan prescribed birth control to Esther, which greatly helped Esther on her healing journey. Esther tells Doctor Nolan that she hates the idea of being under a man's thumb, and if she didn't have the threat of a baby looming over her, she would feel a lot more free. Being on birth control allowed her to have sex with no fear of consequences, similar to the way a man would.
Esther described her virginity as "[weighing] like a millstone around [her] neck" (228). Sleeping with Irwin therefore is like a weight off of her shoulders, and despite her internal hemorrhaging, she feels "part of a great tradition" (229). Later, she has Irwin pay her hospital bill and then ghosts him, which is a very empowering moment. She slept with him on her own terms, something not many women got to do back then. I imagine that this act made Esther feel a little more secure, as it separated her from the traditional roles of society which she so hates, the Buddy Willards and Defense of Chastity lawyers of the world. She also felt more secure because she has strayed from the inevitable path of marriage.
I feel weird saying that Esther has escaped from the path of marriage because of the autobiographical nature of this book. The Bell Jar is an anonymous recollection of Sylvia Plath's experience with mental illness, so at the end of the book, it stands to reason that Esther is in the same mental state that Sylvia was at that point. We know that Sylvia Plath eventually does get married and has children, which seems to be the last thing on Esther's mind at the end of the book. So how does Sylvia Plath go from this point to getting married? Is she more comfortable with the idea of marriage now that she's gone through this coming-of-age process?
I think you're absolutely right about the empowerment thread in this book. She feels disadvantaged socially and biologically on the subject of relationships, sex, and childcare. The process of actual empowerment (redirecting power to her in the form of birth control) instead of counseling to make her "okay" with everything seems very important. It also seems important to me, though, that the story wasn't perfect. She didn't have a transformative, perfect experience with losing her virginity. Some of the ambiguity contributes to the open endedness of the entire book (specifically the ending), and it also makes sense with what happened later in her life. She didn't denounce men and commitment completely. Maybe she felt her relationship with her eventual husband would be different and not as binding and suffocating as the cycle of relationships around her were. Maybe she just built more of a sense of self within this book, and gradually warmed to the idea of a family later in her life BECAUSE she felt she could exist independently as well.
ReplyDeleteI think there is a divergence between the storyline and Sylvia's actual life where I would think that the fact that Esther can be sexually liberated is a way of Sylvia to fantasize. I think that the social pressures of the time may have been too strong for Sylvia, or that she just truly fell in love with Ted Hughes. I think that this book was finished close to the time when she had divorced him, so alternatively, this could have been her statement against the patriarchal system after receiving the blunt impact which had hurt her.
ReplyDeleteMaybe there's some distinction to be made between compulsory marriage as Esther understands it (epitomized by Buddy and all of his clout among the adults in her life) and the less conventional kind of marriage (or spouse) Plath ended up marrying. At the close of the novel, Esther feels free from the "Defense of Chastity" model of marriage, the "propaganda" she's been fed, and she feels free to pursue her intellectual and academic interests without this pressure. Plath ends up marrying a British poet and eventually moving to England with him--a deeply problematic marriage, as it turned out, but on the face of it a departure from the Dodo Conway model.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I always find it chilling when Esther/Plath refers to "the babies" and comments that "If I had to take care of a baby all day I'd go mad." She was writing this novel *while* taking care of two young children, and I picture them literally playing with the starfish from the glasses case as she writes. And her late poems (check out "Lesbos" for one example) certainly do depict marriage and child-rearing as something like being a "numb automaton in a totalitarian state."
Great post! I am also very curious as to how Plath can describe Esther as being incredibly resentful to marriage and children, but also having a husband and kids of her own. I suppose that information would've been disclosed in a later book which never came. I agree with you that Esther being able to let go of her fear of pregnancy and having sex with Irwin helps her feel more empowered and independent. Esther constantly felt trapped with the expectation that she would end up marrying and having kids, which crushed her dreams of making a career for herself. With the help of Dr. Nolan, Esther is able to finally see the world from outside the bell jar, as with the prescription of contraceptives, she no longer fears condemnation to a life of submission to a man.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Esther is definitely a projection of Sylvia Plath, I think it's useful to note that they can't be seen as interchangeable. We know that Sylvia Plath ended up unhappily married, leading to her death, and it's tempting to take this as a sign that that's what Esther would have done had the story continued. I wonder if Sylvia Plath felt the same about societal gender roles as Esther did, and if they weighed as heavily on her, or if perhaps Esther was an extension of herself that she allowed to have these thoughts that Plath herself didn't feel comfortable expressing.
ReplyDeleteGood post! I agree with what Ryan said in his comment. This book very well could be her way of putting optimism into her life that she never had. But the book doesn't end on a super optimistic note, there is some notion that she could become trapped under the bell jar again so maybe she succumbs to societal roles in the future after the ending.
ReplyDeleteWhen Dr. Nolan prescribes Esther birth control, I feel like that is the first time there is some air let into her metaphorical bell jar. She becomes free to follow her own path for the first time with support instead of ridicule, or what she thinks may be criticism from other women. I do however think the bell jar is placed again in Esther's path, as we know she has conformed to societal norms and has in fact settled with someone and is writing about this while she has her child. Good post!
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