Feminism in 'The Bell Jar'

The Bell Jar is a 1963 coming-of-age novel by Sylvia Plath which details the slow descent into depression and madness of Esther Greenwood, a nineteen-year-old English student and poet who is awarded a coveted internship at a New York fashion magazine. The book is largely about Esther’s struggles with the societal expectations of women, and our dismissal of women’s ambitions and passions.

Esther Greenwood is an incredibly complex character. Being a woman who sees the world from a cynical and melancholic perspective, she is at constant war with 1950s American society, which expects women to be perfectly happy and jovial all the time.These pressures are placed on women from an early age - in Esther’s case, these pressures primarily came from her mother. In Chapter 13, Esther recalls how she never cried over her father’s death, instead encouraged by her smiling mother to be grateful that he won’t spend the rest of his life crippled.

Having been stripped of a way to express her darker emotions, Esther becomes obsessed with morbid things like the Rosenbergs electrocution, and fascinated by things that she admits she knows should make her sad - like the babies in jars that Buddy shows her.

This is further reiterated by Dr. Gordon’s and her mothers dismissal of her mental illness. Dr. Gordon hardly listens to what Esther tells him about how she feels, is more interested in talking to Esther’s mother about her condition, and subjects her to electroshock therapy, which goes horribly wrong. Esther’s mother also refuses to take her seriously, constantly asking her to “behave”, and insisting that she isn’t like the other people who visit psychiatrists. These characters drive Esther further into madness, as it is indicative of how women’s mental health is not taken seriously, and is usually dismissed as them ‘misbehaving’ or acting out.

It is only when Esther switches to another psychiatrist, Dr. Nolan (who happens to be a woman), when she begins to become better. Unlike her previous doctor, Dr. Nolan avidly listens to Esther, and empathizes with her struggles. When Esther admits that she hates her mother, Dr. Nolan doesn’t judge her for this (which is what most people, including readers, would do), but instead understands all that her mother put her through, and simply says “I suppose you do.” This is one of the most powerful moments in the book, as it is the first time that Esther is properly understood by another character, which provides the impression that she is not entirely alone in her battle.

The book is also a scarily accurate depiction of the way women seem like they are overwhelmed with options, but also put in a box. The symbolism of the fig tree is the perfect example of this - Esther is completely inundated with the number of figs on the tree (which represent her potential futures), but she also knows that if she picks one, she will lose all the others. She knows that she can’t be a wife and mother, and also have a successful career as a poet. Even Buddy, her ex-boyfriend, completely dismisses her professional ambitions, (calling her neurotic), and insists that she will change her mind when she says she doesn’t want to get married.

Esther’s preoccupation with her virginity is another example of this. When she comes to know of Buddy’s hypocrisy (as he wanted her to be a virgin, but wasn’t one himself), she becomes obsessed with the idea of losing her virginity. But even though her goal is to defy the conventions that state that good women are ‘pure’, she still can’t seem to find a middle ground where she feels comfortable. She’s either stuck with men like Constantin who don’t seem interested in her at all, or men like Marco, who are too aggressive with her. She is put in a box (in the sense that she doesn’t have room for sexual experimentation, and is expected to remain a virgin), but is also overwhelmed with options.

The Bell Jar, in my opinion, can be considered a feminist novel, as it showcases the ways that society holds men and women to different standards, and accurately displays how this can be detrimental to a woman’s mental health.