By Giorgia Caso
As soon as Sylvia Plath is mentioned, dark and negative thoughts come to mind to those who don’t know much about her besides her reputation, especially because of her death (she committed suicide, for more info listen to our episode on The Bell Jar). And yet, there is much more to her story as shown in the novel. In The Bell Jar, the main themes are personal growth or lack thereof, mental health and all its implications and relationships, mainly friendships (especially between Esther and Doreen).
When stumbling upon The Bell Jar and reading the first couple of paragraphs, questions are inevitable. Who is the main character and why is she in New York? They aren’t promptly answered, though, which makes the reader wonder for a bit more until the answers arrive. At the beginning of the book, the protagonist, Esther, is doing an internship for a magazine in the Big Apple.
Feeling lost in her twenties, Esther, goes from having an internship in New York at a magazine to going back home and not knowing what to do. Her mental health declines and then improves thanks to therapy which at that time was rather taboo (only ‘mad’ people went to see a therapist). Therapy is interesting in this novel as it is set during the 50s and it wasn’t as common as it is nowadays.
The time of the story is indeed crucial because it lays out thoughts and ways of being that may be considered old-fashioned from a more modern point of view. 1953 is the year of the Rosenbergs’ execution and we know it from the first paragraph of the novel. The opening is rather unusual as it places the story in a precise atmosphere and society which seems to be all about appearances and therefore judgemental of whoever doesn’t follow conventions.
Death is always on Esther’s mind throughout the whole book, whether it is because of death sentences or mental health issues. People often think that depression means being sad all the time but as Esther shows it isn’t always about sadness, but it is also about not feeling anything but indifference towards whatever happens to the person in question. The main protagonist finds herself surrounded by people she doesn’t seem to care much about and doing nothing as she feels more apathy towards any sort of entertainment. At a certain point, Esther repeats to herself, ‘I am. I am. I am.’ as a reminder that she is still alive.
When she leaves New York, there is a scene which I find fascinating. Esther holds a piece of clothing and then waves it outside her window as the passage below shows.
‘I waved it, like a flag of truce, once, twice…The breeze caught it, and I let it go.[…]Piece by piece, I fed my wardrobe to the night wind, and flutteringly, like a loved one’s ashes, the grey scraps were ferried off, to settle here, there, exactly where I would never know, in the dark heart of New York.’
This extract is more than just clothes as it suggests a sort of ritual in which Esther lets go of her current life to find a new one as she goes back home.
This novel should have a trigger warning printed on the cover as it touches delicate subjects that can influence the readers in a negative way. Overall though, I found it captivating especially for the portrayal of these dark thoughts that are often shut down. Against social expectations, the pursuit of happiness is not always everyone’s goal in life. In this novel, Plath shows it with a certain delicacy. It also reveals her interest in poetry because of her attentiveness to sounds and vivid description. In the end, it helps the reader reflect upon deep subjects but in a lighter way.
I wouldn’t recommend this book to everyone as it is quite explicit at times. As Francis Bacon said, ‘Knowledge is power’ which can be quite destructive and threatening too. I would recommend it though to every person who feels lost in their twenties and does not know what to do in life, as this novel also shows the normality of trying to have everything figured out earlier on. It is okay not to have everything at such an early stage. It takes time to know what we want in life: sometimes, we just have to navigate through it as if we were just a small boat. As Esther shows it we often encounter storms but that is not the end of everything as there is always light at the end of the tunnel.
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