T
he Bell Jar is a semi-autobiographical novel by Sylvia Plath. It follows the life
of a young college student, Esther Greenwood, and she traverses the path through life as a young woman in the early 20th century.
I became attached to the writing in this book almost immediately. The narrator, Esther Greenwood, starts off with an inconsequential detail about her summer in New York City: that it was “the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs” (1), and that she spent an awfully great amount of her time thinking about how terrible it would be to be electrocuted. Right away, we as readers can begin to expect something off about the narrator (for who focuses so much of their mental energy wondering about electrocutions?), but for the moment it is charming or endearing; this is an interesting character whom we wish to know more about.
Because of my attachment, it’s probably accurate to say that I fell into the mimetic register pretty hard. I was apprehensive of this book since I know there are a good amount of people who dislike it (something I could be projecting on the text— “reading for” proving them wrong, perhaps), but the writing in the beginning leaves me hopeful for the rest of it. At the moment, I am reading for a few things as far as I’m aware: the assignment, my own personal enjoyment and desire to experience Plath’s work, and to confirm my expectations for the book. I expect this novel to have some sort of impact on me (as someone who, granted, is easily impacted by literature), and for it to fuel some sort of dialogue about women empowerment and the injustices women face in society. These expectations are based purely on what I’ve heard about the book, and other people’s experiences reading it.
That being said, I have to fight to get past those expectations, even if they’re positive ones, and read what’s actually on the page. A good way of practicing doing that is by examining the Controlling Values at this stage in the storyline (as discussed on our class website, here). We’ve done this in our previous blog posts, in order to establish a baseline for both Animal Farm and Autobiography of a Face.
In the first quarter or so of The Bell Jar, Esther seems to simultaneously pride herself in being different from the other girls in her program, while also being slightly jealous of their easy-going lifestyle and social aptitude. She describes them as “awfully bored”, and that those who are vocal about their ennui from their glamorous lifestyles “make [her] sick” (4). In this regard, we can start to formulate the controlling value’s purpose as something like: Setting yourself apart from the norm brings you success and recognition. Esther respects the work she’s doing, and she believes that studying very hard and going the extra mile gives her more opportunities to succeed— while it also makes her very different from the girls around her.
The context to this would be: Following the expectations of others brings monotony and a loss of self. She tends to lump all of the other girls in this summer program into a one inferior category (with the exception of her wild friend, Doreen). Esther wishes to keep her personhood, and wants to stay “different” so that she can judge the actions of the other girls who go with the flow.
Pictured below is a value graph, showing how these values play out over one segment in the novel (namely, the day when Esther got food poisoning from Ladies Night in chapter 4).
Describing Esther in terms of these values reminds me of another literary character that I (unlike many others) hold dearly in my heart: Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye. Like this interpretation of Esther, Holden is also awfully critical of others and tends to see himself as superior, but also like Esther, I believe this comes from a place of insecurity and an insatiable desire to find his place in life. Esther feels stuck between the boring lives of her “vanilla” acquaintances, and the dangerous, irresponsible behaviors of people like Doreen. She wants to succeed both socially, romantically, and professionally, but the values she has to put forth to achieve either of those things tend to clash with the other two.
How Writers Read... 
As discussed in class, we came up with what we believe is The Bell Jar’s premise so far: “what happens when a girl goes off on her own and has to distinguish between personal identity and societal expectations?” We see Esther struggle between these two issues, but we also see her struggle to distinguish what her personal identity even is, let alone its comparison to what society expects of her. In a way, I relate it to Demian – Esther wants to be like the “good” Betsy, but she’s fascinated by the “bad” Doreen.
I think the values, controlling and opposing, are really strong, but we should highlight your Opposing. The context was that being different makes one weird and undesirable, and therefore ostracized. Esther tends to be pretty fixated on what others think of her. She fears judgment. The purpose of this is that fitting in with your peers gives you a strong social circle and acceptance. For example, when Esther meets with the woman who funded her scholarship, she misused the finger bowl and ate it as soup instead. This is something that Esther dwells on, and works to appear confident whenever she makes decisions ever since her social faux pas.
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Amanda is half correct with connecting the story of Emil from Demian and Esther. Both characters stories, though in the case of the Esther its the story so far, have been dealing with a little bit of an identity crisis in a sense. Both have preconceived notions about the world, and they WANT to follow it. The problem is that both of these characters go on different paths to achieve that goal. In Emil’s case, it is implied that he created this entirely new persona(Demian) that he could pin all of his actions on, except he doesn’t care for ‘societal norms’ the way Esther does. What Emil DOES care for though is achieving the goals his parents set out.
While thinking of the values laid out so far, it made me think about who the author is trying to reach, and as of right now I believe the addressee is supposed to be those whose identities are ‘lost.’ What I mean is people who are either growing up and trying to find who they are, like a coming-of-age teen, or those who feel like they’ve given into societal norms and are unhappy with the result. While this might be a bit obvious, it’s a group that will always be a part of society for every generation and will need values given to them from this story.
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I would like to elaborate upon your explanation of reading in the memetic. I too instantly fell into the first page where she continues to talk about the executions of the Rosenbergs. When we question why someone would focus on electrocutions, we as the readers are saying we think something may be wrong with the text, that it doesn’t make sense. This is because we are projecting our views of what we think would be correct for a person to think about. This prevents us from getting the text on it’s own terms.
The controlling and opposing values listed above bring to mind the film Rebel Without a Cause, particularly the main character Jim. Counter Idea:This character does not often follow what others expect of him, but when he does, he is unsatisfied with his actions. Controlling Idea: Jim who has just moved to a new town sets himself apart from the crowd by steering away from trouble and peer pressure, behaving more genuinely, which gains him the recognition of Judy. Opposing Counter: Since he is not like the rest he is ostracized from everyone and bullied. Opposing Controlling: Jim eventually finds those who he fits in with, Judy, and Plato become his social circle in which he is accepted.
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