"The Bell Jar" Of Gender Egalitarianism

Sylvia Plath took her own life in the weeks following her only novel’s publication. Although some critics have failed to appreciate “The Bell Jar” as much more than an autobiography, such a view does the novel’s broader value a disservice. Beyond merely reflecting Plath’s troubled psyche, Esther’s fight against depression arguably offers an insightful commentary on femininity in the 50s. “The Bell Jar” is rightly considered a cornerstone of 20th Century feminist literature, but, to what extent are Esther’s psychological torments caused by her possibly neurotic feminism?

Esther’s unbridled ambitions, especially when contrasted with the lack thereof in her contemporaries, are doubtless simultaneously a result of her feminism and a cause of her mental illness. More specifically, it is her perceived failure to realise the feminist ideals of independence and status equality that seemingly triggers the descent of The Bell Jar. Arguably, it is no mere correlation that Esther’s rejection from her college’s summer writing course coincides with the onset of insomnia. It also seems that Esther’s immersion in the type of vacuous socialising scheduled by the New York magazine, perhaps conforming to or even reinforcing the gender roles of the day, is what sparks her disengagement and emotional participation in that which might maintain her sanity: her future. Her identification with “the eye of a tornado…moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo” epitomises both her apathy and her perception of the worthlessness of this supposedly prestigious women’s work placement. The meaninglessness of her work seems to drive home her underlying preoccupation that she will inevitably fall into the same destiny of these women that she viciously scorns.

Another key image of Esther’s creation that highlights the destabilising effect of her relationship with her ambitions, is of course, that of the fig tree. Her visualisation of all futures turning black and decaying viscerally explains the onset of her depression. With no desirable fig shaped future remaining, Esther dies with all the tree’s fruit. But, on what grounds can we attribute Esther’s indecision to her feminism? Arguably, it is the weight of her self expectations that paralyses her in the face of committing to any particular future. She is fatally burdened by the concern that she will miss out on any of the promises of the neighbouring figs. Her feminism urges her never to settle, and this is fundamentally why her futures, and any chance of contentment, rot in front of her eyes. The reader is, in some ways, encouraged to view Philomena Guinea as an older replica of Esther. She too had suffered from mental health issues, : “at the peak of her career, she had been in an asylum as well.” Plath is possibly pushing her reader to associate female ambition with mental derangement, bemoaning the viscous sexism of the 50s, and the consequentially paradigmatic ailment of feminism in this era. In this way, the self expectance of feminism as a cause of destabilising indecision appears a likely cause of Esther’s depression.

The question of Esther’s perceptions of purity, virginity, and relationships provide another theatre in which a case can be made for her feminism as a psychological destabiliser. Outraged by Buddy Willard’s hypocrisy of having lost his virginity to another woman, Esther embarks on an unreciprocated zero sum game whereby she must lose her virginity to another man before she can contemplate sex with Buddy. This neuroticism is fuelled by a concrete abidance by her ideology of egalitarianism. Not only does this lead Esther to lose her virginity in slightly absurd circumstances, but it also causes a stark emotional dislocation with her teenage self. Time and time again, Esther reminisces about before she knew Buddy’s hypocrisy; how delighted she was at being invited to his Prom dance. The contrast of her pro-Buddy self with her anti-Buddy self should not go unregarded as a potentially important, feminism caused, change which gives way to apathy towards both her past and future. Again, feminism can be seen to trigger a cascading series of events which compound Esther’s isolation and emptiness, further lowering the Bell Jar.

Of course, it would be overzealous to claim that Esther’s feminism is the single cause of her mental problems. Esther’s surreal descriptions of New York high life create a hard juxtaposition with her relatively modest childhood. It is possible that this destabilisation would have been sufficiently disruptive to cause her breakdown in its own right. The Bell Jar may simply be a metaphor for the type of absurdity that arises from direct experience of such radically different economic and social environments. Again, Esther’s downward spiral appears to be accelerated by her return from New York. The apparently arbitrary movement from plates of chicken and caviar, expensive clothing and photoshoots, to sleepless nights in a bedroom shared with her mother, could quite easily leave Esther with the conviction that luxury is random rather than proportionally rewarded. And by extension, despite her intellect, Esther might understandably overextend this insight into all vehicles of meaning. With each transition, the absurdity produced by the contrast is accentuated. In this sense, an argument can be made that it is not Esther’s Feminism which lowers the Bell Jar, but a sort of Existentialism produced by the absurd social and economic contrasts between New York and her childhood.

However, while the issue of class certainly compounds other destabilisers, it should not be seen to do any more than just that. It still seems most likely that it is Esther’s stubborn self-expectations and uncompromising stance of equality between herself and Buddy which really set the downward spiral in motion. To attribute Esther’s suicidal mindset to a quest for equality should not be seen as a comment on the damage of feminism, but rather a condemnation of the environment in which egalitarianism inevitably engenders mental decay. That being said, the neuroticism with which Esther lives by her values gives them the power to be so destructive. It makes her inflexible to her unfortunate circumstances, and actually reduces her capacity as a feminist to promote change. To this extent, it seems best to view the substance of the Bell Jar as the feminist ideology, but to view neurotic idealism as the force which positions it.