The Bell Jar: A Symbol of Esther's Mental State
The novel's title is The Bell Jar, first and foremost. Esther Greenwood, a brilliant nineteen-year-old who works as an intern in the editorial division of a women's journal in New York City in the summer of 1953, is the main character of the book. Esther is an ambitious young woman who has everything a young woman could hope for working for her in terms of her academic future. Despite all of this, Esther still feels excluded from society and does not seem overly optimistic about the future. The early symptoms of a nervous breakdown or perhaps depression, that Esther portray are further intensified by the burden to conform to society's expectations of what a young woman should be; get through school, find a reputable job, get married a virgin then be a wife and a mother.
Esther's Perception of the Bell Jar
The Bell Jar in this case, therefore, symbolizes Esther's mental state. Esther uses "The Bell Jar" as a metaphor to describe her feelings and what she feels like as she goes through nervous breakdown after nervous breakdown. Esther further describes her situation as "...wherever I sat-on a deck of a ship or a street café in Paris or Bangkok- I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air," Plath, Fran and Lois (pg. 185). This illustrates that while under that same glass bell jar, although it is possible for her to see the world, the glass jar distorts the images that she looks out to thus leaving her to agonize from a twisted idea of what should be the reality.
Treatment and Freedom from the Bell Jar
Esther begins to receive treatment from Dr. Nolan for her mental illness. Besides drugs, she also goes through a series of electric shock therapy which Dr. Nolan promises are very effective, "surprisingly at peace, the bell jar hung, suspended, a few feet above my head," Plath, Fran and Lois (pg. 297). On the brighter side, the electric shock therapy proves to be quite effectual as it helps to freed Esther from the bell jar, which is a symbolism of her mental illness. On the downside, however, the treatment has its own share of disturbing significances, which are shown through Esther's mind being sluggish.
The Lingering Effects of Esther's Experiences
The experiences that Esther goes through, in the course of the novel still haunt her and she attributes this to putting the past away like a bad dream. She describes that the view of the person under the bell jar as one that portrays the world as a bad dream altogether. While Dr. Nolan points out that the time that Esther spent in the mental institution will forever have her branded in the society, Esther herself is quite aware that even the girls in her school sit under their own bell jars, only that some of them are not strong enough to want to come out of the bell jars. Others may be totally clueless that they are even sitting under one as their image of the world has completely been distorted by the transparent bell jars to a point that whatever they see through the bell jars is the only world they know. Some like her friend, Joan, live under the illusion of what the bell jars portray and eventually cave in.
Work Cited
Plath, Sylvia, Fran McCullough, and Lois Ames. The Bell Jar: A Novel. New York: HarperPerennial. (2006).
