The Bell Jar

 

"I wondered why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I should any more. This made me sad and tired. Then I wondered why I couldn't go the whole way doing what I shouldn't...and this made me even sadder and more tired" (18).

Having read much of Sylvia Plath's poetry, this year felt like the right moment to finally interact with her one and only novel, The Bell Jar. There is a part of me that wishes I had read it as a teenager, or at the very least in my early 20s, in order to compare my current thoughts to the response I might have had as a younger woman. When a book infiltrates one's dreams, its impact is evident. The few nights that I read a few chapters before bed and the taste of them lingered in feverish nightmares. I was relieved when I finally reached the end. It is difficult to slog through the inner workings of an emotional breakdown and navigate the twisted thoughts of a person caught in the throes of mental illness. Few authors have undertaken such a risky and unnerving task, and Plath's tragic legacy only add to the solemnity that descended upon me during my journey through the book.

There is some literature that can be liked or disliked, others that can only be accepted and respected for what they are, in spite of our emotional responses to them. I believe this text to be one of the second category. Can anyone truly like interacting with the brokenness of internal struggle and sickness? Perhaps we see ourselves in the characters, or maybe others with whom we have interacted. A lucky few may have had little to no contact with any psychological disorders, and these readers could entirely miss the accuracy in Plath's presentation of disordered thinking. Whatever our response to her work, no one can debate that she knew quite intimately the subject matter on which she chose to write. Such skill came at the highest cost, and her honesty haunts each new generation of readers.

1. "They hung the raw, red screen of their tiny vessels in front of my face like a wound" (82).

Literary artistry. Plath has mastered that form of figurative language that I consider as walking the line between inevitability and surprise. The descriptions cut to the truth of human experience--they feel so true that it almost shocks the reader into contemplating why they hadn't thought of it that before. Simultaneously, the comparisons are fresh. They don't remind one of any other text. Artists are always influenced by other artists, but Plath manages to bury her influences so deeply that each passage shines with the crystal clarity of originality. I think at once, Ah, of course, that is the feeling! and, Well, I have never thought of that before.

2. "...babies doing all the little tricky things it takes to grow up, step by step, into an anxious world" (153).

Accurate portrayal of mental illness...positives. The accuracy in Esther's decent into madness and depression, and her struggle to dig out of the darkness and back to a functioning life, is unmistakable. Especially for a woman of the mid-twentieth century--wherein women who displayed excessive emotion in any direction would be considered unstable and hysterical--recording the experience of mental and emotional disintegration is important. Many who have had similar struggles may feel seen and understood, and those who have not may take time to understand that which is outside of their realm of experience.

3. "I felt myself melting into the shadows like the negative of a person I'd never seen before in my life" (6).

Accurate portrayal of mental illness...negatives. The problem with delving into a broken mind is that madness can be catching. I have already mentioned that this book was not an easy read for me, as the nightmarish cast of Esther's plunge into self-flagellation and harm began to manipulate my own way of thinking. A consistent aspect of mental illness is the selfishness that encapsulates the person who is suffocated by their own internal contortion. The internal becomes all-encompassing, even as external forces are blamed as the causal factors for one's agony. Esther views her life as a failure, but she ultimately believes herself to be a victim of the choices that others have made. Her boss, her friends, her parents, her lovers, her counselors and doctors...they have all compromised her in some way, forced her into the shape of a monster that will ultimately destroy every good aspect of her life. While this characteristic may be important to identify, it is imperative that a person does not dwell on such duplicitous thinking for long. We are all prone to selfishness and faulty introspection anyway, and such constant reminders cannot be healthy.

Tread with care if you choose to undertake this read. It is an important work but may not be appropriate for every mind.