What is the significance of title of Sylvia Plath's novel 'The Bell Jar' - Essay Example

?What is the significance of of Sylvia Plath's novel 'The Bell Jar'? Introduction: The Bell Jar is the only novel written by Sylvia Plath was published under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas in the year 1963, just a month before her suicide (Moss 59; Ames 129). The semi-autographical novel incorporates within its scope the elements of moral dilemma, existentialist crisis, isolation, gender issues and generational differences. The title of the novel is highly symbolic because besides representing the protagonist’s physical and spiritual isolation from the rest of the society it also suggests her confinement within a particular state of mind, which she could not overcome. Howard Moss’ interpretation regarding justification of the title, thus, becomes quite appropriate as he has opined that “A thin layer of glass separates her from everyone, and the novel’s title, itself made of glass, is evolved from her notion of disconnection: the head of each mentally ill person is enclosed in a bell jar, choking on its own foul air” (Moss 61). While Esther attempts her level best regard herself as a part of the society and consequently attempted to enjoy the spontaneous, simple joys of life, however, her critical mind cannot simply ignore the important questions related to gender issues, morality, ethics, and generational differences. The progressive course of the novel shows that she goes on judging every dimension of her existence in terms of her critical outlook. The more she has indulged herself in this process, further she separates herself from her surroundings as well as associations: “The gap between her and the world widens: “I couldn’t get myself to react. I felt very still and very empty ….” The silence depressed me. It wasn’t to silence of silence. It was my own silence ….” “That morning I decided to hang myself” (Moss 60). Considering this perspective, the protagonist’s confinement within The Bell Jar and her painful seclusion from rest of the world are not spontaneous events; rather each issue like gender, identity crisis, morality, intellectual maturity, notion of freedom and generational differences, has contributed considerably in constructing the entire existentialist situation. Thus, it becomes important to discuss contribution of the issues respectively that finally led to the protagonist’s confinement within the bell jar. Gender and Conflict within dominant ideas of femininity/masculinity and expectations, presentation of gender roles: The first person narrative of the novel since the very beginning has made it clear that the protagonist cannot be classified as just another individual, ready to accept the norms of regulation of the patriarchal social construction. She fails to identify herself as one of those women counterparts, who join the procession of feminist revolt against male dominance only for the sake of self-satisfaction; rather the actions from women that she observes in her surrounding provides her with an impression of typicality. It is because of this reason while she is expected “to be having the time of my life” (Plath and Ames 3) and she “was supposed to be the envy of thousands of other college girls just like” (Plath and Ames 3) her, on the other hand the protagonist actually felt that “These girls looked awfully bored to me. I saw them on the sunroof, yawning and painting their nails and trying to keep up their Bermuda tans, and they seemed bored as hell.... Girls like that make me sick. I'm so jealous I can't speak” (Plath and Ames 4). The stereotypical approach from other women of her generation clearly gave birth to a conflicting situation in the protagonist’s mind. Her inability to be a part of the triviality was creating such a boundary of seclusion around her. At the same time, in order to be assured of her righteousness she also required certain amount of external support to appreciate her own intellectual choices. Her closeness with Doreen, thus, can be justified under this light as she “made me feel I was that much sharper than the others …” (Plath and Ames 4). Her companionship with Doreen not only made her realize that she has the intellectual capacity to think beyond the realms of ideas related to masculinity or femininity and the gender roles that the social construction wanted her to follow, the support from Doreen provided her with the strength to refute them. Later on, however, readers witness that distance between her and Doreen has been created as she became physically and mentally close to Lenny. The protagonist tried her best to adapt according to the norms of social construction and fill up the void of intellectual seclusion, however, her past experience with Buddy Williams created such an emotional blockade that she started regarding males as habituated in “living the kind of double life” (Plath and Ames 38). She actually never been able to revive from the emotional trauma and consequently, irrespective of her best efforts to refute the conventional rules regarding purity of women, she failed to accomplish the quest completely. Every time she failed to triumph against the dominant ideas of masculinity or femininity and the established gender roles, her existential seclusion became more poignant. The protagonist’s entrapment within the bell jar, thus, was influenced considerably by gender aspects and consecutive conflicts surrounding the issue. Identity: The traits of intellectual and physical seclusion that Esther, protagonist of the novel, has encountered during course of her life have important roles to play in the context of resulting in her identity crisis. Indecisiveness is an integral part of Esther’s character and she acknowledges fact in every step of her actions, starting from the righteousness of her capacity to identify herself as a part of the social trend, ordering drinks at bar, choice of her friends, her reactions to gender issues, her self-evaluation regarding the traits of her insanity and even when it came to experiencing sexual intimacy. Compared to Doreen while she finds it a better option not to disclose her real identity before Lenny and his friends (Plath and Ames 8), on the other hand, she also finds it difficult to acknowledge her identity crisis when Doreen was calling for her help after she returned from Lenny’s place: “"Elly, Elly, Elly," the first voice mumbled, while the other voice went on hissing, "Miss Greenwood, Miss Greenwood, Miss Greenwood," as if I had a split personality or something” (Plath and Ames 13). Though initially she received adequate support from Doreen, just because of the fact that she made the protagonist realize she is more intelligent than others, however, after that night she suddenly changed her feelings towards Doreen and consequently decided to regard herself as a part of stereotypical women like Betsy: “I decided I would watch her and listen to what she said, but deep down I would have nothing at all to do with her. Deep down, I would be loyal to Betsy and her innocent friends. It was Betsy I resembled at heart” (Plath and Ames 13). During the course of her meeting with the editor Jay Cee she also failed to provide any concrete answer about her goal. As the narrative in this situation, quite explicitly, reflected over psychological state of the protagonist, readers become aware of the fact that to which extent different possibilities were overlapping in her mind. Throughout the novel, Esther has found it extremely hard to identify herself with something, or certain people, even with ideological disciplines. Her crisis regarding decisiveness and execution of her choices is evident while she was attempting to commit suicide. It was perhaps this time she identified the pitiful state of her existence and consequently made fun of her situation: “After a discouraging time of walking about with the silk cord dangling from my neck like a yellow cat's tail and finding no place to fasten it …” (Plath and Ames 84). The impetus that generated from her identity crisis was not so strong that she would reach the final conclusion of ending her life by any means. Due to this reason she also accepted that “my case was incurable” (Plath and Ames 84). It seems that throughout the novel Esther never intended to belong to something; rather she always has provided highest importance of being critical, despite the fact that she never also been able to accept results of her critical outlook completely. While on one hand she constructs a part of her identity on the other hand she almost immediately deconstructs it too. Finally, the jeopardizing of her identity considerably contributes to the construction of the glass layer that separates her from rest of the world, from the world of belongingness. Morality and Ethics: The Bell Jar can be regarded as a perfect example of a postmodern novel that not only challenges the conventional ideas of morality and ethics but also attempts to deconstruct them. Esther has narrated her story standing over such a social backdrop, where everything is so transient that an individual does not have many opportunities to depend over certain ideals. In case of Esther the situation becomes even more complicated because of her dilemmatic as well as confusing approach towards identity crisis. Thus, when it comes to search for the right answer in the context of morality and ethics, the protagonist finds it almost impossible to reach any conclusion. While on one hand she dejects the common tendency of Buddy Williams and his type to live a life of double standard, on the other hand, her virginity become “burdensome” (Bourjaily 64) for her and consequently she decides to give a chance to Constantine to seduce her (Plath and Ames 41). Her quest to lose the burden does not end at this point; rather after her failure to execute her purpose she attempted to fulfill her wish through Marco and later Irwin. It is interesting to see that irrespective of her “burdensome virginity” (Bourjaily 64) she never sacrificed her dignity as a woman. Her isolation, moral dilemma, existentialist crisis though conjointly jeopardized her normal existence; however, she always has provided highest importance to her entity as a woman, more importantly as a human being. Esther’s support for feminist (with deep humanist connotation) morality and ethics has an important role to play in the context of her confinement within the bell jar. While the entire society followed a particular trend and consequently leant to believe in the illusion of being human by being trend dependent, Esther’s critical understanding of morality and ethics made her an isolated entity compared to her other social counterparts. The morality and ethics as reflected in the text puts a reader into a complex judgmental position. While the dilemma in Esther’s character restrains a reader to reach a particular conclusion regarding stability of her character, on the other hand, her respect for feminist, more importantly of humanist idealism demands respect. Esther, from this perspective can be regarded as a true postmodernist, who not only deconstructs and reconstructs her existential situation to make it difficult for a reader to draw final conclusion about her nature but also retains her humanist identity through her respect for morality and ethics in the era of continuous flux. Portrayal of Youth and Adulthood: The conflict between youthful spontaneity and maturity of adulthood is one of the major themes in the novel. The protagonist of The Bell Jar stands at such a juncture of her life where she finds it extremely difficult to control the conflict between youthful passion and controlled decision making capacity f adulthood. Unlike other girls of her generation as she has responded to the conflict between youth and adulthood, consequently, she cannot ignore the impact over her philosophical self and fails to identify herself with rest of the society. Esther is not under influence of any traditional moral prejudice regarding protection of virginity or her virtues as a woman. However, she also is different from her woman counterparts from this perspective that she would not indulge herself with any man, who is unintelligible and does not know how to respect women. It is due to this reason she decided to ditch Buddy Williams, Frankie did not attract his attention and Marco failed to enjoy physical intercourse with her. Irrespective of all her youthful spontaneity she carefully decided to allow Constantine to seduce her and Irwin won her attention in such a way that she decided to seduce him: “It was only after seeing Irwin's study that I decided to seduce him” (Plath and Ames 119). Her youthful love and respect for idealism, while on one hand stopper her from marrying double standard people like Buddy Williams, on the other hand it also created an emotional distance with her mother, who can be regarded within context of the novel as the representative of adulthood. Esther clearly developed her own way of understanding life that is a blend of maturity and youthfulness; however, it is interesting to see that her norms of decision making are constantly changing according to the situation. To a certain extent the maturity of adulthood that her mother exhibits has been regarded by Esther as hypocritical. It has also been made clear that no matter how much her mother claims that she loves her daughter, however, at the same time lose of financial materials bothers her: “My mother sighed. Doctor Gordon cost twenty-five dollars an hour” (Plath and Ames 69). She also sarcastically attacks the so-called maturity of adulthood when her mother fails to realize the plight of her helplessness regarding fits of insanity. She feels in this context that adulthood is something that always wishes situations at equilibrium. Esther’s insanity clearly defied that norm and consequently she was allowed to have shock treatment with her mother’s consent. The moment mother received the impression that Esther is no more willing to undergo the shock therapy, automatically she interpreted her daughter’s denial in her own ways and completely ignored the fact that actually Esther is declining due to the pain she has encountered during her treatment: ““My mother smiled. “I knew my baby wasn't like that." I looked at her. "Like what?" "Like those awful people. Those awful dead people at that hospital." She paused. "I knew you'd decide to be all right again"” (Plath and Ames 77). The freedom of choice on Esther’s part was almost annihilated in this situation. The generational difference between her and her mother, while on one hand restrained her from communicating her problems, on the other hand, she remained a mere figure of experimentation that will be operated according to others wish. Perhaps the most important problem of Esther’s existence is her critical nature and postmodernist reflexivity. While she realized that freedom in this era of continuous flux can only be attained if a person keeps on experimenting within himself/herself, however, situation became complicated for her because her ways of perceiving life existed at a sharp contrast with rest of the world. Individuals of her generations chose to a part of the flux and consequently habituated themselves to live within the illusion of reality. People like Esther’s mother could not entirely sacrifice their conventional notions of life and went on interpreting Esther according to their perception. Esther, as an individual entity neither could respond to the trait following entity, nor she could acknowledge the traditional way of interpreting life. Thus, finally, she could not find any other way to ignore her plight as a true representative of the postmodernist individualism and consequently remained trapped within the bell jar. Conclusion: Construction of relationship between the protagonist and reader The protagonist of the novel The Bell Jar can be identified as an embodiment of the postmodernist spirit that strives to attain her freedom from different forms of physical, intellectual and spiritual isolation and consequently becomes trapped within the situation to a greater extent. It is important to see that the narrator has never provided any hint of establishing such a relationship with readers so that she will remain just as a subject of sympathy; rather she has maintained an ironic distance with reader and throughout the novel she also has maintained the gap quite carefully by treating her situation with a critical note. However, in the end, due to such narrative techniques a reader cannot help to empathize with the narrator. The character of Esther is unique because of her self-criticizing capability and consequently provides readers with comic relief within the monotonous cosmos of the novel, of postmodernism. She realizes that there cannot be any freedom from the postmodernist jeopardy. The only way to remain free and retain her entity as a human being is to experience her physical, intellectual and spiritual isolation by being trapped within the bell jar. Works Cited Bourjaily, Vance. “On Pseudonyms and Alternate Identities.” Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. Edited by Harold Bloom. London: Infobase Publishing. 2009. Moss, Howard. “On Illness and Disclosure in the Novel.” Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. Edited by Harold Bloom. London: Infobase Publishing. 2009. Plath, Sylvia and Ames, Lois. The Bell Jar. New York: Harper &Row. 1971. Read More