Okay, I’ve put this one off long enough.
I finished reading Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar almost two weeks ago, and I’m STILL not quite sure what I think of it. Heck, I’m not even quite sure why I picked it up in the first place. I mean, I like Sylvia Plath’s poetry (for the most part), but I’m not exactly a Plath “fan.”
As far as the writing goes, I found Plath as ingenious and clever as ever – although she uses FAR too many metaphors for my taste. On some pages, nearly every other sentence carries some simile or metaphor. That’s not an exaggeration. I counted. There’s a LOT of metaphor.
Where the plot’s concerned, well… Actually, I’m not even sure I have the capacity to fully understand the novel. Maybe I’m coming from the wrong place to figure out what’s going on – that place being the land of the Y chromosome.
I was struck by a particular scene towards the end of the book: protagonist Esther Greenwood is nearing the end of her stay in a mental institution. She gets a visit from Buddy Willard, an old flame of hers, who asks if he’s somehow responsible for Esther’s current state of mind. Esther’s response is a bit ambiguous, but she TELLS him that he isn’t responsible.
When I read that section, I remember thinking that I had a similar question to Buddy Willard’s. As I’ve pointed out, I have kind of an odd response to women’s literature. I start to question my own motives in my interactions with women – whether I’ve been perpetrating some patriarchal crimes in my intersex relationships.
However, when Buddy asks if he has caused Esther’s illness, I get the impression that Buddy Willard has kind of missed the point. Esther Greenwood has been through a lot in her life – obvious mental illness, shattered ideologies… heck, she nearly gets raped halfway through the book. The Bell Jar is an exploration of HER trauma and her journey. For Buddy to turn it into some kind of analysis of HIS OWN behavior actually strikes me as kind of selfish. I found myself wondering why Buddy Willard would dare to make Esther’s struggled about HIM – and, at the same time, I wondered why I insisted on making Plath’s story about ME.
Or maybe I’m the one missing the point. I really can’t say for certain. Whether Buddy’s question is Plath’s way of waving off sniveling, apologetic men or condemning them isn’t really clear to me. Under different circumstances, I’d call that a mark of a bad writer. However, Plath handled it in a way that will have me thinking about The Bell Jar for days and weeks to come, not out of confusion, but out of a desire to understand. And that’s REALLY impressive.
1 comment:
I would agree with your interpretation that his asking if he is responsible for her state of being and her denial of it is representative of the fact that her life is HERS, and she claims all control over herself and her future.
I think just as men take the time to ponder how they may have hurt the women in their lives, women ponder why they let it happen, and willingly let themselves be dragged down by the comments and actions of others, and the false notions of self-deprivation in their own minds, for which they are freely able to reject and overcome. Responsibility is two-fold. And you are responsible for what you do with your life.
I haven't read The Bell Jar, but I recently came across a quote from Sylvia Plath's diary that might help you understand her. "I cannot ignore this murderous self: it is there. I smell it and feel it...When it says: you shall not sleep, you cannot teach, I shall go on anyway, knocking its nose in. Its biggest weapon is and has been the image of myself as a perfect success: in writing, in teaching and living...My demon of negation will tempt me day by day, and I'll fight it, as something other than my essential self, which I am fighting to save."
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