How Mental Health Makes it Difficult to “Choose Sides” in The Bell Jar
According to the World Health Organization, more than one billion people are currently living with mental health disorders, meaning that it affects one out of every eight people. Nowadays, mental health is more often brought up in conversation and addressed rather than stigmatized. With these modern ideas, when going back to read books like The Bell Jar, mental illness complicates the idea of “choosing sides” for the reader, making it harder to pick where our empathy and sympathies lie within the characters of the novel (Esther Greenwood, Mrs. Greenwood, Dodo Conway, etc.)
Esther’s Clinical/Psychotic Depression shapes her narration throughout the book, shadowing over the people she describes rather harshly. Her state makes it hard to be angry at how she treats those around her, even when they’re kind-hearted or people close to her. At the same time, you still really do sympathize with the people she speaks of as they’re on their own, complex journey living with someone they care about, battling mental illness. Knowing that Plath heavily based the novel on her lived experience, we think of these people as much more than what she tells us during this hard period of her life.
Esther’s conflict with her mother stands at the emotional core of the novel, as she comes to associate her psychological deterioration with the rigid expectations she feels her mother imposed upon her. She’s upset that her mother wasn’t present enough, that she didn’t know what the right things were to say or do, and that her mother didn’t share the same feelings against society’s social constructs like she did.
When Esther tells her mother, “I’m through with that Doctor Gordan, you can call him up and tell him I’m not coming back next week,” her mother responds to her with a smile, saying, “I knew my baby wasn’t like that” (Plath, 145). This prompts Esther to respond and ask her, “Like what?” to which her mother answers with, “Like those awful people. Those awful dead people at the hospital,” and pausing to only add, “I knew you’d decide to be all right again” (Plath, 146).
This scene is especially important as Esther’s judgment of her mother’s response is subtle, but clearly there, reinforced with more jabs at her mother in later passages. Going back, this memory feels handpicked by Esther to put on display the ignorance of her mother for the mentally unwell, treating it as if it were a choice to be plagued with the disease. Silently, when put into context, you feel Esther’s disdain at her mother’s comment, feeling as though she does not get it, and would never understand.
While Esther’s feelings are valid, when taking a step back as a reader, we know that mental health at this time was not as heavily propagated through society. Patients at these asylums would be hidden away and concealed. It isn’t fully fair to blame Esther’s mother for not knowing how to handle this situation, and it is clear that Plath also wants to convey this intricate idea to the reader.
WHO Article Used:
https://www.who.int/news/item/02-09-2025-over-a-billion-people-living-with-mental-health-conditions-services-require-urgent-scale-up
Hey Shanna! I just want to start off by saying that I really enjoyed your usage of the outside source. It really helped hook me in as the reader and made your argument feel more grounded and convincing. To talk about the actual content, I find it really interesting how you see Esther’s conflict with her mom as part of the cause of her deteriorating mental health. Personally, I felt more like her decline was driven by her own internal struggles and some of the other toxic influences in her life (Buddy, Doreen, etc.) However, I still really like how you framed it, and it honestly made me pause and think about that relationship in a different way. Overall, great blog once again, Shanna!
ReplyDeleteHi Shanna, I agree that Esther's relationship with her mother is one of the most difficult to pin down in the novel. On the one hand, I do think that Esther's anger toward her mother can't simply be blamed on her depression. Ms. Greenwood makes several invalidating comments concerning her daughter's mental state, labeling mentally ill people as "awful dead people," or calling Esther's time in the psychiatric hospital a "bad dream." Additionally, Esther mentions that after her mother's initial visit to the hospital, she never returns again, demonstrating her lack of support and acknowledgement of Esther's struggles. Based on this, I think Esther's anger was very valid, even outside of the context of her mental state. At the same time, you do bring up a good point, which is that mental illness and psychiatric hospitals were a much more taboo subject than they are now, which could partially rationalize Ms. Greenwood's behavior. Good blog!
ReplyDeleteHi Shanna! I appreciate your discussion regarding how Esther’s clinical/psychotic depression shapes her narration. I agree that factoring mental health into the equation highlights some ambiguity in the Bell Jar, as it complicates judgement. Esther’s harsh treatment of her mother may very well be a reaction to her crisis then. Good post!
ReplyDeleteI like the observation that Esther is clearly "handpicking" particular moments that seem to showcase her mother's ignorance and tone-deaf responses to Esther's crisis, and it is easy to see how this one-dimensional portrayal of her mother suits her narrative. Later, with Dr. Nolan. it is seen as a serious breakthrough in her case when she "admits" that she "hates" her mother, whether this verdict is fair to Mrs. Greenwood or not. And, given how deeply entwined Esther's struggles are with her emerging critical views of gender in American society, it IS surely important that she start to distance herself from some of her mother's values and ideals.
ReplyDeleteBut at the same time, so many of us find Mrs. Greenwood to be a very sympathetic character--or at least a character who is portrayed in an unsympathetic way, who is in a really tough position without a lot of knowledge or experience to help her navigate it. Esther's "selective" depiction of her seems cruel and unfair. She doesn't want there to be something "wrong" with her daughter, which is understandable, and the stuff she's hearing around the clinic makes her believe that she is to blame somehow, thanks to psychoanalysis and its core focus on familial dynamics as foundational to psychology. While we do see Esther's "distorted" narration as symptomatic of her disorder, the distortion persists through the end of the novel when it comes to her mother. Buddy Willard gets a nice little redemption scene when he sheepishly visits Esther at the hospital, but Mrs. Greenwood--who presumably picks Esther up and drives her back to college--doesn't even make an appearance apart from a second-hand report of something tone-deaf that she's said. This relationship, at least, looks like it's ready to pick up right where it left off.