A Belle Jarred

Several Tuesdays ago was book club night and on the docket was Syliva Plath’s The Bell Jar. Without wanting to be dramatic, I knew this type of book had the potential to make or break our little group, which was only on its third meeting. Would we be able to handle the heavy themes of this classic? I was pretty sure we would.

It took a couple bottles of wine, but the four of us debunked our current society’s view of medication, gender, the mentally ill & social class. It was enjoyable and at times personal, but now I do believe we’re able to take on just about anything--so long as it doesn‘t bore us.

The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath's most renowned novel, although the author was well known for her poetry, winning the Pulitzer Prize for The Collected Poems in 1962, the year before her death.

Before reading the novel I was completely unfamiliar with what a bell jar is, in either the metaphysical nor literal senses. It's the type of metaphor that hangs about--everyone knows the lead character is experiencing intense heaviness, so why ask what it means? The actual reference of the term “bell jar” was largely avoided in our discussion, allowing each member to take its meaning in her own way.

Not until late in the novel, when Esther Greenwood has been institutionalized after a suicide attempt, does the lead character agonize in anticipation of the “descending of the bell jar.” Much earlier in the book, Esther is given a tour by her suitor, who is a promising chap in the medical field. Esther is shocked and mesmerized when she comes across a still-born infant pickled in a jar. To me, the still-born human preserved in infancy is a lasting image that I connect with the metaphor of a bell jar.

While a bell jar in the real world can be a display covering for such items as old clocks or taxidermy, it more pertains to a vacuum in a glass case used for scientific experiments. Scientists have made use of this type of fixture to study sound. If a clock is set on alarm, its sound will decay since the air is so stagnant. I take this as a fitting description to someone suffering from depression--the air around you doesn’t move, there is no music, only stillness.

Much of the image of the bell jar relates to innocence. I’d heard the song “Ingenue,” by Atoms for Peace, many times but in reading the lyrics I found a reference to Bell Jar. Then I saw the video, which features a dancer beautifully mimicking Thom Yorke’s awkward movements. How significant is this reference to a bell jar, I wondered?

The Ingenue is a stock character in film, literature and theater who is innocent and virginal. There is sometimes a romantic side-story, and that male might be innocent as well. This theme ties into the Bell Jar, and many other stories, particularly as it relates to Esther’s desire to lose her virginity. When she finally does, her body reacts to the point of hemorrhaging. It’s as if her innocence is a liability even after it’s gone.

Although I didn’t feel it was completely apparent Esther would head down the path of mental illness, neither was I completely surprised. I've often thought of the difficulties for women in our sociey, the fact they are supposed to simultaneously hold their family together and be competitive in the job market. It can be difficult to engage with the normal things in this environment.

I play video games from an age where the purpose of too many game was to save the princess. In these games, the gender lines are pretty clear. Needless to say, those types of plotlines don’t interest me too much. But what do I do instead? Play football games where the women make a cameo at halftime to push their pom-poms together.

What if The Bell Jar had featured a man? It would have been the crass Jack Nicholson of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. That guy could do whatever he wanted to do, it didn't matter. Sure, he didn't live till the end (spoiler!), but one got the sense he was his own person throughout. Esther Greenwood was not so lucky.

If gender has so much to do with those who suffer under the bell jar, then we have to connect that to the fact that under society's present structure, whatever that may be, it is society's members who make life difficult for the others.