Discussion Topic

Esther's self-perception and her comparisons to Doreen, Joan, and others in The Bell Jar

Summary:

In The Bell Jar, Esther's self-perception is heavily influenced by her comparisons to others like Doreen and Joan. She views Doreen as a rebellious, carefree spirit, contrasting with her own insecurities. Joan represents an alternative path of coping with societal pressures, reflecting Esther's internal struggles. These comparisons highlight Esther's identity crisis and her difficulty in reconciling her personal aspirations with societal expectations.

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How does Esther describe herself in The Bell Jar?

There are several instances in which Esther Greenwood is self-critical. This closely mirrors the way theauthor, Sylvia Plath, viewed herself. While Esther appears to have everything she could want—a prestigious academic education and a competitive magazine internship—the character is not satisfied with herself. For example, she self-describes as a zombie multiple times throughout the novel, once feeling a zombie rising in her throat. Another time, she mentions she "listened to the zombie voice leave a message," while phoning an Admissions Office. Esther believes her voice is so drab and boring that she must be a zombie in disguise.

Esther often feels disconnected from herself, which allows her to be more critical of her actions. While returning to work, she describes herself as a woman going "back to work like a numb trolleybus." She notices she should be excited like everyone else, but instead she "couldn't get [her]self to react."

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Esther often feels disconnected from herself, which allows her to be more critical of her actions. While returning to work, she describes herself as a woman going "back to work like a numb trolleybus." She notices she should be excited like everyone else, but instead she "couldn't get [her]self to react."

Due to these self-critical attitudes, Esther's descriptions are nearly self-destructive. Esther is so critical of herself that she splits her body into two individual personas—one being Esther Greenwood and the other being Elly Higginbottom. She's a stranger to her own body, which allows her to observe her own actions as though she were another, unbiased individual. She refers to herself as unnatural. However, these highly-critical comments eventually lead her to a suicidal, destructive behavior.

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Esther constantly describes herself in terms that show that she is dissociated from herself and that she regards herself as something less than human. Though she has earned many honors at college and has the backing of poets and professors, she finds herself enervated. She asks herself why she wants to "balk and balk like a dull cart horse?" By using these words, she is likening herself to a pack animal who is without reason and is demeaning herself. Later, when she cancels her summer school class, she says, "I dialed the Admissions Office and listened to the zombie voice leave a message." She describes herself in a way that seems dissociated, like she is watching herself carry out actions the way she would watch another person. 

The only time Esther describes herself with any sympathy is when she describes her fictional self. She says that when she writes, "A feeling of tenderness filled my heart. My heroine would be myself, only in disguise." Otherwise, Esther is disgusted with herself, and when she is reading about babies in a magazine, she thinks, "How easy having babies seemed to the women around me! Why was I so unmaternal and apart?" She is constantly using terms that refer to herself as unnatural and is constantly criticizing herself for her thoughts and actions. 

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Part of what makes Esther such a compelling character is that she really lacks the full and clear totality to describe herself.  She is many different things and what ends up helping to cause her breakdown is the lack of definition she has of her own sense of self.  When we define her, it is similar to how she attempts to define herself in terms of being fluid and dependent on context.  Certainly, one term and she and we can use to describe Esther is intelligent.  Esther is quite learned and willing to surrender her life to intellectual ideas or the need to rely on intellect in order to succeed.  Conflicted would be another term that could be used to describe Esther.  She is conflicted on how she sees the world and on how the world sees her.  Esther is frustrated with how her definition of self is so dependent on the conflict she feels towards men, towards women, towards her own sense of self.  I think that another term that Esther would use to describe herself and we can describe her is evolving.  Esther's narrative is constantly in flux and this is reflective of her own sense of self.  Her identity and her state of being is one in which there is definition fluidity and the need to understand and embrace this becomes one of the most pressing crucibles she has to face.

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How does Esther describe herself in comparison to Doreen, Joan, and others in The Bell Jar?

Esther Greenwood, the protagonist of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, takes center stage in this novel of self-discovery and alienation. The reader’s introduction to Esther instantly creates a strong juxtaposition between the two worlds she inhabits: though she is a young woman with an enviable lifestyle working at a trendy magazine and with a social life to match, internally she feels like an inanimate object, a "numb trolleybus."

How Esther describes herself encapsulates the main theme of the novel, which is Esther’s identity, or lack of identity for that matter. Like any young person, The Bell Jar’s protagonist is looking for role models all around her, the most eccentric of them being the confident and boy-chasing Doreen, which only leaves Esther feeling more lacking of an identity in comparison. After spending a night with Doreen and all her wild antics, Esther takes a long walk home, unable to recognize herself in the shop-front mirrors: she is just "wrinkled and used up," or "the reflection in a ball of dentist's mercury." There are no other women in the novel helping to boost Esther’s self-worth: the editor of the magazine she works for thinks Esther has no motivation or direction, which the young woman soon internalizes, thinking,

A girl lives in some out-of-the way town for nineteen years, so poor she can't afford a magazine, and then she gets a scholarship to college and wins a prize here and a prize there and ends up steering New York like her own private car. Only I wasn't steering anything, not even myself.

The second part of the novel replaces a tale of growing up with one of mental deterioration and suicidal ideation. Here Esther can only model herself on other patients in the hospital—some with no identity to speak of, like the lobotomized Valerie—and leaving the asylum is treated by Esther as "a ritual for being born twice." How Esther describes herself by the end of the novel is simply alive, her heart reminding her with each beat, "I am, I am, I am."

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