Breaking the Bell Jar
This article is written by Lonestar writer, Meg Kodali.
A classic “banned book,” The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath has painted one of the most realistic, oddly humorous, and down-to-earth depictions of depression and mental illness in modern literature, even over 50 years later. The main character, Esther Greenwood, is uniquely relatable to young adults in that she is ambitious with educational and career goals that dissolve rapidly in the wake of her deteriorating mental health. In fact, the entire novel is essentially a picture of the life of Sylvia Plath herself, who committed suicide the same year this novel was published. Because of the personal insight Plath had into her protagonist’s condition, the character of Esther Greenwood is imbued with the hopelessness and apathy towards life faced by many people with depression.
Today, many school districts and public libraries censor or even ban the distribution of this novel because of the harrowing depictions of topics like suicide and self-harm that it portrays in great detail. However, many critics, including myself, believe The Bell Jar is an important work for late high school and university students to study to understand the complexity of mental illness, especially in the context of a society and older time period where it is deeply misunderstood, even by professionals. This work is still relevant because it draws attention to the enormous crisis surrounding mental health in the U.S. today, where suicide is the tenth leading cause of death. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, in 2017 alone, over 47,000 Americans committed suicide, while over a million people made attempts.
But what is a bell jar? And what does it imply?
In laboratories, a bell jar is a glass hood used to create a vacuum seal between the contents of the jar and the atmosphere. In Esther’s mind, a metaphoric bell jar seals her in with her own depressive thoughts and tendencies. While on the one hand she is trapped and cannot rid herself of her own suffocating internal monologue, Esther simultaneously cannot see the external opportunities that await her from the other side of the glass. From declining invitations to study at college to giving up on her dreams of being a writer to rejecting a marriage proposal, Esther repeatedly self-sabotages and ultimately denies herself even the hope of a different, contented future like so many other sufferers of chronic depression.
“I am going for a long walk.”
This is the note Esther leaves behind upon deciding to overdose on sleeping pills in the cellar of her own home while her mother is out. This, the climax of the novel, is profoundly symbolic both in imagery and in Esther’s actual decisions themselves. In a way here, Esther has already died. The welcoming darkness of the cellar as she climbs into the even more confined crawl space; the damp, earthen walls; the way Esther walls herself in with heavy logs- all of these details give the reader the impression that Esther is burying herself alive. She does not intend to be found either, evident by the note she leaves her mother.
Throughout the storyline, Esther’s mother does repeatedly attempt to cure her daughter, taking her to therapy and even consenting to providing electro-shock therapy to Esther in a private hospital. However, she seems either to be in denial or unable to fathom that Esther would ever take her own life, a sin in their Christian religion. She refuses to believe Esther could be like the “dead people”, the people with severe psychiatric illness, that she sees at the private hospital. Esther’s doctor does not escape this failure either. He asks very few, if any, questions during their therapy sessions and fails to provide a safe space for Esther to describe her symptoms. In reality, he seems to care little about helping her recover.
Somehow, Esther’s experience is still the reality for many people with mental illness today. In the U.S., access to mental health care services is severely limited by lack of insurance, an undersized pool of mental health professionals, and painfully long referral periods. Waiting nearly a month to be assigned a treatment professional after being diagnosed with a mental health condition is an enormous setback when every day feels nearly impossible. Mental illness affects a person’s family, productivity, outlook on life, and sense of self: It can alter an individual’s entire identity. Worse, these negative consequences tend to more deeply affect at-risk populations, those who may need care the most. People with disabilities, for instance, are less likely to possess insurance, and nearly a third of people with cognitive disabilities who need mental health care cannot see a professional because of cost.
The entire culture and rhetoric surrounding mental health is in desperate need of change. Mental health is as real, complex, and important to the quality of life as any other aspect of health care, and society as a whole must accept this to make meaningful progress. We must accept that our country is doing something wrong, but that change is possible. It is well past time to shatter the bell jar.
Works Cited:
“Mental Health in America — Access to Care Data: Mental Health America.” Mental Health in America — Access to Care Data | Mental Health America.
“Suicide Statistics.” AFSP, 16 Apr. 2019, https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/.
