In the modern era, mental illness has become more socially acceptable to talk about. If you have an issue, you can publicly share your experiences on the internet or with a therapist and open a healthy dialogue. It's cathartic to know that it's no longer stigmatized, that you're seen as an outsider for not being as happy as everyone else. Sure, one still feels that separation in their own personal life, but it feels like there are resources to make you feel less alone.
One of those resources has been reading the works of Sylvia Plath, whose poetry alone confronts morbid subject matter in a quiet to better understand herself. She brings the reader in, asking them to understand her struggles. Of course, nowhere is that truer than in her lone novel, "The Bell Jar," published a few months before her suicide. While the book has a sense of humor, there is staggering attention paid to how one experiences depression in their life. There's an honesty that is unparalleled, written with intricate word choices that enhance the emotional response. By the end, we understand what it's like to live with grief, not in clinical terms, but something more personal. It's a masterpiece of self-evaluation, making one see the world through a prism not often seen It's accessible in its tragedy and makes one hope for the best.
The story is loosely inspired on Plath's experience working as an intern for Mademoiselle Magazine. Here she goes by the name Esther, giving an insight into how she navigated a world that she personally felt that she didn't belong in. She may have gotten great grades, but it was because of her fear of being seen as a failure. She needed to please everyone in order to have any sense of satisfaction. As she goes to work, she sees everyone happy and observes ways that she could better herself. Only she can't. She feels different, an outsider who didn't' come from these elite colleges that they did. She's just an over-achiever not by personal satisfaction, but a necessity. She navigates the social life, slowly losing interest in going out and being "normal" as she enters a loveless relationship and contemplates life as something of value.
It makes sense that her frame of reference isn't anything regarding the success or bright future she faces, but a news story regarding a murder trial. She collects these violent stories as some morbid fascination, believing that they hold some deeper truth. While one would think that it ties into the bigger story, it sort of doesn't. She just loves thinking about death as a general concept. Her prose begins to show up in subtle ways, where actions have double entendre. She's not just looking at a situation as a clinical act, but as having these morbid features. Knowing that Plath committed suicide at 30 only helps to enhance the haunting nature of this language, making one see how depression was alway a part of Esther's perspective. Success couldn't save her.
Whereas the first half of the book is rooted in her experiences, managing to make fun of those she feels isolated from, the latter begins to dive into a lifelong struggle with depression. It shows up in neglect and the pressure to be something greater. There are key moments that make you understand how Esther wound up feeling miserable about the world. These come sporadically and at times abruptly in the narrative, but it shows how distracted the depressed person is when looking at the world. They can't live in the moment because they have programmed themselves to be self-effacing about everything. It comes across gradually and without ever seeming overbearing. The reader is lulled into Esther's depression to such an extent that they recognize the symptoms in hindsight.
The latter half becomes more fascinating in its confessional. The details are so wide open that you understand how much had to have come from Plath's personal experience. The various suicide attempts are a bit haunting, even as Plath describes a failed hanging due to her body not allowing her to finish the act in a low ceilinged room. Even something as simple as overdosing feels thought out to such an extent that it comes across as painfully real. We know it can't be over because there are still 80 pages to go, but we still feel for Esther's potential fate. She has reached her low, and the only thing that makes it more horrifying is Plath's realism. This isn't done as shock material, but a painful acceptance of what depression can do.
The recovery that ends the book gets to the heart of how her depression changed. It's also where the title comes in. The bell jar is a reference to how she feels trapped in a jar, being observed by the world as she does dead babies earlier in the book. It's also how her ideas are crowded and she has no breathing room. The depression has rarely been described as vividly with an object. As she lifts it off, she begins to see the world differently, for once death feeling like it has a bigger tragedy. Her shift in narrative allows things to hold weight as to how we see tragedy inside the bell jar and in freedom. The way that she interacts with the doctors also makes things far more entertaining, showing her in a fragile state, her body bruised from mechanical dysfunction. It all feels so real, lacking any elegance despite being written (as Plath put it) like a "potboiler."
The story may seem unassuming otherwise, not really covering any grand experience. It's a journey of the self, where discovery comes in how one sees themself despite having these great opportunities. Few books have captured an internal experience with such clarity that it stands to sway and change the discussion writ large. Even the small word choices have this deeper informing on Esther's mentality. In a lot of ways, it, unfortunately, makes sense why Plath suffered depression. She was too aware of her struggles and maybe didn't stand a chance of ever living a normal life. It comes with an urgency as if the last chance to breakthrough through self-written therapy. It works for everyone going through struggles, though one wishes it worked for Plath as well.
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