Nicole, you completely stole my thunder! There isn't very much to say that you haven't eloquently stated below. You summed up the book very well, so I'll just add my 2 cents and attempt to answer the questions.-I completely agree with your interpretation of how Esther found herself underneath the Bell Jar of Great Expectations and, like you, have felt the weight of the very same thing more and more since I graduated from College. What continues to mystify me is what exactly triggered this uneasy, discomfort to grow into an all-out nervous breakdown? I guess that's really a question for the mental health professionals, but I'm curious as to whether Esther's circumstances contributed to her breakdown, or was it an inevitable fate and would have captured her regardless?
-I have to disagree with one of your observations. When Esther is coming home from her shock treatments and thinks "Every time I tried to concentrate, my mind glided off like a skater, into a large empty space, and pirouetted there, absently," I assumed that her mind was unable to concentrate because it had just been rattled with electronic blue rays and that she was disappointed with the mush of a conscience that the electroshock therapy left her with.
On to the questions:
1) On some levels, I do understand Esther. I understand her hopes and dreams and simultaneous frustrations with herself, her family and society. She keeps a portion of herself hidden, even from her own mind, and that is where the feeling of her being distant is derived, I think. During the first half of the book, I was a little confused by the way that Esther recounted the events of her life without injecting her own thoughts and rarely her own judgements but as the book transpired I grew to love and respect the character that Plath was able to craft, absent of all the silly musings that we have come to expect from our literary heroines.
2) I think the relationship that Esther has with her mother wasn't properly dealt with (intentionally?), so it's hard for me to say. I see why you think that Esther uses her mother and I certainly felt a great amount of pity for Mrs. Greenwood as she watched her daughter suffer. The relationship the two have reminds readers of how young Esther really is (20 during most of the novel) and how she is childish while being incredibly intelligent and insightful. However, I do think that asking Esther to act in ways that were more pleasing to Mrs. Greenwood is like asking a cancer patient to leave her sick bed and put on a happy face as a reassurance to her mother. Part of me believes that she really could not control it.
I didn't get the feeling that Esther was afraid of becoming her mother. If anything, she was deathly afraid of turning into Buddy Willard's mother (who wouldn't be??!!).
A question for you Nicole, and for Gisela and anyone else who's read the book:
I'm all for girl power, but what was the significance of the absence of any male characters with any redeeming qualities? From the doctors to boyfriends to hospital attendants (Negro ones at that, lol), all the men were absolute pigs. Were men really that clueless half a century ago?
On the contemporary note, this book has always reminded me an awful lot of the modern classic She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb. Lamb's masterpiece details the unraveling of a young women (and her subsequent patch-up) quite, well, masterfully. May I suggest this as one UL's 101 Contemporary Great Books?
Oh, and if you want to follow along, we'll be reading through the Collegeboard's 101 Great Books.
Next up: The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
-Whitney
No comments:
Post a Comment