Esther Greenwood as a Feminist Heroine in The Bell Jar

Introduction

Sylvia Plath's first-person narrator in The Bell Jar comes across as a Holden Caulfield type — a disaffected, somewhat lost, but highly intelligent individual capable of critical thought and therefore exceedingly lonely in a world of conformists who seem to show no desire to question anything or to know themselves. The narrator of Plath's novel is Esther Greenwood — a young woman living in New York, a city she loathes. As a result of an acute sense of not being able to fit in anywhere, Esther suffers from depression and attempts suicide. She ends up receiving a number of shock therapies — including insulin shock therapy and electroshock therapy — before finally beginning to feel free to be her own person without fear. From a Feminist Criticism perspective, it can be argued that Esther is the model of a strong, independent, self-sufficient woman, and this paper will show why.

Feminist Criticism as a Framework

Feminist Criticism focuses on "the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women" (Tyson, 2006, p. 83). It stems from critical theory, which posits that "to be critical, an inquiry must challenge directly underlying human interests and ideologies" (Short, 1991, p. 245). Feminist theory examines the constructed relationship between gender and power in society, and Feminist Criticism examines this relationship as it appears in literary art. Just as the original Critical Theorists — particularly those of the Frankfurt School, such as Adorno and Horkheimer (2007) — were interested in deconstructing modern culture to explain why things are the way they are, Feminist Criticism is another dimension of this approach, focusing on deconstructing systems of power as they are represented in works of art.

In Plath's The Bell Jar, Esther is the main protagonist and narrator. She describes her unhappiness alongside an awareness that she is supposed to be happy because everyone else appears to be, and because that is what is expected of her: "I was supposed to be having the time of my life. I was supposed to be the envy of thousands of other college girls just like me all over America…" (Plath, 1996, p. 2). In her hyper-awareness of the gulf between where she is emotionally and where she thinks she is supposed to be — based on cultural norms and expectations — Esther is very similar to Salinger's Holden Caulfield, who expresses the same sort of misgivings as he wanders the same city in the midst of an existential crisis. As Bell (2016) points out, there is a veritable genealogy of this type that stretches from Twain's Tom and Huck down to Holden and Esther. Holden and Esther in particular seem like mirror images of one another: both characters seek to achieve something special, and both wind up in a mental health facility.

Though Holden Caulfield has commonly been viewed as a hero of the anti-establishment, Plath's Esther is sometimes viewed as a weak creature who never quite finds her own footing. Is this because she is a woman, and thus any weakness in her character becomes associated with the concept of being of the "weaker sex"? Alberga-Parisi and Pope (2018) call it the problem of the "perfection crucible" and suggest that it is more acceptable for the male Holden to come across as antic and erratic than it is for the female Esther. From a Feminist Criticism perspective, the perfection crucible reveals gender inequality in society. Since the two characters are quite similar in terms of their plight, one should not be judged as more heroic than the other. If Holden is strong because he opposes and questions the status quo, then Esther should be considered equally strong — the only meaningful difference between the two is one of gender.

The Gender Stereotype and the Perfection Crucible

The "weaker sex" issue appears in numerous works. In Walker Percy's The Moviegoer, for instance, another female character distressed by the expectations and emptiness of the world contemplates suicide and is "rescued" by her male cousin, who is no less distressed but who comes across as the "strong" one by virtue of his sex and his faith. He serves as a reluctant beacon of light who eventually decides to lead the distressed girl and to take charge of his own destiny — essentially completing what Campbell calls the hero's journey (Effthimiou & Franco, 2017).

Plath's Esther has only Buddy, her supposed fiancé, who functions more as an abstraction in her own consciousness than as a beacon of light. In short, Esther must find her own way amid a maze of friends, colleagues, family members, and doctors — none of whom seem able to help her. She must summon the strength to persevere and come to terms with life on her own. From the perspective of Feminist Criticism, Esther must therefore be considered a strong female character who is independent and self-sufficient. Were she in another novel, she might be depicted as a distressed heroine in need of saving. But because this is Plath's novel, and because it is relatively autobiographical, Esther is not written to rely on anyone but herself. She resembles Holden in this respect, though her story is more emotional and introspective, and her tone is gentler rather than sarcastically comic. This gentleness does not, however, make her weak — particularly when one deconstructs the relationship between power and gender according to Feminist theory.

Conclusion

Esther Greenwood in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar can be considered a strong, independent, self-sufficient woman in the light of Feminist Criticism because she overcomes the limitations and constraints of biology as well as the sexual double standard she perceives in society. She completes her own hero's journey and, by the novel's end, is confident in herself and in her own identity as her own woman. She no longer feels distressed or overwhelmed by others' expectations, and her self-doubt and self-recrimination have been, quite literally, shocked out of her. For feminists, the autobiographical heroine created by the author who took her own life a month after the book's publication is indeed a figure of genuine strength.