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.

References

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