Bell jar
noun
- 1.a bell-shaped glass cover used for covering delicate objects or used in a laboratory, typically for enclosing samples.
- 2.an environment in which someone is protected or cut off from the outside world.
When I first read the part of the book where Esther says she feels like she is in a bell jar I was confused. I had no idea what a bell jar was. But when I finally looked it up I understood completely what she was trying to say.
Esther in The Bell Jar suffers from depression. This is quite obvious since she has thoughts of committing suicide so often, and is eventually checked into a mental asylum. If someone were trapped in a bell jar, they would feel suffocated, trapped in a world they don't want to be in. Although I myself have not expirenced severe depression like she has, I know what she is going through.
My mother suffers from depression. I have expirenced first hand what that is like (although of course I have not gone through it myself). When I was younger she tried to take her life. Thankfully she did not succeed at this. I think in that point in my mother's life she realized what she would be missing out on if she actually did taker her life.
Damn, my blog has become some kind of freakin' confessional for all my personal stuff.
At the end of the novel, I think Esther begins to realize what she would be missing if she wasn't around anymore, kind of like my mom. I might be reading too much into it but I'm not really sure. I think that Esther also begins to realize that she has a lot ahead of her.
I understand how Esther is feeling and I feel like this made me appreciate her even more as a character.
This is a very powerful post. This book is so far from our society that this situation you described does a great job of bringing it into prospective for our lives. This idea of how much they would be missing is an important side of it. I agree that ester feels this. It is amazing how warped our sense of reality and purpose in life can be warped by such illnesses.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Neil that this is a very powerful post. I know we've actually talked about some of this before, and I have someone close to me that's struggled with depression as well and so I feel like I understand Esther as well. And legitimately, I get the whole blog as a confessional thing! I've had so many ideas to post about but can't bring myself to because of how personal they are. Then again half the posts I end up writing I just go with it.
ReplyDeleteBooks are always much more powerful when you can connect them to your own experience. Thank you for sharing, Alyson!
ReplyDeleteI'm struck by the second, more metaphorical definition of bell jar you cite--the sense in which the word doesn't refer specifically to a piece of laboratory equipment but to a general condition of being insulated from the outside world, isolated and protected. This could easily reflect how Esther sees her life even before the depression really starts to take hold--back when she was "okay," her school life (by her own portrayal) served to isolate her from the world. So when she ventures out to New York, a wholly new experience for her, we repeatedly see her feeling like she's unable to deal, that she's naive and ignorant and fragile, and everyone else is so worldly and capable. This sense that she has been living under a different kind of bell jar, racking up those scholarships and good grades, has something to do with the feelings that precipitate the more dire bell jar that descends throughout the New York episode.
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