Power to Esther

    Personally, I think that one of the bigger themes of The Bell Jar is power and its effects. Just think about the title. A bell jar essentially enables onlookers to take all power away from the trapped specimen. Onlookers have a lot of control over the specimen, and the only way the specimen can take back its control is through refusing to cooperate, either by becoming limp and refusing to engage or by fighting back. If you step back and think about the bigger picture it’s clear that Esther’s journey conforms very well to this metaphor.

                In New York, Esther has some semblance of power. She has taken control over her life in applying to the summer program, and all the options and freedom that a big city offers gives her power. Unfortunately, this power is ebbing away by the time the novel starts. Esther mentions that she feels like everything is happening around her and she’s just going from photoshoot to party to work to more events. I think the program’s obligations and extreme schedule have taken some of Esther’s power away from her. Mix in the expectations of becoming a perfect housewife and machine churning out baby after baby that only increase in the suburbs, and the world around Esther has far more power over her life than she does herself. Thus Esther resorts to refusing to engage (as I mentioned before) as a method to revive some of her power, which I think is a major factor causing her depression. She goes so far as to attempt suicide to feel like she actually has some control over her life. It’s not until she learns to fight back that Esther starts to get better.

                In giving Esther birth control and teaching her that sexual double standards are mere propaganda, Dr. Nolan gives Esther a means to fight back. When Esther finally has a choice as to whether or not she wants to follow the path of life that her gender is expected to, she recovers her power. And later, in having sex simply because she wants to, Esther takes back the power that was stolen from her by men and their sexual double standard. While there are clearly more factors at play in Esther’s depression, I think the power and control that she feels she does or doesn’t have over her own life has the biggest impact on her mental health, hence the title of the book.