Esther shares early in The Bell Jar that she doesn't like children. She doesn't want to get married at least for that reason. Her date-tour of a medical center with Buddy showed her as well why she didn't want to give birth, to be objectified and manipulated. When Esther has a brief volunteeting stint at a hospital in chapter thirteen, Plath's narrative reflects Esther's perspective on birth and children.
On page 161, the very first line begins with "the flowers nodded like bright, knowledgeable children as I trundled them down the hall." Esther thinks of the flowers as she would children. Esther "felt silly in my sage-green volunteer's uniform, and superfluous... all I got for a morning of pushing round magazinds and candy and flowers was a free lunch." Esther is unfulfilled by the service, and the way she connects it to children brings to mind her lack of empathy with young people, only annoyance. Compare this to Holden Caulfield, who fails out of school as opposed to Esther's academic dedication previously.
Esther switches to comparing the flowers to cadavers. "I thought it would be discouraging for a woman who'd just had a baby to see somebody plonk down a big bouquet of dead flowers in front of her, so I... began to pick out all the flowers that were dead. Then I picked out those that were dying... This must be how they laid the bodies away in the hospital morgue."
Esther starts with children and substitutes them with corpses. When the women in maternity make a fuss over the children, this almost cements Esther's sense that women giving birth and deceived and controlled by a bad system.
Esther sees children, and herself, as already dead and gone.
It seems very interesting to me that Holden and Esther, two characters who may seem similar in their apparent disillusionment with society, are so different in this one aspect. Holden tries so hard to remain a child past his time, while Esther struggles constantly to become an adult before she is ready.
ReplyDeleteKind of going off of what Tim is saying, it would be also interesting if Holden and Esther were to meet in real life. Although, on the outside to us (since they are both introverted people), their personality would seem so similar, but looking at details such as childhood and adulthood, they would probably completely hate each other.
ReplyDeleteYeah going off what Madeleine said and what we talked about in class, if Holden and Esther met they would be judging each other a lot. Holden would see Esther as one of those girls who is just rushing to grow up and get married, a phony who has done well in the system. Esther might see Holden as someone without any drive he just refuses to take part in the system and she would probably think he is kind of stupid for that.
ReplyDelete"With every day that passes we get one day closer to dying."
ReplyDeleteWhile that may be true, it is still a terrible attitude to have. Every flower is "dying" as soon as it is plucked from the ground, and every child is dying as soon as the umbilical cord is cut. Life is something to celebrate, and it is important not to have it spent worrying about the inevitable.
Esther's entire stance on children and marriage is extremely fascinating to me. It's so unlike the mentality of the decade that it offers a lot of insight into her psyche.
ReplyDeleteYour statement about the children being cadavers is a very interesting interpretation. The way Esther picks out the dead flowers doesn't seem to be an indication that she believes children are dead and gone. It seems to be her silent way of helping women overcome this manipulation and objectivization. She brings the only empathy she can towards children, which is helping out the mothers who bear them. This section is actually very hard to interpret and I think your conclusions are definitely justified!
It's striking how, in this instance, Esther identifies sympathetically with the new mothers, and sees her removal of the "dead" flowers as an act of mercy or consideration for their feelings. Her perception is grossly distorted at this point, but so often in this section her illness renders her somewhat nasty and judgmental in her treatment of others, and this is a notable--and sad--exception. It seems like she's really trying to do something good or considerate here, and failing horribly.
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