"The Bell Jar" as a Metaphor and Connections to "Coco" and The Holocaust
The metaphorical use of a "bell jar" as a force that descends upon Esther, severely deteriorating her mental state and bringing her close to death on multiple occasions, was an idea that I found particularly interesting. It reminded me of the scene in the movie Coco (a movie that is essentially all about death), where the famous singer and guitar player Ernesto de la Cruz is killed by a bell that falls on him. The title of the final song he played and his actual last words "remember me" allude to denouement, which also reminded me of Esther's frequent references to her own death. The use of bell-shaped objects in the two stories (the latter mentioned story uses an actual bell) as a force that brings death was an unusual connection that for some reason stuck out to me. Throughout Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, the metaphorical use of a descending and rising bell jar to describe Esther's recurring bouts with severe depression arise multiple times throughout the story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZJxtyixS50 (Scene from Coco about the life and death of Ernesto de la Cruz)
The first reference of the "bell jar" is in chapter fifteen, where Esther explains her inability to connect with the outside world when she is trapped under the bell jar, "...it wouldn’t have made one scrap of difference to me, because wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street cafe in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air" (185). In this scene Esther reveals that not only is she unable to connect with the outside world when she is in the "bell jar", but she is also trapped within herself. The hopelessness of her situation becomes more apparent here, as not only is she trapped, but she is trapped in an extremely hazardous environment. She is essentially living day to day sitting in a gas chamber breathing toxic air, awaiting her own death. The idea of her being in a gas chamber awaiting her own death in the book could be related to the references to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust in her poems "Lady Lazarus" and "Daddy".
The concluding chapter of the book sees multiple references to "the bell jar". In the last reference, she questions if the bell jar will descend upon her again: "But I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure at all. How did I know that someday—at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere—the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn’t descend again?" (241). Despite apparently recovering from her just concluded bout with depression, we are introduced to the possibility that Esther could be locked into this cycle forever, or until she dies. This last reference to the the possible descent of the bell jar in the future raises many questions (see what i did there ;)). Will it come back in the first place, and will it kill her this time, just like the bell that fell on Ernesto de la Cruz or the gas chambers that killed Holocaust victims? Taking into account the author's tragic demise, her future looks bleak. But hey, who am I to decide these things.
Thanks for reading and don't forget to stay hydrated!
-Pieter Duursma
Hi Pieter, this is quite a creative post. You clearly spent a great deal of time thinking about bell jars and the long list of metaphors that they could represent, some of which are present in Disney movies, and others that are present in references Plath makes in her poetry and in the book. The theme of dying represented in all three cases, de la Cruz being crushed, Holocaust victims being killed by toxic gas, and Plath's recurring bouts with depression and suicide, all seem to be related to being stuck under something malicious.
ReplyDeleteHey Pieter, this post seemed to me rather random at first glance, but after deeper reflection, the Disney references and even the Holocaust gas chambers started connecting with the metaphor of a prison "bell jar." Esther is stuck everyday, waiting for death as clean air is slowly used up inside this confined space she made for herself. I don't think she's fully recovered, and what happens next is totally unpredictable.
ReplyDeleteHi Pieter! The title drew me in, but I can confidently say that I stayed for the content. Plath's multiple comparisons of her own mental decline to the Holocaust is definitely interesting. I just wanted to bring the following reference in "Lady Lazarus" into this post: Plath compares her skin like being a Nazi lampshade made of her own (Jewish) skin. Plath probably felt like the bell jar was both a device to exhibit her to the world and also a place of inevitable suffocation -- it's certainly a multidimensional topic. Great post!
ReplyDeleteAt the close of this thought-provoking post, you mention the end of Plath's life, with its suggestive proximity to the publication of her novel--it is tempting to see the novel (and poems like "Lady Lazarus") as a kind of foretelling or anticipation of Plath's own imminent death. But I think that the bell-jar metaphor itself, as explicated here, works against any sense that Plath herself knows the ending of her own story, or the inclination to read these late works as forms of "suicide note."
ReplyDeleteShe KNOWS her recovery is provisional and contingent--the bell jar "hangs suspended," and a change in life circumstances (traveling the world, etc.) won't make it go away. The suburbs in the summertime (do not recommend!) DO actually play a role in her spiraling despair, but she comes to learn that the condition is something that she experiences, that "descends" on her, and that she will always have to live with this threat. There is nothing inevitable about her death in February 1963--and the novel helps us SEE that. When the metaphorical jar descends, she does nothing to bring it on, and there's the chilling sense that when she does relapse, there's not necessarily anything her healthy or rational mind can do to save her. (Depression as a kind of "hijacking" of the brain by disease.)
Hi Pieter, you somehow connected this post to both Coco and Nazi Germany in a comprehensible and smooth way. I think the hopelessness that Esther feels is one of this book's strongest features--both a positive and a negative. While Esther's hopelessness makes her harder to connect to, it also adds so much weight to the story itself. I also like that you don't outright say that Esther will die like Plath--that while her future looks bleak no one can truly know whether or not she will die.
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