By Delaney Gouveia
Sylvia Plath’s iconic novel The Bell Jar follows 19-year-old Esther Greenwood as she navigates her struggles with mental health during the summer of 1953 in New York. This setting was one in which women’s health, both physical and mental, was wildly misunderstood and mistreated by the general public and medical professionals. Esther begins to grapple with issues of mental health during her time in New York. However, she manages to at least attempt to enjoy all of the opportunities afforded to her by her prestigious magazine internship. On her last night in New York, Esther is the victim of an attempted sexual assault, after which she rids herself of her “sad array of queerly cut forty-dollar dresses” as a way to cleanse herself of the experience (Plath 104). This ritual serves as a way for Esther to mourn the person she once was, describing the lighting of the surrounding buildings as being blackened, as if for a funeral. This use of clothing to depict Esther’s interaction with patriarchal structures continues throughout The Bell Jar, ultimately showing how Esther feels its constraints around her, like a queerly cut, too-tight dress.
After ridding herself of all her own clothing, Esther decides to trade her bathrobe for an outfit to wear on the train. This leaves her wearing an “unfamiliar skirt and blouse,” a green dirndl and frilly white button-up from Betsy, one of the girls with whom she lived in the Amazon Hotel and worked with during her internship (Plath 112). Esther has a complicated perception of Betsy, both admiring and mocking her for her “bouncing blond ponytail and Sweetheart-of-Sigma-Chi smile” as well as her seemingly effortless and strict adherence to the 1950’s ideals of womanhood and femininity (Plath 6). Betsy’s overly “sweet and friendly” nature leads Esther and her friend and fellow intern Doreen to bestow the nickname “Pollyanna Cowgirl” upon her (Plath 27). This nickname is double-edged, the word ‘Pollyanna’ — a colloquial term — poking fun at her excessively cheerful nature, and ‘cowgirl’ referencing her rural upbringing in Kansas. As Esther stares at her reflection in the window in Betsy’s clothing, she says out loud to herself: “Pollyanna Cowgirl” (Plath 112). Although it may seem like a passing comment, this is a moment of self-characterization. Esther’s audible recognition of herself as the archetype she’s assigned to Betsy shows how she is slowly starting to slip into this role.
As Esther arrives back home, this character of the “Pollyanna Cowgirl” that she has created for herself gains even more significance. On the car ride back from the train station, Esther finds out from her mother that she has not been accepted into the selective writing program which she had hoped would be her bridge over the “dull gulf of summer” (Plath 114). In this moment, Esther feels as though she is merely a “body in a white shirt and green blouse” and as she watches her plans unravel before her, this is essentially what she becomes (Plath 114). She does not feel like herself anymore, but rather a mere vessel for her costume, for the part she has begun to play. Esther does not seem to know whether she truly wants to be like this girl, for whom she holds a certain level of disdain. But, putting on this mask feels like the only way for her to hide the truth of her mental state, without showing any cracks in her facade. So outwardly, Esther plays the part that she assigns to her costume-like clothing: a girl who easily obeys and thrives under the patriarchal standards imposed upon her. Inwardly, however, she resents and feels trapped by these standards of beauty and decorum as her mental health continues to rapidly decline.
This green skirt and blouse follow Esther throughout her entire summer at home, marking her mostly unsuccessful attempts to convince herself and those around her that she is functioning normally. She wears this outfit consistently, its first appearance in the waiting room for her new psychiatrist Doctor Gordon’s office. This passage reveals that she hasn’t washed the clothes in three weeks, and they now give off a sour smell (Plath 127). Although Esther does not want to meet with Doctor Gordon, she reluctantly admits to him that she has been having trouble sleeping, eating, and writing since returning home from school. However, she pointedly decides not to tell Doctor Gordon about the problem that has been troubling her the most. This problem is that she cannot handwrite normally anymore, but rather makes “big, jerky letters like those of a child” (Plath 130). Esther does this because she wants to control the narrative, and clearly views this issue as more indicative of her “abnormality” than her ability to sleep or eat. She applauds herself for her cleverness, and decides that she “only need tell him what [she wants] to” (Plath 130). This impulse that she convinces herself is born of cleverness and ingenuity is instead driven by her desperation to prove that she is healthy. Esther tries to convince Doctor Gordon that she is suffering from something mild, and tries to convince herself that she is outsmarting him rather than blatantly lying to avoid his judgment. She concludes that if she can do these things, she will still be able to fill her role in society and keep up the facade she has so carefully constructed using the blouse and green skirt. Esther truly believes that if she can use her outfit as a front and play the part of the person she thinks she is supposed to be, she can keep moving on with her life, even if she is actively withering on the inside.
Another event in the story marked by Esther’s costume is her brief flirtation with a sailor at the Boston Commons. This also marks her most intense attempt to mold herself into the role that fits her clothing, as she creates a whole new fake persona in order to interact with him. This persona, which she used earlier in the story to interact with Doreen’s boyfriend Lenny, she calls Elly Higginbottom (Plath 132). Elly Higginbottom has a “sweet, quiet nature” similar to Betsy (Plath 132). Elly does not carry the weight of having “thrown up a scholarship… mucked up a month in New York and refused a perfectly solid medical student for a husband” (Plath 132). Esther longs to be simple and uncomplicated like Elly and Betsy. And since she cannot have what she longs for, she settles for playing the part. She walks quietly and listens to the sailor’s stories, giggling at all the right times and allowing him to “[stroke her] hip through the green dirndl skirt” (Plath 132). Esther becomes fully immersed in the character of Elly that she has created, hoping to escape herself temporarily. This is yet another example of how Esther is coping with internal and external pressure to maintain the outward appearance of normalcy. However, at this point in the story, Esther has accepted the fact that she is not alright. So instead of trying to convince others that she is doing well, she retreats into her costume and becomes somebody else entirely.
The final appearance of the blouse and dirndl skirt is right before Esther’s suicide attempt. This shows how deeply she has buried herself under this character, as she is willing to die in costume. Esther no longer has any illusions about her own wellbeing, and due to her treatment being botched and feeling hopeless, she decides to take her own life. The morning she resolves to do it, she “hurrie[s] into [her] white blouse and green figured skirt” as soon as she hears her mother’s car pull out of the driveway (Plath 167). However instead of attempting to overdose in her bathroom or bedroom, she decides to hole herself up in a corner of her basement, hoping not to be found. Before she does this however, she leaves a note for her mother. It is not a typical suicide note, saying goodbye or explaining her decision. Instead, she writes a note on the back of an envelope that simply says “I am going for a long walk” (Plath 167). This is Esther’s last and most desperate attempt to convince those surrounding her that she is okay. Instead of wanting to be found by her family, Esther hopes to disappear forever behind the shield of her skirt and blouse. If she succeeds at this last-ditch attempt to convince her family that she is not struggling as much as she is, then she can cement the image of herself in their mind as she would like to be remembered: a portrait of the perfect young woman in her perfect little outfit. She wants those she loves to be under the impression that something befell her on her walk, rather than knowing the truth that her death was self-inflicted. Despite Esther being crushed under the weight of her own mind, her mother is under the impression that she has “decide[d] to be all right again” (Plath 146). Esther’s note allows her to believe this, to believe that her daughter is able to function in society, and live up to the near constant perfection that it expects of her. And this would have been the case, were her mother not to have found her.
After she is brought to the hospital and treated, Esther is given a whole new wardrobe, which signifies her freedom from the role of the “Pollyanna Cowgirl.” Although the road to recovery at the state hospital is filled with struggle, she is soon moved to a better facility due to the generosity of her scholarship sponsor Philomena Guinea. In this facility, Esther begins the process of parsing her own thoughts and understanding herself better. After several months of successful treatment by a new and competent doctor, Esther is finally ready for the board interview which determines if she is fit to leave. Waiting for her interview, Esther is described as wearing a “red wool suit as flamboyant as [her] plans” (Plath 244). This piece of clothing is the complete opposite of Besty’s clothing in two ways. It is red, which is the diametric opposite of green on the color wheel. Most notably however, it is a suit, a garment typically associated with men, whereas skirts are associated with women. These two stark differences make it obvious that this is not another costume for a role she feels that she has to fill. With this final transition, she sheds her facade and begins the journey to outwardly accepting her full, authentic self.
Esther’s journey ends on an uplifting, if slightly ambiguous note. However, her interactions with other characters throughout The Bell Jar shows just how easy it is for those around her to ignore the things that she has papered over with her new, perfect mask. And although this pretending is an active choice that Esther makes, it is not borne out of the desire to become a new version of herself, but a clear desperation to hide from herself and others. The time period she lives within, and the patriarchal values ingrained so deeply into it, routinely overlook and dismiss women’s issues. Esther knows that her struggles will not be viewed in a sympathetic light, but rather seen as character flaws. So instead of opening herself up to criticism and ridicule by being honest, she lies. If only somebody in her life were sharp-eyed and empathetic enough to see through the green skirt and white blouse to the woman beneath, Esther could have been pulled out of her spiral before ending up at rock bottom.
Works Cited
Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. Harper Perennial, 2013.
