872 Plath, sylvia
self-exclusionary and she is forced to choose. What
finally sparks her depression and suicide attempt
is her failure to make the summer writing course.
When that is taken away, she has no structure or
meaning to her life.
Eric Leuschner
ILLneSS in The Bell Jar
In many ways, the primary theme of Sylvia Plath’s
The Bell Jar is that of illness. The novel’s main narra-
tive line follows Esther Greenwood’s psychological
breakdown, a mental illness that leads her to attempt
suicide and results in her confinement to an institu-
tion to undergo electroshock therapy. In addition to
Esther’s illness, however, Plath interweaves a variety
of illnesses into the novel to reflect and underscore
Esther’s. These multiple images constitute a novel
that is ultimately about the illness of the modern
world that contributes to Esther’s—and, by exten-
sion, all women’s—suffering.
The novel’s opening lines describe Esther being
“sick” at the idea of the execution (by electric chair)
of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, which reminds her
of the first time she saw a cadaver, the head imag-
ined “like some black, noseless balloon stinking of
vinegar.” Esther also recalls visiting her boyfriend,
Buddy Willard, and touring the medical school.
She sits in on a lecture on sickle-cell anemia, where
patients are wheeled onto the stage, questioned
briefly, and quickly wheeled off. She also hears an
ominous description of a young girl who dies shortly
after discovering a mole on her cheek. The feeling of
sickness manifests for Esther in a case of ptomaine
food poisoning that affects 11 of the girls, includ-
ing Esther, participating in the New York intern
program. As the Rosenberg execution foreshadows
Esther’s later electroshock therapy, where she feels
what it is like “being burned alive all along your
nerves,” this physiological sickness sets up the men-
tal illness Esther later experiences.
What is even more frightening is the public
attitude toward illness portrayed in the novel. The
prevailing solution to illness in the novel is to ignore
it and forget it. The card sent by the Ladies’ Day
magazine following the food poisoning shows little
real concern for the girls: “The front of the card
showed a poodle in a flowered bedjacket sitting in a
poodle basket with a sad face, and the inside of the
card showed the poodle lying down in the basket
with a little smile, sound asleep under an embroi-
dered sampler that said, ‘You’ll get well best with lots
and lots of rest.’ At the bottom of the card somebody
had written, ‘Get well quick! from all of your good
friends at Ladies’ Day,’ in lavender ink.” Similarly, at
the hospital, Buddy tells Esther that women giving
birth are given a drug that would make them forget
the pain of labor and hints that she might be given
that drug as well.
Illness in The Bell Jar is not limited to women.
Buddy’s illness, tuberculosis, is also treated by isola-
tion and rest: He is “taking the cure for TB some-
where in upper New York State.” Esther ascribes his
illness to his belief in sexual double standards; she
describes it as “a punishment for living the kind of
double life Buddy lived.” But Buddy suffers from
the societal ignorance as well, especially when his
father, who “simply couldn’t stand the sight of sick-
ness,” returns home after only a brief visit. Yet there
is a difference in Buddy’s illness. Although it, too,
is an internal disease, “like living with a bomb in
your lung,” the outer manifestation is the opposite
of what Esther expects. Instead of being wasted
away, she finds Buddy to be fat, with a pot belly and
plump cheeks. This contrasts with Esther’s illnesses
and suggests again the double standard at the base
of the novel.
Suffused with images and description of illness
in the first half, the novel ultimately turns to the
mental breakdown brought on by the increasing
social pressures that Esther discovers as she comes
of age. With the illness and disease imagery firmly
established, it becomes clear that Plath views the
mental breakdown not as something caused by an
intrinsic weakness but as an illness with a specific
cause. While Esther’s response to problems often
exacerbates the situation by her withdrawing, as in
the bathtub where she slowly imagines everything
but herself dissolving, Plath pinpoints the major
problem as those social forces, imagined in the titu-
lar image of the bell jar itself: the double standard of
a male-dominated society; the false promises offered
to girls of having both a career and family; and the
institutions that enforce them, including the univer-
sity and the medical establishment. Although Esther