Confusion Of Gender Roles In The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath

Confusion of Gender Roles in The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath

There is a specific difference between the gender and sex of an individual. The gender of a person refers to whether they identify as male or female socially. The sex of an individual regards their internal organs and chromosomes. In the 1950’s, the people of America were divided into extremely specific groups of male or female. Depending on a persons gender group, they were expected to follow certain rules and theories of living. In the novel The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, the audience can recognize these gender roles. Esther, although a woman, fantasizes of playing the role of a male in society. Her sex indicates she contains organs of a female, but her mind desires to be a male.
In more current social terms, Esther would fall under the category of a transgender. Through symbolism in the novel, suicide as an escape, rebellion and writing, Esther reveals to the readers this desire for a different life.
The first symbol the audience is introduced to is a bell jar. It describes quite accurately the novels overall feelings in Esther’s mind. A bell jar encloses an object and the object cannot be released until it either dies from suffocation or someone helps it out. The bell jar in Esther’s life is a symbolic representation for the body she believes she is trapped in, this being, the body of a female. She wishes throughout the novel to be released from her current sex and take on the gender of a male. One will notice the remarks Sylvia Plath writes about Esther looking in the mirror relating to the feelings Esther has of being trapped in a female body. Each time a mirror is mentioned, Esther is unable to identify who exactly is looking back at her. The image reflected back is never who she expects, because it does not
match what she is feeling inside: “[t]he mirror over my bureau seemed slightly warped and much too silver. The face in it looked like the reflection in a ball of dentist’s mercury” (Plath, 20). This quote is taken from a scene at the beginning of the novel when Esther is in her New York hotel room. However, later on, it is still evident Esther is not happy with who she is. When she is in the hospital after trying to kill herself, the nurse hands her a mirror and she says, “[a]t first I didn’t see what the trouble was. It was not a mirror at all, but a picture. You couldn’t tell whether the person was a man or a woman” (Plath, 183). Esther knows the utter confusion she is in when she looks into this mirror. She see’s both the man that she is in her mind and the woman her body presents to the world. It is not until Esther’s head had been shaved and her face beaten, taking away any soft features of a woman, that she somewhat identifies with a male figure looking back at her.
The act of suicide is also predominant throughout The Bell Jar. Like the symbol of a bell jar, and the confusion of her reflection in mirrors, suicide represents the hate Esther feels for her body. In her mind her thoughts mostly correspond to those of a males. But her body, Esther is aware, is a reproducing machine. She needs to commit suicide by harming her body, in order to be rid of what makes her female. In one scene, when Esther first comes home from her trip to New York, she wraps a silk tie around her neck and sets out to look for a beam in her house, high enough choke herself: “[t]hat morning I tried to kill myself” (Plath, 166). In the novel, suicide is a reoccurring concept that Esther debates. On page 101 of The art of dying: Suicide in the works of Kate Chopin and Sylvia Plath, it is argued that Plath’s suicide develops from self-loathing. One could argue that because Esther’s story is close to an exact autobiography of the author Sylvia Plath, Esther’s attempts at suicide is in fact also the result of self-loathing. To self-loath is to hate oneself, which Esther is guilty of. Each time she attempts to commit suicide, she is attempting to destroy her female body.
In America, in the 1950’s where The Bell Jar is set, there were roles that women and men were to fill.
Women had the stereotypical roles, one would identify with today. They were to cook, clean and take care of the children, which essentially, would keep the men happy. Men were able to set out on trips, work and maintain some aspect of authority within society. The book Eye Rhymes focuses on the works of Sylvia Plath. Kathleen Connors and Sally Bayley, also argues this gender differentiation between males and females: “Stevenson hit up two central issues of the fifties: firstly, the role of the wife and other in the service of her husband and children as inculcator of morality and social purpose; and secondly, the fifties domestic policy of containment of the female” (184). Although these rules were known among society, Esther always appeared to want to rebel against them. This is due to her consistent desire to be a male rather then what she physically appears to be. The audience can see multiple examples throughout the text that demonstrates Esther’s rebellion. Her boyfriend Buddy reveals to Esther that he has had a female partner in bed, while he was with Esther. At this time females who had recreational sexual encounters were greatly frowned upon. A female should save herself for the man she is to marry. Esther, however, has different thoughts on this topic. It is evident that she thinks more like a male then a female, “If it had been any other boy I would have merely
have asked him the most interesting details, and maybe gone out and slept with somebody myself just to even things up, and then thought no more about it” (Plath, 74). Esther does not seem phased by Buddy telling her he has slept around, but more intrigued by it. Later on in the novel, Esther goes as far as to sleep with a random stranger she meets one day at the library: “I wanted to ask him if I was still a virgin, but I felt too unsettled” (Plath, 241). Esther rebels against the female norms of this time period because she so desperately wishes to lead the life of a male. For further evidence, Esther speaks about one of her friends Doreen, who has a life that is much closer to a males then a female. Doreen sleeps around with various men, drinks, and parties and ignores the social norms that prohibit such behaviour. Esther mentions Doreen as someone she almost admires, “Doreen has intuition. Everything she said was like a secret voice speaking straight out of my own bones” (Plath, 7), Esther is drawn to those women who are less feminine. The “bad girl” persona Doreen possesses, intrigues Esther, she is interested in the idea of rebelling against female norms and adapting the norms of a male.
Besides the rebellion against sex, Esther also wishes to lead a life of a male through writing. In the 1950’s if a women wanted to be a writer, it would mean having the ability to put her own thoughts out into the social sphere. At this time, only men were capable of doing this. Women were more likely to take up a job as a secretary, if any were available. However, even as a secretary, a woman was still recording words that a man dictates. Esther was against a secretarial job and wanted to have her own sense of authority in the world. Esther wanted more than anything to have the life of a man, to posses the gender role of a male and lose her outer appearance of a female altogether. Through writing she was able to rebel against the gender role society has placed upon her. At the beginning of the novel the audience reads about this glamorous trip Esther receives to go to New York. Typically, women love being ravished and treated. Esther, though, complains often about this trip and although surround by famous female publishers and having the opportunity to go to fabulous parties, Esther cannot bring herself to enjoy these girl-like things: “I guess I should have been excited the way most of the other girls were, but I couldn’t get myself to react. I felt very still and very empty” (Plath, pg.3). Esther identifies in her mind with not being similar to the girls. It is as if Esther is subconsciously aware of her lust to be a male, that she cannot even pretend, most of the time, to enjoy female things. In the book, The Woman in the Attic, it is argued that, “The women writer-and we shall see women doing this over and over again-searches for a female model not because she wants dutifully to comply with male definitions of her ‘femininity’ but because she must legitimize her own rebellious endeavors” (50). Again, relating back to the fact that Sylvia Plath is writing The Bell Jar as it appeared in her life, one will see that she does recall all the rebellious adventures of Esther. It could be argued though, that Plath does this in order to make her male-identity more evident to herself and the people reading her works. When something is written and published on paper, it appears more real than a thought or mere gossip told between people. Esther works for a woman named Jay Cee in the novel. Jay Cee is one of the only women Esther respects throughout all of the texts. It is ironic though, that Jay Cee is more masculine than feminine. At the early stages of the book, Doreen is insulting Jay Cees looks, referring to her as ugly (6). Despite this, Esther chimes in and explains to the audience that, “Jay Cee was my boss and I liked her a lot, in spite of what Doreen said. She wasn’t one of the fashion magazine gushers with fake eyelashes and giddy jewelry” (Plath, 6). Esther specifically likes Jay Cee due to the fact she is not feminine in any sense. She looks more like a male than a female and she possesses an authoritarian job as a publisher. It is interesting to note that this genre of women is who intrigues and receives respect from Esther. Esther fantasizes about her life as a male when she speaks to the readers about her future aspirations: “and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America” (Plath, 81). Esther wishes to write, teach or travel the world. This is another example of her wishing to rebel against her role as a female, into the world of males. When Esther returns home from New York, she seemingly goes “mad.” Her mother thinks she is mentally insane and tells people this is due to the fact she can no longer write; this theory Esther confirms when she repeats, countless times to her Doctors that she cannot eat, sleep or write (142). Esther becomes mental, when she loses the ability to do the one thing that makes her masculine, which is to write. Without writing she will not be able to produce work and assume an authoritarian role in society. Without mentally knowing she is still a male inside, she is unable to go on with life. Esther respects Jay Cee for having more masculine features about her, where as she resents her mother and Buddy’s mother, for being like the stereotypical woman of that time. Esther refuses and appears to have anxieties as well as fears about motherhood. She speaks negatively about Buddy’s mom and the concept of marriage: “but I knew that’s what marriage was like, because cook and clean and wash was just what Buddy Willard’s mother did from morning till night” (Plath, 89). Esther wants nothing to do with the idea of getting married and conforming to what it is to be a woman. The audience also recognizes Esther’s anxiety of being a mother, through the imagery of fetuses in the novel: “and the baby in the last bottle was the size of a normal baby and he seemed to be looking at me and smiling a little piggy smile. I was quite proud of the way I stared at these gruesome things” (Plath, 66). Esther is appalled by the images of fetuses. This is an example of how Esther resents becoming a mother and confirming her sexual identity. In the novel, once Esther has lost her male-side and the ability to write she goes insane and is submitted into a mental institution. It would make logical sense that the only way to fix Esther would be to obtain that male character again. After Esther has sex with the random stranger, she bleeds for quite sometime and seeks medical help.
“’I can see,’” “the doctor bent down, “ “’exactly where the trouble is coming from.’”
“But can you fix it?”/“The doctor laughed.” “’Oh I can fix it, all right’” (Plath, 246).
The doctor is talking about giving Esther an abortion. After engaging in her sexual encounter she gets pregnant and has a miscarriage. The doctor removes the baby, which essentially is a symbol of Esther femininity. Motherhood is the one thing Esther fears and greatly associates with being a woman. When Esther gets rid of the child, she lets go of the fear of being a female. After this event takes place, the audience can see Esther gets better from her “illness” and is finally put on trial to be allowed to leave. Esther can continue on now being a male internally and this makes her sane again.
Esther’s sex indicates she contains the organs of a female and typically, in the 1950’s, a woman should accept who she is and conform to the stereotype. However, Esther is drawn to and displays more male-gendered desires. The audience is able to see this through symbolism, suicide, rebellion and writing in The Bell Jar, it becomes apparent to the audience, that Esther does in fact possess the mind of a male. Although Esther can see that her genetic make up makes society view her as a female, she is determined to prove to herself that she can assume the gender role of a man and essentially complete becoming a transgender.

Works Cited

Connors, Kathleen, and Sally Bayley. "Chapter 5: Sylvia Plath and the Costume of Femininity” Eye rhymes: Sylvia Plath 's art of the visual. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 2007. 184. Print.

Gentry, Deborah S.. "Chapter 3: At Ease At the Gate." The art of dying: suicide in the works of Kate Chopin and Sylvia Plath. New York: Peter Lang: 2006. 101. Web.

Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. "Chapter 2: Infection in the Sentence: The Woman Writer and the Anxiety of Authorship." The madwoman in the attic: the woman writer and the nineteenth-century literary imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press: 1979. 50. Print.

Plath, Sylvia. The bell jar. 1966. Reprint. London: Faber & Faber, 1999. Print.