‘If Sylvia Plath hadn't already killed herself, she probably would’ve if she saw the new cover of her only novel The Bell Jar.’
So wrote one feminist blogger after seeing the Faber redesign, which shows a young woman pouting into a cosmetics compact. The ensuing furore has drawn huge attention to the book.
It was featured on BBC Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime during February, providing an opportunity to completely bypass the cover debate and get straight to the content. Andrew Wilson’s biography of Plath’s early life was also published in February, and sheds light on the deeply autobiographical nature of The Bell Jar (1963). Now that readers have re-encountered the text in the context of Plath’s life story, what might the classic work have to say to a new generation of readers?
Sexual purity
The Bell Jar is about Esther Greenwood, a girl who wins a place on a summer internship at a major magazine. On arriving in New York she spends her time reading manuscripts, attending parties, gorging on caviar until she is sick and embarking on several failed romantic encounters. She feels confused and uncomfortable; Esther knows that should be having the time of her life soaking in the glamorous lifestyle presented to her, but instead sinks into depression.
The only thing that can sometimes help is a hot bath, which becomes a symbolic baptism: ‘I guess I feel about a hot bath the way those religious people feel about holy water. [...] All that liquor and those sticky kisses I saw and the dirt that settled on my skin on the way back is turning into something pure’. Her interest in purity stems from a deep frustration that she feels about the moral codes of her day and, in particular, the sexual taboos.
As a child of the 60s, she is faced with a barrage of views about sexual ethics. She is utterly absorbed with concerns about her own identity as a sexual being, full of ‘soggy desire’. This seems to go against her conscience, which wills her to purity and abstinence. In our culture, these conflicting messages still exist. The increasing sexualisation of young teenagers, and the unprecedented levels of sexual freedom afforded to young people promote the message that anything goes. Nonetheless, excessive promiscuity — particularly among females — can provoke harsh reactions.
Achievement addicts
Another of Esther’s problems is that she is desperate to succeed, to escape ‘the whole sprawling paraphernalia of suburban childhood’ and the poor economic situation of her fatherless family. For her, if the question is how to leave her past behind, ‘education was the answer’. Esther becomes, in her own words, ‘addicted to achievement’ of any kind, and yet is frantically uncertain how to go about finding fulfilment in life.
She describes it like this: ‘I saw my life branching out before me like [a] green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned [...] I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree [...] I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet’.
In our current meritocracy we can easily sympathise with her.
It is increasingly common to hear stories of young graduates who have been trained at school to work hard, who have the motivation to succeed, and yet, when they are faced with the world of work, feel utterly disillusioned. They are overwhelmed with opportunities and confused about which path to take.
New resonances
The Bell Jar is a book very much of its time, and yet it has new resonances for our time about the problems that occur when young people are faced with total sexual freedom, and become addicted to achievement. They may seem to have endless opportunities within their grasp, but they lack a guide to show them how to make the important decisions that lie ahead of them. These are both areas into which Christians can speak and I encourage you to do so, for The Bell Jar shows the traumatic consequences for those who have no one to reach out to them, and who become lost in the conflict and confusion.
Rachel Helen Smith works as an events planner and freelance writer in Cambridge. More of her articles are available at http://www.rachelhelensmith.com
