Did Esther Greenwood "Come of Age?"
As Plath’s The Bell Jar serves as a narrative basis for an English class entitled “Coming of Age Novel,” I began to ponder its role in such a category. Did Esther Greenwood truly come of age in this novel? More importantly, is this the story she would want to tell? Are Esther’s final moments in the book sufficient enough to regard her as having come of age? I wonder if Esther really has come to anything, or just away from her desire to not come of age.
Truthfully, these are difficult questions to answer particularly because it’s very difficult to define “coming of age.” Yes, Esther physically survived another year that she almost did not. Does the fact that she survived until her senior year of college mean she “made it?” Did she come to some magically predetermined age? I would argue instead that coming of age is not about surviving until an arbitrary point, but rather arriving there after having experiences that shape a person; in a sense becoming the person you’ll be for the rest of your life. In Esther’s case that begs the question: what specifically are we referring to and who is she now? The “what,” is simple: surviving. By the end of the book Esther successfully escaped a suffocating bubble of mental health issues she called the bell jar. Before her recovery she had previously remarked that her case was “incurable” (Plath 159). She not only lacked motive to live, but battled against her body in countless attempts to take her own life. After going through doctors, hospitals, shock treatments, and therapist conversations, Esther eventually crossed a threshold of freedom. The threshold she crossed was both tangible and intangible as she entered a door to visit a board of doctors while also crossing mental barriers regarding her will to live.
The meaning behind this journey Esther took comes from the changes within herself that followed. Upon reflection of her experiences Esther says they “were a part of me. They were my landscape” (Plath 237). She doesn’t just regard her journey as an event, but deems it significant to her current identity. So, has she come of age? Yes. Esther has found herself through an experience she never desired to have. There is certainty that she emerged as a new person because the person she “was,” didn’t want to be alive, in fact, she tried to die. Thus, even though she ends the book with slight anxiety about the bell jar’s return, she also found freedom from its intoxicating air long enough to breathe in the possibility of a future. Who is she now and where will she go? It’s hard to say. I do believe, however, that we can confidently regard her experience as one that has changed her and shaped her future, effectively coming of age.
I think it is nice to say that she was changed by her experiences, but not necessarily give it a label of "Coming of Age". Your mention of crossing a threshold both physically and not is a key point to these boundaries. One can't always define changing moments in their life, but there are checkpoints and reference points for it. Well done, Julia!
ReplyDeleteI agree when I finished the novel I also wasn't sure if Esther had come of age. She goes through a lot and survives something she once thought was impossible to escape, but the ending still doesn't feel resolved to me. I like your point that coming of age is about reaching a certain age but about the experiences that shape who someone becomes. In Esther's case, surving the bell jar and realizing that those experiences are now part of her does seem like a kind of coming of age. At the same time, the bell jar could return, but I think by the end she has at least moved toward the possibility of a future, something she couldn't imagine earlier in the novel. Great post Julia!
ReplyDeleteHey Julia! I really liked how you questioned whether Esther actually “comes of age” or simply moves away from the point where she didn’t want to live. I also thought your point about her crossing both a physical and mental threshold at the end was insightful, and makes the ending feel less like a resolution and more like the beginning of a new future. Overall, great blog Julia!
ReplyDeleteHi Julia! You pose a lot of intriguing questions, and our understanding of said questions are vital to interpreting the book in a Coming-of-Age Novel class. I like your overarching message about how "coming of age" is an arbitrary thing and can't be pinned down to one event like making it through senior year of college. I thought about these questions a lot during discussion, and you put it into words beautifully. Great job!
ReplyDeleteI love how you define coming-of-age as not a set point, but rather having experienced identity-changing events, which in Esther's case present themselves as survival of a mental health crisis. I agree that coming-of-age should not be defined as simply "going through" experiences, but reflecting upon them and using them to build one's identity. For Esther, that means acknowledging her struggle and how her future and identity may be shaped by that struggle.
ReplyDeleteHi Julia!! I really enjoyed reading your blog post. I found it interesting that you asked so many interesting questions that I never really thought to think about. I completely agree with you that Esther did come of age because she did find herself during a difficult time for her. I thought the points that you made were really good. Good Job!!!
ReplyDeleteI think about our first discussion in this course here, when we talked about coming-of-age as a gradual kind of transition that doesn't easily fit into simple landmarks and rites of passage. We should get used to the idea of the *inconclusive* coming-of-age, as we see in _Catcher_ and _The Bell Jar_, where we can see significant growth and development in the protagonist, but the process is not necessarily "complete" (which raises questions about whether it is EVER really "complete" for any of us). We may not be able to conclusively declare Esther as having "come of age" at the close of the novel--and we never do get the scene where she is evaluated by the committee of experts--but this final chapter is so packed with details that imply coming-of-age, a kind of wisdom and courage to accept this while ordeal as "part of her landscape" that she will not hide from or deny, that it's hard not to see it as a surprisingly optimistic ending for such a dark book. We have Esther literally stepping across a threshold into a room of adult "experts" who will assess her fitness to rejoin society--that's about as explicit a coming-of-age "rite" as we're going to see in modern fiction.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog! I think it's really interesting how unique of a coming of age Esther had. In an odd way, her own survival was a testament of her coming of age. Also, I totally agree that Esther's coming of age is shaped by all the treatment she received (doctors, hospitals, etc.). Because of those treatments Esther underwent major change, finding in herself a new person that, unlike her previous self, had a "motive to live". Even though there is a slight concern about the return of the bell jar, at the very least Esther had started the journey of coming of age.
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