The Bell Jar - chapters 16-20
Reading the end of the novel
This is the final part of our buddy-read!
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In case you’re not caught up, here are the earlier parts…
I hope you’re all doing okay after last week’s instalment. Let’s see where we are with Esther now…
Spoilers ahead!!
We left Esther being introduced to her room-neighbour, Joan. After reading about Esther in the paper, Joan was convinced to make something of a copycat attempt. We’ve heard of Joan before - she dated Buddy before Esther did, and when Buddy visits to invite Esther to the Yale Junior Prom in chapter 5, Esther has been envious of Joan having been to Yale for the weekend with him. In the night, Esther wakes up having had “a reaction” - pleasing the nurses and Dr Nolan. Esther is relieved that the reaction will put her stream of visitors on pause, and she’ll no longer face their judgements of her.
Joan has moved to Belsize House, further on in her recovery than Esther, and so Esther is pleased but nervous when she, too, is told that she’ll be moving “up”. She monitors the habits of the nurses closely, seeing which patients will be receiving shock treatments by their lack of breakfast trays, and she feels betrayed by Dr Nolan when it is her turn to go without breakfast. Dr Nolan herself escorts Esther for her shock treatment, and it is - as she had promised - very different to what she experienced before.
Her treatments go well, and Esther is given walking privileges (which Joan has had revoked in a step backwards). Buddy writes to both Esther and Joan, asking to visit. Esther is ambivalent, but Joan wants to see Mrs Willard, who is close friends with her mother.
Esther (not a girls-girl, much like Sylvia Plath, perhaps) catches Joan with DeeDee, another patient, in her room, and is disgusted when Joan tells Esther that she likes her “better than Buddy.”
“I don’t see what women see in other women,” I told Dr Nolan in my interview that noon. “What does a woman see in a woman that she can’t see in a man?”
Dr Nolan paused. Then she said, “Tenderness.” That shut me up.
Esther has told Dr Nolan that she feels trapped by the possibility of pregnancy, that she doesn’t want to find herself tied to a man and a baby, that it makes her not feel as free as she feels she deserves to. Dr Nolan arranges an appointment for her to get fitted for a contraceptive, and Esther returns from the appointment to the hospital, feeling accomplished and deciding that her next step should be to find a “proper man.”
Joan moves out of the hospital into something of a halfway-house. Esther, too, is granted more freedoms and with her new privileges, she goes out to a college bar where she meets Irwin, a maths professor. She decides that he is the man she should lose her virginity to. However, Esther haemorrhages at his apartment, bleeding through the sheets and a towel and into her shoes, and she decides she should leave. Fearful of going back to the hospital and the questions they’ll ask, she goes to Joan for help, and after being unable to find a doctor willing to help, Joan takes her to an emergency room where Esther’s bleeding is finally staunched.
A few days after the event, Joan has moved back to Belsize, for reasons Esther doesn’t quite understand and feels slightly guilty for. A doctor comes to ask Esther if she has seen Joan, as she had gone into town and not returned. Esther cannot help, but suggests her housemate, or her family, or a delayed taxi. Doctor Quinn comes back in the early morning to tell her that Joan has been found in the woods.
Esther is awaiting an interview with the hospital board, for them to decide if she is well enough to leave and return to college. Buddy visits, and asks Esther if there is something about him that “drives women crazy,” after what has happened with both her and Joan. Esther laughs at him, and he snipes at her, asking who would want to marry her now after she’s been hospitalised. Esther calls Irwin to tell him that he needs to pay her hospital bill, and is glad that he won’t be able to find her, having only Joan’s old address to go by.
Joan’s mother invites Esther to Joan’s funeral, and Esther goes, finding a peace in listening to her own heart beating. We leave her, in the present, “patched, retreaded, and approved for the road,” nervously waiting outside the boardroom.
I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart.
I am, I am, I am.
Some bits and pieces for this week…
“Brag” vs “Bray” - in the edition I’m reading now, and I’m pretty sure in the others I own (I can’t check because they’re in boxes still…), it says “brag,” and to me that makes the most sense - boasting, full of life, having overcome the odds - but what do you think?
The cinematic sad girl: exploring the cultural misunderstanding of Sylvia Plath
Thank you so much for reading along, and for messaging me with your thoughts! We’re going to read Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus next, so grab a copy and keep your eyes peeled for our readalong dates!