The Bell Jar - chapters 6-10
Fig trees and flashbacks
Part two!
ICYMI, we’re buddy-reading the novel over the next few weeks, and each Friday, I’ll post something like this, with bits and pieces to read, watch or listen to at your own pace, and the comments are open for you to discuss.
The buddy reads are for everyone to join in on, but if you’re considering a subscription, you’ll gain access to writing prompts and community posts, plus discounts on our courses and workshops. This Substack is reader-supported, and paid subscriptions mean I can do more of it!
In case you’re not caught up, find chapters 1-5 here
Spoilers ahead!!
We’ve just read up to the end of chapter ten - halfway!
Esther’s internship in New York is coming to an end, and she’s thinking about what to do with herself now that it’s done. She thinks back to when Buddy took her along to his medical school, where she proved herself unshakeable in the cadaver room, before they go to see a baby being born. Will, a third year med student, warns her: “They oughtn’t to let women watch. It’ll be the end of the human race.” The scene inside the room is confronting; Esther watches the woman give birth, gives a terrifying description of an episiotomy, and tells Buddy that she “could watch something like that every day.”
Later, Buddy undresses for her, and Esther is underwhelmed by both his fishnet underwear and his naked body. She finds out that Buddy is not a virgin, and she’s irritated by his hypocrisy - she feels cheated. After some deliberation, she decides that she’ll break up with him when he calls to tell her that he has TB and will be going to the Adirondacks to recover. Esther employs a decent amount of victim-blaming for his illness and is relieved that she has been given an excuse to stay at home and study without having to justify it.
Back in the present, Esther is on a date with Constantin, whose job and friends at the UN prompt her to start questioning what she wants from her own life. She thinks back to the story in the book she was given, about the fig tree, and pictures her own potential futures. She decides that she’ll let Constantin seduce her, despite his too-shortness, to even her up to Buddy. Back at Constantin’s, however, they fall asleep and Esther imagines a dull, married future as a housewife.
Flashing back to a visit with Buddy in the Adirondacks as he recovers, Esther remembers his proposal to her, her awful impulse to laugh. She tells him that she’s decided to never get married. They go skiing, and in an incident mirroring Plath’s own, she breaks her leg in two places.
The last days of the internship fly past, with Esther increasingly hallucinating and retreating within herself, in a panic about what she’s going to do once she leaves New York. On her last night in the city, she’s on a double date with Doreen and Lenny, and it’s going very badly. Marco immediately reminds Esther of a snake she’s seen at the zoo; he bruises her arm when he claims her as his date, and Esther realises he is “a woman-hater.” When Esther refuses to dance with him, he steers her outside to the garden, where he throws her into the dirt. Esther thinks; “If I just lie here and do nothing it will happen”, before Marco rips her dress, calls her a slut, and Esther pulls her might together and punches him, breaking his nose. She escapes, leaves the party and goes back to the hotel, where she goes out onto the roof and throws all of her clothes out to the night air.
The next morning, Esther returns home, bedraggled and wearing borrowed clothes. She cancels her summer school place, learning that she was not accepted for a writing course, and writes to Buddy to break up with him. Her mother tries to teach her shorthand (another Plath mirror), but Esther has no interest. She is not sleeping, cannot read, is woefully underqualified for any job she might want, and is increasingly unmoored. Seeking sleeping pills, she makes a doctor’s appointment and is referred to Dr Gordon, a psychiatrist.
A lot going on in this second quarter! Lots of flashbacks, big turning points in Esther’s mental health, but also in formative experiences, creating her ideas of the world she wants to live in, versus the one she does live in.
Some bits and pieces for this week…
This podcast, from The Wing, was great - I’m linking the podcast on Spotify, but it’s still on Apple Podcasts too.
Still to come:
Friday 7 June — chapters 11-15
Friday 14 June — chapters 16-20