The Bell Jar

3.5 - My rating is not based solely on how much I enjoyed the book because if it were, I would probably make it lower. I did not like it.

I love reading sad books and the idea of reading about her “decent into madness” intrigued me. I've heard so much about The Bell Jar and about how painfully accurate Plath's depiction of mental illness is, so I guess I was kind of hoping that I would find some parts of myself tucked away in the book and that it would be close to my heart. I was wrong. I felt disappointed at best, and at worst, like I finally aught to kill myself because that's supposedly the only thing that makes mental illness real. Disliking the book this much makes me feel like I have some sort of internalized phobia.

First of all, I just really did not like Esther :/ it feels awfully insensitive to say because I know this book is semi-autobiographical and Plath really did struggle, but Esther was insufferable. I mean, mann, I did not like her even before her breakdown but at least once she became depressed I felt a bit more empathy.

I get it. Being a women in the 1950s was hard and not everyone wants to get married or have a baby but why is that a reason to look down on those who do? In fact she looks down on nearly every single women/female companion in this book, it's ridiculous. In her eyes everyone is either boring, shallow, stupid or inferior. Even her mother! I could not understand for the life of me why she hated her mother so much. Even when she TRIED, nothing she did was ever good enough.

On top of that, I don't think having depression is an excuse to be racist or act like you are superior to other classes or ethnicities. I'm not even exaggerating, it made me feel like the book was set in the 30s. People continually defend the racist elements of this book as a product of the time blah blah blah and yes, I agree that those terms were common usage, but my annoyance came with her comparisons. Why is it every time she described herself as ugly, there just had to be a reference to some ethnicity. I do not think those descriptions were justified in the context or even good.

For example, there's a part where she writes

“I noticed a big smudgy-eyed Chinese women staring idiotically into my face. It was only me of course. I was appalled to see how wrinkled and used-up I looked.”

or when Doreen mentions that a guy is from Peru, Esther says “they're ugly as Aztecs.”

Like??? It left a bitter taste in my mouth. There was literally no need for it either. Comments like those would come out of nowhere and irked me. You can write a book where the character calls someone a Nigger a million times for all I care but don't go and expect me to sympathize.

Of course, the poignancy of The Bell Jar comes from the fact that Sylvia Plath successfully commits suicide a decade later, but even Esther's view of depression frustrated me too. Countless times she undermines the plight of other women in the ward because no one else could possiblyyyyy be struggling. Of course we're all more privy to our own struggles, but at some point you have to realize other people are hiding their issues just as well as you. Should I stop taking medication so I'll finally descend into madness and kill myself to prove I'm as sick as you? Of course not, that's ridiculous, yet time after time the book could not seem to get away from this proverbial hierarchy where Esther was judge, jury and executioner.

And it frustrates me because Sylvia Plath is an excellent writer and I did enjoy her prose. There were parts of the book that were lovely to read like her visit to her father's grave or her walk along the beach. I just wish more of the book could have been like that but evidently I wouldn't have complained this much if it was.