The Bell Jar

 

I am I am I am. 

You are a tree. You are the very trunk of the tree that you are sitting in and there are branches all around you. Each branch is a boy, a job, an idea, a city, a country. Each branch is an option. There is absolutely nothing holding you back, nothing that is going to push you from your place as the trunk of that tree, except for one thing: Time. 

First you have until the end of the month, then the week. Then. Then people, the ones you love, start offering up your options; So you didn't get into that writing course, why not take another summer course? Why not learn short-hand? Why not get ahead of the game and start your thesis? Why not, why not... 

Why not in your mind turns into why bother. Why bother changing out of pajamas when you will put them back on at night? Why bother changing into pajamas at all. Why bother washing your hair every single day. Why bother eating? You can't sleep. You go a few nights, a week, an entire month without sleeping. It's because of the damn tree. All those branches, which one do you grab? You wait too long and they all wither and die. 

Esther Greenwood can't write. She can't physically write out a note, or even a letter. She is an A student, she studies and studies and does not know when to stop. Until she is home one Summer, the Summer when she realized why she cannot write. She has no experience in anything.  Esther can't sleep so she is sent to therapy. It doesn't work, and she is sent for electroshock therapy. That, that goes wrong. Esther just wants to sleep, so she carefully swallows an entire bottle of pills, writes a note to her Mother, telling her that she is going for a long walk, then proceeds to crawl under her house. She is found and sent to an institution, which is a branch, just not the one she wanted to reach for.

Esther's anxieties are the same as almost any post-grad, what do you do with your life when you are done with college. Only Esther's come before she even graduates. She knows one thing, she wants to write. The problem? She has not experienced anything to write about. What value is your life, when your mind can't cooperate with your one desire? Esther's mission then begins to be that of understanding, acceptance, and finally, control.

Sylvia Plath 

The entire time I read this book, stereotypical as it is going to come off as, I felt her. I associated with her. I eat my food in a bizarre yet manner-of-fact way, I assume that if I look like I know what I am doing it is perfectly fine to eat that way. When I am faced with something new that I am shocked over, beyond words, I typically just nod and act like I have been exposed to it before. I am blunt. Oh and I am an English major. One that wants to be a writer and not a teacher. But there is this one issue...I have not experienced anything yet. I however do not feel that I need to experience placing my head inside an oven a la the ingenious, yet tragic Sylvia Plath so fear not. 

Oh and before I forget, the lovely Amanda from The Upside of Wonder featured me on one of her "looks I love" posts, go check out all the other awesome girls who were featured! Thanks Amanda!!