Joan

On the surface Joan Gilling appears to have followed a path eerily similar to Esther’s. Both girls were high academic achievers, both dated Buddy, and both end up in a psych ward. The fundamental distinction is in their demeanor: whereas Joan has a tendency to yield to outside influences while perpetuating a self-confident guise, Esther delegates her trust and admiration to people sparingly and has been experiencing spells of self-doubt. So what role does Joan play in Esther’s narrative? Notice how Joan explains she was only inspired to kill herself after religiously following Esther’s story in the media -- this does not discredit her mental instability, but rather serves to corroborate it. And why did she kill herself? Does she want to be Esther or with her? True, Joan does appear to imply she has feelings for Esther and may even feel wounded that Esther would sleep with Irwin, but all things considered, this detail is far too inconsequential to be the reason for her suicide. It seems much more probable that with her release from the asylum, Joan has tricked herself into thinking that her mind has been cured -- to the point where even Esther is envious -- making her return to the institution that much more traumatic, almost as if her recovery has somehow been invalidated.

If Esther and Joan are so similar, how did only one manage to kill herself? Does it betray how susceptible Esther is to the same fate? Or is Joan a metaphor for Esther’s illness itself? And though The Bell Jar draws heavily from Sylvia Plath’s own experiences, is there a possibility that Joan partly exists as a parallel manifestation of Esther’s symptoms? Consider this: Esther is at rock bottom when she first encounters Joan in this period of her life -- physically grotesque, weak, and a shell of her former self -- while Joan emits a peculiar exuberance and an air of self-assurance. Their initial interactions are rather hostile, with Joan constantly flaunting her superior social skills and recreational privileges in front of Esther while Esther furiously curses Joan her under her own breath. But as Esther’s mental state begins to show clear improvement and she even manages to earn some privileges outside of the asylum, Joan’s progression takes an inverse course, starting with the loss of privileges and followed by a thawing of her exterior. Their rapport begins to soften, and soon Esther is able to tolerate Joan, which may signify that she is learning to become more familiar with her disease rather than trying to punish it. When Esther is figuratively and physically released from her state of confinement and begins to consider new options, even engaging in her first sexual experience, Joan quite literally fades into the background before completely being extinguished. The dull impact her death has on Esther perhaps demonstrates that Esther’s departure from mental illness is a process so subtle and so quiet that once it has lifted, one almost doesn't notice because the burden has been diminishing for a while on its own, as if trying to commit suicide. Esther's lack of compassion reveals she never really cared much for Joan, seeing her as little more than an uninvited companion she had become accustomed to.

The similarities between the two girls shows that Esther’s disease is an integral part of her -- it’s a replica of herself but not quite. Whether or not you choose to deliberate the symbolic nature of Joan’s character, the evolution of her presence and demise are extremely relevant to Esther’s story line in and outside the loony bin.

She did it

Practically all of the female characters in Esther’s life let her down -- the rebellious Doreen succumbs to a man; the woman who raised her fails to comprehend her mental state -- given how consistently she is disappointed and disenchanted by the circumscribed expectations and limitations imposed on her gender, it’s almost a godsend that the asylum introduces her to Doctor Nolan, who is not only credible by her title as a doctor, but also surprisingly sympathetic to Esther’s cause. It almost makes me think that she could be a potential version of Esther, because even with her limited dialogue, she manages to convey herself as a dependable ally, with the exception of her delayed warning about the shock treatment. Doctor Nolan first got my attention when she responded to Esther’s hatred for her mother with a satisfied “I suppose you do.” This initially gave me a sinister impression, until I began reminding myself exactly what her mother represents. From her high appraisal of shorthand to her evident ignorance of Esther’s symptoms, Mrs. Greenwood somewhat unknowingly puts an exceptional amount of pressure on Esther to conform to society’s norms for women. For Esther to literally reject this notion indicates to Doctor Nolan that her mindset is on the right track for rehabilitation.

Esther’s difficulty with trusting people is glaringly apparent throughout the novel and often hinders her ability to articulate what she wants. Doctor Nolan is perhaps the one character that earns her trust and represents what we often refer to as an “ideal audience”. Her blatant dismissal of Doctor Gordon’s shock regimen, other than being the correct assessment, is extremely symbolic on a larger spectrum. Whereas Doctor Gordon conducted the treatment extremely impersonally, Doctor Nolan’s administering of the shock treatment is supposedly effective in curing Esther with the added bonus of her considerate reassurances to Esther about her safety.

When a noticeably deflated Buddy finally returns to pick Esther up from the asylum and asks if he’s responsible for her insanity and Joan’s suicide, she can’t help but laugh. But what I find most striking about this scene is Doctor Nolan’s unwavering response: “Nobody did it. She did it.” While this could be seen as victim-blaming, it’s almost like the Doctor is giving due recognition to Joan on account of her choice; in other words, men have already taken so much, they don’t deserve to take credit for this too. Even with the novel’s proto-feminist sentiments, we cannot expect Esther to emerge from the asylum as a completely self-confident, self-empowered individual with no tolerance of gender circumscription, but she is certainly able to employ a new mindset that makes her as accountable to her own fate as any male doctor or husband that may impress on her. Doctor Nolan gives her this perspective, and it’s not by shrugging off the role men play in constraining and oppressing women, but rather by emphasizing that in spite of these restraints a woman should not allow how she chooses to cope with that burden to be under male jurisdiction.