First: sorry I missed you guys today. I hope to be back tomorrow. I'll certainly be reading your responses here with interest.
A couple of things first. This is Sylvia Plath reading a poem called "The Applicant": it gives you an idea of what she pursued in her poetry, and in this particular poem, it crosses into our discussion of the novel. Second are responses to Plath, and particularly in many cases The Bell Jar, by some contemporary writers. I'm particularly struck by what Lena Dunham, creator, writer, director, and star of HBO's "Girls" says. Just take out "Plath" and replace it with "Esther" and I think it applies to the novel we're reading.
I wonder if Plath would have been saved had she been born in a
different time: in a time when psycho-pharmacologists are no more
shameful to visit than hairdressers and women write celebrated personal
essays about being bad mothers and cutters and are reclaiming the word
slut. Would she have been a riot grrrl, embracing an angry feminist
aesthetic? Addicted to Xanax? A blogger for Slate? Would she, like me,
have found a cosy coffeehouse environment on the internet, a way to
connect with people who understood her aesthetic and validated her
experience? Would she have been less dependent on the approval of
viewers and critics and more aware of the positive effect her book was
having on splintered psyches and girls with short bangs everywhere? Or
would that kind of connectedness and access to unmitigated and
misspelled negativity have driven her even madder?
We're one chapter away from the novel's conclusion—perhaps some of you have read it already. Where Chapter 19 ends is awful: Joan's suicide, Joan whom Esther thinks had "thoughts [that] were nor my thoughts, nor [had] feelings that were my feelings, but we were close enough so that her thoughts and feelings seems a wry black image of my own" (219). Joan seems to me acts as a mirror of Esther. She "continued to pop in at every crisis of my life to remind me of what I had been, and what I had been through, and carry on her own separate but similar crisis of my own." Is Joan a hint of what Esther faces in the future? Does Joan, a lesbian, present an alternative to the heterosexual world that Esther thinks is "normal," but who can't imagine such a radical way of behaving? "What does a woman see in a woman that she can't see in a man?" Which begs the question of what exactly does Esther see in men? Certainly not "tenderness," which is Doctor Nolan's answer to Esther's question.
So:
1. What particularly jumped out at you in the reading? Why?
2. "I was my own woman," Esther thinks after she has bought a diaphragm. "I am climbing to freedom, freedom from fear, freedom from marrying the wrong person, like Buddy Willard, just because of sex, freedom from the Florence Crittendon Homes where all the poor girls go who should have been fitted out like me..." In this part of the reading, has contraception given Esther "freedom"? Is she really her own woman?
3. Why do you think Joan killed herself? I'm not convinced I even know. But give it a shot.
4. As with the blog itself—just look at how much I wrote above—I sometimes, often times perhaps, say too much. So tell me: if you could lead the discussion tomorrow (or Monday, in case I don't make it back tomorrow), what would you want to talk about?
Hope you all are well, and I hope to see you tomorrow.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Monday, February 18, 2013
Blog #6. "The Silence Drew Off, Baring the Pebbles and Shells and All the Tatty Wreckage Of My LIfe." The Bell Jar 11-13.
"The stones in the modern part [of the graveyard] were crude and cheap, and here and there a grave was rimmed with marble, like an oblong bathtub full of dirt" (167).
"I remember the tubs, too: the antique griffin-legged tubs, and the modern coffin-shaped tubs..." (20).
Esther's preoccupation, obsession, with death, followed by suicide, has come to its logical end as she buries herself in a little cobweb strewn hole in the cellar and digests, one after another, fifty of what I assume to be sleeping pills. The horrifying aspect of this moment for me has always been its matter-of-factness: the way this extremely bright young person decides to negate herself with such thoughtfulness, with such single-mindedness, with such clear-headed planning. "I am going for a long walk" (167). Followed by her laughter as she realizes she had "forgotten the most important thing" (168), that is, the pills themselves.
A few questions as Esther moves into the world of Walton—that is, Claymoore, that is, McLean Hospital, where Susanna Kaysen spent 18 months.
1. Your reaction to these three chapters, as Esther's illness erupts fully? What moment or scene especially struck you—and why?
2. Esther at this point knows her "mind has gone" (159). Does it strike any one of you as odd or strange that there is so little intervention from the outside world into Esther's illness? Perhaps it isn't strange at all. But something tells me that, autobiographical or not, Plath's greater commentary here, as we know, is the way the world sees Esther—or doesn't see her. Does the way Esther goes relatively untreated—aside from the shock treatment and meetings with Dr Gordon that we will talk about—fit into this commentary, this theme?
Enjoy your day off. We'll see you tomorrow.
"I remember the tubs, too: the antique griffin-legged tubs, and the modern coffin-shaped tubs..." (20).
Esther's preoccupation, obsession, with death, followed by suicide, has come to its logical end as she buries herself in a little cobweb strewn hole in the cellar and digests, one after another, fifty of what I assume to be sleeping pills. The horrifying aspect of this moment for me has always been its matter-of-factness: the way this extremely bright young person decides to negate herself with such thoughtfulness, with such single-mindedness, with such clear-headed planning. "I am going for a long walk" (167). Followed by her laughter as she realizes she had "forgotten the most important thing" (168), that is, the pills themselves.
A few questions as Esther moves into the world of Walton—that is, Claymoore, that is, McLean Hospital, where Susanna Kaysen spent 18 months.
1. Your reaction to these three chapters, as Esther's illness erupts fully? What moment or scene especially struck you—and why?
2. Esther at this point knows her "mind has gone" (159). Does it strike any one of you as odd or strange that there is so little intervention from the outside world into Esther's illness? Perhaps it isn't strange at all. But something tells me that, autobiographical or not, Plath's greater commentary here, as we know, is the way the world sees Esther—or doesn't see her. Does the way Esther goes relatively untreated—aside from the shock treatment and meetings with Dr Gordon that we will talk about—fit into this commentary, this theme?
Enjoy your day off. We'll see you tomorrow.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Blog #5. "I Plummeted Down Past The Zigzaggers, The Students, The Experts, Through Year After Year of Doubleness and Smiles and Compromises, Into My Own Past." The Bell Jar Through 8.
We talked in class today about Esther's obsession with death and thinly veiled thoughts of suicide—the window that wouldn't open in her hotel that infuriated her. Now we discover before this, the Christmas before, she went down a ski hill in "a flight I knew I couldn't stop by skill or any belated access of will," preceded by "the thought I might kill myself [forming] in my mind cooly as a tree or a flower" (97). So Esther has indeed made an effort, clumsy as it may seem, to fullfill the "negation" of her self that she so often mentions.
1. When I said in both classes that Esther's ability to get an A in a science class that made her physically ill, that left her "panic struck" (35), was a terrifying moment in the book, was a terrifying moment for Esther, I wasn't kidding. Those of you taking Physics, or some other similarly extremely difficult class, imagine the amount of work you do, or would have to do, in order to get an A in that class: now imagine doing all that work when you are as "scared and depressed" (36) by it as Esther is: and imagine, finally, that your teacher holds you up as a model of success and accomplishment—thinks you're having the time of your life doing it? What would that be like? Really: what would that be like? Maybe it wouldn't be as awful as I'm making it out to be—but maybe it would. What do you think?
2. Why would Esther consider suicide? We know she's depressed—perhaps even schizophrenic (her illness is never defined in the book, but some have said that her observations like the ones we talked about today—the distance she feels from herself, the way the ordinary [looking in the mirror at herself] take on extraordinary qualities—speak to schizophrenia): so her illness may be driving her to these extreme actions. Yet could you see anything in what her life is like that would make her consider, in the midst of her illness, to throw herself down a ski slope knowing full well that she could not stop herself? Think about what we see of her life in Chapters 6, 7 and 8. Go ahead and quote once in your response.
Write a couple hundred words. We'll see you all tomorrow. Maybe we'll talk about turkey necks and turkey gizzards.
1. When I said in both classes that Esther's ability to get an A in a science class that made her physically ill, that left her "panic struck" (35), was a terrifying moment in the book, was a terrifying moment for Esther, I wasn't kidding. Those of you taking Physics, or some other similarly extremely difficult class, imagine the amount of work you do, or would have to do, in order to get an A in that class: now imagine doing all that work when you are as "scared and depressed" (36) by it as Esther is: and imagine, finally, that your teacher holds you up as a model of success and accomplishment—thinks you're having the time of your life doing it? What would that be like? Really: what would that be like? Maybe it wouldn't be as awful as I'm making it out to be—but maybe it would. What do you think?
2. Why would Esther consider suicide? We know she's depressed—perhaps even schizophrenic (her illness is never defined in the book, but some have said that her observations like the ones we talked about today—the distance she feels from herself, the way the ordinary [looking in the mirror at herself] take on extraordinary qualities—speak to schizophrenia): so her illness may be driving her to these extreme actions. Yet could you see anything in what her life is like that would make her consider, in the midst of her illness, to throw herself down a ski slope knowing full well that she could not stop herself? Think about what we see of her life in Chapters 6, 7 and 8. Go ahead and quote once in your response.
Write a couple hundred words. We'll see you all tomorrow. Maybe we'll talk about turkey necks and turkey gizzards.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Blog #4. "I Hate Handing Money To People For Doing What I Could Easily Do Myself." Bell Jar Through Chapter 5.
This year happens to mark the fiftieth anniversary of both the publication of The Bell Jar and Sylvia Plath's death. If you read the introduction, you would find out that the novel was originally published under a pseudonym Victoria Lucas and available only in the United Kingdom; it was not published in America until 1971. It's always been hard for many to read the novel and not think of Plath herself—Anna said on Friday that the book is depressing because she knows what happens at the end, that is Plath kills herself (though this may not be the fate of Esther, the very autobiographical protagonist of the novel). Plath remains a provocative and important American writer, perhaps more for her poetry than this, her one novel; at the same time both her poems and The Bell Jar are concerned with a very personal questioning of where does a women fit into a 1950s America. Reviewed in today's New York Times are two new biographies of Plath. And Gwyneth Paltrow played her in a 2003 film. So this fifty year old book you're reading still has a lot of life left in it.
So now that we've been primed by Girl, Interrupted, we're ready to jump neck deep into this intensely personal narrative of Esther Greenwood, star student at an unnamed women's college (it's Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts), living a life of envy with her summer internship in NYC at Ladies Day magazine (really Mademoiselle magazine), and courted by a gorgeous Yale graduate in medical school. Esther has it all (much like Susanna Kaysen did)...or does she?
1. Your reaction to the book now that you are five chapters in? What moment or scene in either chapter 4 or 5 really stuck out to you? Why? Quote from that moment or scene.
2. Something is not right with Esther. Tellingly, no one around her seems to notice. Yet we do, because she's recounting what went wrong for her that year in her life. How do you know something is not right with her? Pick one detail that clues you in. And please, try not to repeat what others have said before you. If you see something similar, add to what was said before you.
3. And last: just as Girl, Interrupted gave us a view of being a young women in the last days of the 1960s, The Bell Jar drops us right into the midst of the 50s and what it means to a young woman—an aspiring, intelligent, educated woman—in this time. Looking at chapters 3 to 5, what one moment jumped out at you as being a telling detail of what a young women is supposed to be in this world and time? And what's your reaction to this detail?
See you all tomorrow.
So now that we've been primed by Girl, Interrupted, we're ready to jump neck deep into this intensely personal narrative of Esther Greenwood, star student at an unnamed women's college (it's Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts), living a life of envy with her summer internship in NYC at Ladies Day magazine (really Mademoiselle magazine), and courted by a gorgeous Yale graduate in medical school. Esther has it all (much like Susanna Kaysen did)...or does she?
1. Your reaction to the book now that you are five chapters in? What moment or scene in either chapter 4 or 5 really stuck out to you? Why? Quote from that moment or scene.
2. Something is not right with Esther. Tellingly, no one around her seems to notice. Yet we do, because she's recounting what went wrong for her that year in her life. How do you know something is not right with her? Pick one detail that clues you in. And please, try not to repeat what others have said before you. If you see something similar, add to what was said before you.
3. And last: just as Girl, Interrupted gave us a view of being a young women in the last days of the 1960s, The Bell Jar drops us right into the midst of the 50s and what it means to a young woman—an aspiring, intelligent, educated woman—in this time. Looking at chapters 3 to 5, what one moment jumped out at you as being a telling detail of what a young women is supposed to be in this world and time? And what's your reaction to this detail?
See you all tomorrow.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Blog #3. "How You Hurt Yourself On the Outside To Kill the Thing on The Inside." Girl, Interrupted.
VALERIE. What would you have said to her?
SUSANNA. That I was sorry. That I'll never know what it was like to be here. But I know what it's like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in when you can't. How you hurt yourself on the outside to kill the thing on the inside.
One of the things I like about this movie is its unwillingness to create an easy villain in it. Erin mentioned how this reminded her of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, which makes absolute sense: mental institution, crazy but endearing patients, a protagonist we root for. But unlike that classic film and book, there is no Nurse Ratchet, no Big Combine that acts as the antagonist to the hero. Valerie is not the enemy. Doctor Wick is not the enemy. Nor is Melvin, who is visibly shaken by Daisy's death and who allows Susanna to keep Ruby the cat. Claymoor is not an evil institution. And the friends Susanna makes in the hospital are not, as a whole, cute and cuddly. Not when we see the large woman carried off in a straight-jacket toward the end. Not when Polly is carried off, screaming about how ugly she is. Not when Daisy hangs herself. Not when Lisa almost plunges a hypodermic needle into her arm to kill herself. And though at the end Susanna is "cured," the world itself isn't: "I've wasted a year of my life. And maybe everyone out there is a liar. And maybe the whole world is stupid and ignorant. But I would rather be fucking in it than down here with you." And as she says as she drives away from her "home" and "family" at the end:
Final diagnosis, recovered borderline. What that means I still don't know. Was I ever crazy? Maybe. Or maybe life is. Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It's you and me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. They were not perfect, but they were my friends. And by the 70's most of them were out living lives Some I've seen, some never again. But there isn't a day my heart doesn't find them.
Who got out and lived lives we never know.
So:
1. Your reaction to the movie? Like? Dislike? And what scene from today's viewing stuck with you particularly?
2. Someone in another class asks you what this movie was "about"? What would you say? Don't just write a sentence or two, but give a solid, complete answer.
3. This is clearly and deliberately a story about young women. Why is that? And could this be a story about young men—could one simply replace these young women with young men? Why or why not?
That's more than enough for now. See you all tomorrow and we'll talk about this.
SUSANNA. That I was sorry. That I'll never know what it was like to be here. But I know what it's like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you try to fit in when you can't. How you hurt yourself on the outside to kill the thing on the inside.
One of the things I like about this movie is its unwillingness to create an easy villain in it. Erin mentioned how this reminded her of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, which makes absolute sense: mental institution, crazy but endearing patients, a protagonist we root for. But unlike that classic film and book, there is no Nurse Ratchet, no Big Combine that acts as the antagonist to the hero. Valerie is not the enemy. Doctor Wick is not the enemy. Nor is Melvin, who is visibly shaken by Daisy's death and who allows Susanna to keep Ruby the cat. Claymoor is not an evil institution. And the friends Susanna makes in the hospital are not, as a whole, cute and cuddly. Not when we see the large woman carried off in a straight-jacket toward the end. Not when Polly is carried off, screaming about how ugly she is. Not when Daisy hangs herself. Not when Lisa almost plunges a hypodermic needle into her arm to kill herself. And though at the end Susanna is "cured," the world itself isn't: "I've wasted a year of my life. And maybe everyone out there is a liar. And maybe the whole world is stupid and ignorant. But I would rather be fucking in it than down here with you." And as she says as she drives away from her "home" and "family" at the end:
Final diagnosis, recovered borderline. What that means I still don't know. Was I ever crazy? Maybe. Or maybe life is. Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It's you and me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. They were not perfect, but they were my friends. And by the 70's most of them were out living lives Some I've seen, some never again. But there isn't a day my heart doesn't find them.
Who got out and lived lives we never know.
So:
1. Your reaction to the movie? Like? Dislike? And what scene from today's viewing stuck with you particularly?
2. Someone in another class asks you what this movie was "about"? What would you say? Don't just write a sentence or two, but give a solid, complete answer.
3. This is clearly and deliberately a story about young women. Why is that? And could this be a story about young men—could one simply replace these young women with young men? Why or why not?
That's more than enough for now. See you all tomorrow and we'll talk about this.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Blog #2. "Razors Pain You." Girl, Interrupted and The Bell Jar.
A quick scene from the film.
The poem Lisa is reciting is one by Dorothy Parker:
Razors pain you. Rivers are damp.
Acid stains you. Drugs never cramp.
Guns aren't lawful. Nooses give.
Gas smells awful. You might as well live.
Lisa, of course, has a huge desire to live—to live without the constrictions of society. Susanna is drawn to this bigger-than-life young woman; but at the same time, she's debating one of the main questions of the film: how to live in this world?
The title of the film is never really addressed in it: it comes from a famous painting by the Dutch painter Vermeer called "Girl Interrupted at Her Music". This is it. There is a scene in the screenplay where Lisa and Susanna are killing time at a museum after they have escaped Claymoor. Susanna is drawn to the painting and overhears a group of high school students and their teacher talking about the painting.
ART TEACHER. What do you think, Maureen?
MAUREEN. I think her teacher's pissed. He's trying to get her attention, but she's looking out. As if—I don't know—
ART TEACHER. What?
MAUREEN. ...as if she's trying to get out of the painting.
Hmmm...gee, I wonder who else is trying to get out of the painting?
Some questions:
1. A scene or moment from Friday's viewing that stayed with you? And why?
2. Susanna is diagnosed with "borderline personality disorder." "'Social contrariness and a general pessimistic attitude are often observed,'" Susanna says in the movie. "That's me, all right." To which Lisa says, "That's everybody." Now: the film has been criticized, and for good reason, for its depiction and discussion of mental illness. That said—given what we see, and given that we are not mental health experts, does Susanna strike you as mentally ill? Valerie tells her, "You are a lazy, self-indulgent, little girl, who is making herself crazy." So what do you think?
3. Finally: what has jumped out at you about Esther Greenwood, the protagonist of The Bell Jar? A scene or moment that struck you? And do you see any of Susanna in her?
We'll finish the movie tomorrow and start discussing it.
The poem Lisa is reciting is one by Dorothy Parker:
Razors pain you. Rivers are damp.
Acid stains you. Drugs never cramp.
Guns aren't lawful. Nooses give.
Gas smells awful. You might as well live.
Lisa, of course, has a huge desire to live—to live without the constrictions of society. Susanna is drawn to this bigger-than-life young woman; but at the same time, she's debating one of the main questions of the film: how to live in this world?
The title of the film is never really addressed in it: it comes from a famous painting by the Dutch painter Vermeer called "Girl Interrupted at Her Music". This is it. There is a scene in the screenplay where Lisa and Susanna are killing time at a museum after they have escaped Claymoor. Susanna is drawn to the painting and overhears a group of high school students and their teacher talking about the painting.
ART TEACHER. What do you think, Maureen?
MAUREEN. I think her teacher's pissed. He's trying to get her attention, but she's looking out. As if—I don't know—
ART TEACHER. What?
MAUREEN. ...as if she's trying to get out of the painting.
Hmmm...gee, I wonder who else is trying to get out of the painting?
Some questions:
1. A scene or moment from Friday's viewing that stayed with you? And why?
2. Susanna is diagnosed with "borderline personality disorder." "'Social contrariness and a general pessimistic attitude are often observed,'" Susanna says in the movie. "That's me, all right." To which Lisa says, "That's everybody." Now: the film has been criticized, and for good reason, for its depiction and discussion of mental illness. That said—given what we see, and given that we are not mental health experts, does Susanna strike you as mentally ill? Valerie tells her, "You are a lazy, self-indulgent, little girl, who is making herself crazy." So what do you think?
3. Finally: what has jumped out at you about Esther Greenwood, the protagonist of The Bell Jar? A scene or moment that struck you? And do you see any of Susanna in her?
We'll finish the movie tomorrow and start discussing it.
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