"Old Brag of My Heart"

One of the most well known quotes from The Bell Jar comes at the novel's close. Esther recounts  attending Joan's funeral, saying: "I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am." The first time I read this book, I was particularly devoted to this line. And not without good reason as the line suggests the appealing and essential idea that our existence, the mere fact that we are alive, is beautiful in itself; our ability to exist and go on existing gives inherent meaning to our existence. That purpose alone, simply being, without some fundamental articulated and laboriously defined reason -- not I am she or I am he or I am free but just I am -- could potentially be sufficient motivation to get out of bed each morning. It's an empowering resolution to the novel and although I do not admire the potential truth in this idea any less than before -- upon multiple readings, I have come to understand the more sinister undertones and the true ambivalence of this mantra.

During the period Esther tries to kill herself more than once earlier on in the novel, she points out how her body seems bent upon preventing her from carrying out the act as if it is making a mockery of her. The first awareness of her persevering heartbeat comes when she attempts to drown herself: "I thought I would swim out until I was too tired to swim back. As I paddled on, my heartbeat boomed like a dull motor in my ears. I am I am I am." In this way, we see how the potential meaning of "brag" has been subverted by the end of the novel with Esther's shift in perception. Perhaps it has not been completely subverted however and continues to hold the double meaning/possibility of potential empowerment and mockery, the idea that this continual existence itself is meaningful in contrast to the terror that comes with the imprisonment and suffocation of existence where perhaps there is no inherent meaning after all and unable to find the purpose, we are trapped in this mundane emptiness.

As Esther is lying, bleeding on Joan's sofa, she recalls, "I lay, trying to slow the beating of my heart, as every beat pushed forth another gush of blood."  Even here there is the suggestion of her lack of control over this "heartbeat," her existence, this lack of control that can be understood both in its freedom and imprisonment. Consequently, as opposed to being a constant one can cling to, this heartbeat resonates with Esther's bell jar as what it represents is so wholly dependent on Esther's perception of reality. As Plath says in "Lady Lazarus": "There is a charge/.../ For the hearing of my heart / It really goes." She seems to present this here as not necessarily good or bad but somewhere in between. As she centers on this ability to die and be reborn on her own will in this poem, she perhaps ultimately suggests her ability to manifest some higher agency/ control over this old brag of her heart.

Just for the Hell of It

When Mr. Mitchell commented on the Dante-esque quality of Esther's experience in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar in class today, I was reminded of Stephens shifting perception of Hell in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.  Describing a visit from the minister of the Unitarian Church at the asylum, Esther says, "I told him I believed in a hell, and that certain people, like me, had to live in a hell before they died, to make up for missing out on it after death, since they didn't believe in life after death, and what each person believed happened to him when he died." This line particularly struck me because it resonates with Stephen's disregard for following the Church and "disrespect" for Hell's existence and the consequences of sinning at an early point in the novel. As such, he accepts a sort of  "living death" as he believes himself to already be cursed to Hell after death. While it is clear that at this point -- unlike Esther -- he does believe in a Hell after death, it is partly this belief that contributes to his pain and "living Hell" on earth.

The essence of both Esther and Stephen's living Hell -- even if to different extents -- is their utter isolation and despair towards their ability to understand, connect, or even want to attempt connecting with others. For Esther it is symbolized through the image of a bell jar constantly suffocating and occasionally hovering over her, and with Stephen, his wandering in the streets half-hoping for Mercedes. Perhaps if they were able to perceive this isolation in a solipsistic sense, they would be in less anguish but they are unable to do so. It's not simply that they have resigned themselves into believing their own selves are all that they can understand to exist and embraced the amount of individual agency that comes with that; on the contrary, there remains lurking a constraining, un-articulated force hiding behind the smoke screen restricting and potentially desiring to harm them in their isolation. Because of it, Esther and Stephen cannot even know themselves. What force is it that dictates Esther's reality on earth, even while she believes herself to be able dictate what comes after? What force is it that makes Holden and Esther start to disappear even as they are aware they must have a pure self? And even after Stephen ultimately does believe he can understand his reality in its absolute beauty through isolation, there's still the old man with the red eyes representative of all he has feared that he must perpetually run away from. Like the hovering bell jar after Esther's shock treatment, Hell has not truly let Stephen go.

As Joyce writes early on in the novel, "The terror of sleep fascinated his mind...unseen sleepers filled him with strange dread as though they could harm him." These "unseen sleepers," this un-articulated force continues to haunt him closely even in his utter isolation. At the same time, the "unseen sleepers" and this intangible restrictive force is representative of his isolation. He cannot see the sleepers just as he cannot understand and connect with others. Similarly, Esther thinks, "I didn't see how Doctor Nolan could tell you went to sleep during a shock treatment, if she'd never had a shock treatment herself. How did she know the person didn't just look as if he was asleep, while all the time, inside, he was feeling the blue volts and the noise?" Here Esther/Plath emphasizes how one can never truly know another and their isolated experience and the "blue volts and the noise" that continue to constrain individual agency in one's isolated experience.

This realized suggestion that perhaps one is ultimately powerless in defining and understanding reality -- especially not even being able to trust one's own individual reality and consciousness -- is what interestingly makes Holden spontaneously toy with the idea of becoming a monk, Esther, a nun, and Stephen, accepting the offer to become a priest. In all three of these acts, there is already a defined, concrete reality and understanding that they can embrace, a sort of refutation of the haunting hellish force they cannot articulate. This "hell" is not a hell one can ever completely and permanently ascend from. We know however, that ultimately Stephen comes to believe he can define and understand reality in a very specific way and Holden accepts reality in its mutability and lack of definition.