"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.