Ester's Search in The Bell Jar
“I couldn’t stand the idea of a woman having to have a single pure life
and a man being able to have a double life, one pure and one not” (Plath
66). Ester is against the conventional attitude of what a woman’s place in
society is and expresses this in a number of ways throughout the book.
Ester tells us her views on the sexual relationship between a man and a woman,
motherhood, and the kind of career that is considered practical.
Ester’s view on purity is described in the above quote, and as a result
she feels the need to lose her virginity. Ester claims not to want to do
this because of Buddy’s affair with the waitress, but just to even up the
score. When she was nineteen Ester looked at people as those who have and
have not had sex, due to this she thought once she had sex she would somehow
be a very different person. Ester doesn’t seem keen on the notion of
marriage because of this sense of mistrust and unhappiness that will go with
it. Ester forms this from her sudden revelation of Buddy Willard as going
from someone whom she greatly admired to a hypocrite she mistrusted.
Ester’s feeling on motherhood is different from the traditional
happy wife and mother, whose life revolves around her husband and children.
She makes the point about the male doctors giving the woman in labor a drug
that will make her forget about the pain, so she will go home and start
another baby. This shows Ester’s cynical view of males and their selfish
outlook on life. When Ester refers to Dodo Conway and her many children it
is in disgust and she clearly states that children make her sick. Ester
doesn’t seem to want to settle into this kind of monotonous life, but to
pursue her own life and career.
Ester is unsure of what she would like her career to be, but she is sure
that it will not have anything to do with a male overpowering her. This is
important because this describes Ester’s drive to be something more than a
secretary or assistant. She hates the thought of being in control of a man
who will use her to do his menial labor. Ester’s mother teaches a shorthand
course and has always encouraged her to learn it as a necessary skill, but
Ester has a mental block and refuses to take it. This is because she doesn’t
want to have the requirements of a practical woman.
Ester’s entire affiliation of what a woman should not be is in many ways
a perfect picture of her mother. Her mother is the pure woman who married
her husband, had children, and then used her practical skill of shorthand as
a source of income. Ester will look to her as an example of a life she
wants to leave behind, while she goes and explores her own destiny.Partner sites: Labrador Retriever, Study Spanish in Costa Rica, and Free Essays and Term Papers