This post was written on Sunday night as I read the first three chapters of Bell Jar, but Blogger didn't save it so I'm recreating it as best I can.
I'm trying to decide if I like the narrator or not. In a way she seems like Holden (Her oldish, casual style certainly sounds like him) and I like Holden, but they've got some key differences.
"These girls looked awfully bored to me. I saw them on the sunroof, yawning and
painting their nails and trying to keep up their Bermuda tans, and they seemed bored as
hell. I talked with one of them, and she was bored with yachts and bored with flying
around in airplanes and bored with skiing in Switzerland at Christmas and bored with the
men in Brazil.
Girls like that make me sick. I'm so jealous I can't speak."
"Bored as hell" and "Girls like that make me sick" sound very Holden. Although, Holden never admits to being jealous of the people that he dislikes (with the exception of Stradlater who he makes pretty clear he doesn't actually hate).
She talks about clothes more than he does too which makes her sound more superficial. "It suggested a
whole life of marvelous, elaborate decadence that attracted me like a magnet." I'm not so keen on that sentence. Although, I'm not sure how much distance is implied between the narrator and the character (her younger self). "Attracted" is put in the past tense, not the present which indicates that her opinions might be different at the moment. The story is in the past tense, so it's a little unclear, but she does occasionally use the present tense when expressing her opinions: " and a short,
scrunty fellow detached himself and came into the bar with us.
He was the type of fellow I can't stand." Is similar but in the present. I'm also not too keen on that sentence.
She's complaining about bored privileged girls while moping about thinking about being electrocuted instead of enjoying her fancy clothes and parties.
There are a lot of subtle similarities between Esther and Holden. She introduces herself with a false persona (Elly form Chicago) in a bar in New York. She employs casual racism (which Holden also does on occasion; a symptom of the time period, I'm sure):"Yellow as a chinaman." Oh boy. She's also tall and skinny and though she's not stricken with social anxiety, she's not the most gregarious of characters.
Overall, however, I would say that they are pretty different people. To me, Holden comes across as more compassionate, and of course their attitudes towards school are completely different (even if hers might be getting more critical). He's rich, she's poor, and he would not be too keen on the people she's hanging out with, particularly "famous as hell" Lenny. Although, I don't know how she feels about Lenny either. Maybe that's another thing-- she's less opinionated. Or, at the very least, we're not presented with her thoughts quite so intimately.
She just left Doreen in a puddle of vomit. I have decided that I do not like Esther. Given that this is a coming of age novel, this may very well change.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that this is Esther retelling us her story quite a few years down the road. She has a baby as well. As a result, that's why her opinions vastly differ; after all, we may or may not like the same things that we did a few years back
ReplyDeletePersonally, I find it hard to sympathize with any of these characters; yes, they are easy to relate to, but most of them play passive roles. They all complain without doing anything to change their current situation until they "come of age" and finally make a choice to do something in their life and reign in control. For Esther though, I think that her whole "purification" thing, while unhealthy and slightly worrying, is her attempt to obtain some control over her life. I give her credit for that, not to mention that she's attempting to defy gender stereotypes.
However, I agree that Esther was a horrible friend to Doreen though. Leaving Dorreen in a slightly dangerous situation when she got uncomfortable and then refusing to give her care weren't the best decisions; you may go as far to call them plain out rude. Especially in a later scene where Doreen gives Esther soup after she puked; the contrast between these two scenes only emphasize Esther's lack of empathy. But in the end, this lack of empathy only highlights her mental instability as well as her overall detachment from this world.
I think the thing you say about Esther seeming less opinionated isn't that she actually cares less than Holden does, but that she's much less sure about being able to state her opinions, at least in the beginning. As the book goes on she seems to get less reticent in criticizing people, especially Buddy, as her mental/social state slowly degrades. It's probably worth mentioning that the most honest people we see in The Bell Jar -- Eric, Marco, and Doreen -- are also some of the least "safe," potentially most troubled characters, implying that it's very hard to break away from expectations of modesty without running the risk of alienating yourself in other ways.
ReplyDeleteI actually debated writing a blog post about how all of the characters would get along and interact with each other, but decided to go with a different option instead. Still, I'm glad to read a post that contemplates how two of the main characters we've focused on would interact! I do agree that Esther is more superficial than Holden would appreciate, although that's more at the beginning than later on in the novel when Esther's depression gets bad. I think it'd be interesting to know how he'd think of the Esther at the end of the book.
ReplyDelete