Downward Spiral in Sylvia Plaths The Bell Jar

Downward Spiral in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar Asst. Instr. Ruwaida Saad Safouk University of Ahlulbait College of Arts Department of English

Psychology in Literature Psychology and literature both study the human soul but each one in different way. Psychology is interested in how humans behave and the reasons behind these various behaviors, while literature depicts these human interactions and behaviors in fictional works. • The literary work is the first brick in the art built by the interrelation between psychology and literature. The literary work usually describes human behaviors, moods, and penetrate their mentality to expose to the reader how they think. • This interchange between psychology and literature is that the fictional work is in itself a product of a certain psychological state that the author himself is living.

Catharsis The relationship between the two fields is originated not in the twentieth century but is longstanding since the time of Plato and Aristotle. The concept of the "Catharsis" which Aristotle popularizes in his Poetics is nothing but an illustration of how a literary work affects the psychological state of the spectator who is observing the fatal experiences that the protagonist of the tragedy go through.

Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis With Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis and Carl Jung's analytic psychology, the foundation of analysis was founded. Freud in his Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming, develops a kind of literary writing concept which expresses that writers write out of the accumulation of their wishes, hopes, pains and happy moments beginning from childhood to adulthood. Lunching from this conception, he wrote a lengthy analysis of the famous works of Da Vinci, Dostoevsky, and analyzed characters like Shakespeare's Hamlet. Based on his idea, each literary work contains the psychology of its writer (Kreger, 87).

The Downward Spiral Usually describes the sequence of difficult experiences, thoughts or actions which cause a situation to become gradually worse. When depressing thoughts overwhelm one's mind and start to effect his personality in a bad manner, the person becomes helpless and unable to resist the spell of these thoughts. If the person couldn’t find a way out and the situation is progressively worsening, the case is labeled as a downward spiral that thrust the patient into a black hole of desperation and helplessness and sometimes driving him to put an end to this suffering through suicide.

Sylvia Plath's Psychoanalytical Approach • Sylvia Plath (1932 – 1963), is an American poet and a novelist. She is the offspring of an Austrian descent mother and her father is from Germany. She is famously credited for advancing confessional poetry. • Confessional poetry is a genre of poetry first identified in the decades immediately following the Second World War. • Confessional poetry was a reaction to the depersonalized, academic poetry of writers like T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden, who wrote in the 1920 s and 1930 s. There was no room for the self in poetry. • confessional poetry of the modern era focused on inward expressions of conflict and emotion through the use extremely personal details from the poet's life.

Downward Spiral in Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar" • The novel tells the story of Esther Greenwood, a young and very talented lady from a local town in Boston. Esther is infatuated with writing, and her identity revolves around sparkling academically. • Esther loses a scholarly opportunity that she was waiting for a long time, which is to be taught in a writing course by a worldly known author. She is rejected. (Environmental factor) • Referring to the triggers of depression (Depression is one prominent kind of psychological disorders. It is caused by different factors including environmental which is always the first one, personal thought, emotion, and lastly behavior) mentioned in the second section of the paper, the protagonist is placed in depressing situation, she faces failure and loses a chance that she has been looking forward to have.

The Dilemma of “what to be” Esther is a person who is lost between different choices in life and how exactly her life will turn out. The identity crisis shattered between multiple desires of being a mother or a woman with career, a university lecturer or a writer. She expresses this indecisiveness in the conversation between her and her boss, when she is asked about what she desires to be: “What I always thought I had in mind was getting some big scholarship to graduate school or a grant to study all over Europe, and then I thought I’d be a professor and write books of poems, or write books poems and be an editor of some sort. Usually I had all these plans on the top of my tongue” (55).

Choice of Motherhood In addition to the wishes mentioned in the quote, Esther also fancies motherhood but is afraid of the responsibilities and experience of birth. And refers to the room in the birth hospital as the "torture chamber” (Plath 53). This is unconsciously attached with the gender role issue. If the woman is ready to be a mother she must sacrifice her identity, and forget about being a career woman. In Esther’s opinion, by marriage a woman is giving ultimate powers to a man.

Fig Tree A woman cannot have them all in the perspective of Esther, she is caged and her choices are limited. She uses the allegory of the fig tree to illustrate the inability to settle on one choice. The figs may stand for choices of different lives, but because Esther is being indecisive and she might want them all she stands paralyzed unable to choose, as a result the figs rot and drop on the ground before she make her mind. “I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and , as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and grow black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet” (63).

Deterioration (Downward Spiral of Esther) The doctor suggest electroconvulsive therapy, a treatment that Esther describes as good and working as an antidepressant, but as a matter of fact she never resumed being a normal healthy person ever since. Her situation deteriorates severely, and she develops a suicidal tendency. The symbol of the bell jar is used to represent madness and insanity. Esther begins to imagine a suffocating bell jar that is separating her from sanity and the real world.

The apex of the Downward Spiral She even examines her ability to control her death, the only thing controllable to her meantime. She makes several suicidal attempts, tries to wound her wrist. She tries to hang herself. In another attempt she tries to drown herself. The downward spiral reaches the apex with Esther's most serious attempt at suicide by swallowing all the pills prescribed for her insomnia hiding in the basement of their house.

Tenuous Upward Spiral This attempt at upwards spiraling is embodied by her relationship with her psychiatrist Dr. Nolan. Dr. Nolan believes in the talent of Esther, she helps her by trying talk therapy and other medical treatments. She is granted the permission to leave the hospital for appointed excursions and is meant to start winter semester at college. At the end Esther feels that she regained her sanity and reason, but still afraid of the unseen bell jar of depression to jail her when it descends.

Conclusion The end of the novel is surprisingly optimistic, it reveals a kind of hope or new beginning, whereas the result of the downward spiral is usually a breakdown embodied by suicide or overall collapse. This was clarified later, two months after the publication of the text with Sylvia Blath's suicide, revealing the real or logical end of the story of her creation Esther.