The Bell Jar Chapters 1 - 4
In the summer of 1953, Esther Greenwood, a university scholar, resides in New York, undertaking a month-long guest editor role at a fashion periodical. As the narrative unfolds, Esther is consumed by the execution of the Rosenbergs, a couple found guilty of espionage for the Soviet Union. Despite understanding her enviable position, she struggles to find joy in her work, new attire, or the social events she frequents, leading her to question her well-being. She resides in the Amazon, a female-only hotel, alongside eleven other guest editors and upper-class women preparing for secretarial roles. Esther’s time is largely spent with the stunning yet cynical Doreen, a Southerner who mirrors Esther’s skepticism. Betsy, a wholesome Midwestern girl, consistently extends her friendship to Esther. One day, en route to a magazine-hosted party, Betsy proposes sharing a cab, which Esther declines, opting to ride with Doreen. Amidst traffic, a man entices them to join him and his friends at a bar. The man, Lenny Shepherd, shows an immediate fascination with Doreen. He convinces his friend Frankie to accompany Esther, who treats him with indifference due to his shorter stature. Esther orders a vodka, despite her limited knowledge of beverages, hoping to discover a preference. She introduces herself to the men as Elly Higginbottom. Frankie leaves alone, while Esther and Doreen accompany Lenny.
Esther and Doreen venture to Lenny’s dwelling, adorned in a cowboy ranch style. He plays a recording of his radio show, expressing his fondness for his voice, and serves the girls beverages. He proposes to summon a friend for Esther, but she declines. Doreen sways with Lenny as Esther observes, feeling isolated and drowsy. The pair engage in a playful scuffle, biting and yelling, and Esther notices Doreen’s dress slipping, revealing her. Esther elects to depart. Despite her inebriation, she manages to navigate forty-eight by-five blocks to her home. She arrives sober, her feet mildly swollen from the extensive walk. In her room, she gazes out the window, feeling detached from New York and life itself. She immerses herself in a warm bath, feeling cleansed. She drifts off to sleep, only to be roused by a drunken, semi-conscious Doreen hammering on her door with the night maid. Once Esther opens the door, the maid departs, and Doreen begins to mumble. Esther decides to leave Doreen in the hallway. As she lowers her onto the carpet, Doreen vomits and loses consciousness. Esther resolves that while she will continue to observe Doreen, she will have “absolutely nothing” to do with her “at her core.” She feels that she aligns more with the wholesome Betsy than with Doreen. When Esther opens the door the next morning, Doreen has vanished.
Esther attends a banquet luncheon hosted by Ladies’ Day magazine. Doreen forgoes the meal to spend the day at Coney Island with Lenny. Esther relishes the lavish food at these banquets, as her family frets over food costs, and because she had never dined at a genuine restaurant before her New York stay. Her grandfather, a former head waiter at a country club, introduced Esther to caviar, which became her preferred delicacy. Esther manages to consume two plates of caviar at the luncheon, along with chicken and avocados filled with crab meat. Betsy inquires why Esther was absent from the fur show earlier that day, and Esther explains that Jay Cee, her supervisor, summoned her to her office. Esther weeps silently as she recalls the incident.
Esther revisits the occurrences preceding the luncheon. Lying in bed, attuned to the girls’ preparations and grappling with melancholy, she receives a call from Jay Cee, summoning her to the office. Upon arrival, Jay Cee inquires if Esther finds her work engaging, to which Esther affirms. Jay Cee probes into Esther’s post-graduation plans, and despite her usual responses involving travel, teaching, and writing, Esther admits her uncertainty. She realizes she genuinely doesn’t know her aspirations. Tentatively, she suggests a career in publishing, prompting Jay Cee to advise her to learn foreign languages to stand out among other aspiring publishers. Esther’s senior year schedule lacks room for a language course. She recalls a deception she employed to evade a chemistry class: she requested her dean to allow her to take the course without a grade, ostensibly to accommodate a Shakespeare course, but in reality to dodge the dreaded chemistry class. Based on Esther’s stellar grades, the dean and science teacher, Mr. Manzi, consented, believing Esther’s willingness to take the course without credit demonstrated academic maturity. She attended the chemistry class, feigning note-taking while penning poems.
Esther harbors guilt over her deceit of Mr. Manzi, who perceived her as a devoted chemistry student. For reasons unknown, she thinks of Mr. Manzi as Jay Cee sternly discusses her plans. Jay Cee assigns Esther some submitted stories to review and comment on, addresses her kindly, and dispatches her to the banquet after a few hours of labor. Esther yearns for her mother to emulate Jay Cee’s wisdom and authority. Her mother urges Esther to acquire a practical skill, like shorthand, aware of the challenges a woman faces in self-sustenance. Esther’s father passed away when she was nine, leaving no life insurance, which Esther suspects upset her mother.
Esther utilizes her finger bowl post-dessert at the banquet. She recalls dining with Philomena Guinea, her college scholarship benefactor, and mistakenly drinking from her finger bowl in her confusion. Esther departs the banquet to attend a movie premiere with the other girls. Midway, she begins to feel unwell. Betsy also feels ill, and the girls exit together. They vomit in the cab, the hotel elevator, and the hotel bathroom. Esther retches until she faints on the bathroom floor, awakening only when someone knocks on the door. She attempts to rise and walk but collapses in the hallway. A nurse tucks her into bed and informs her that all the girls have food poisoning. She awakens later to find Doreen attempting to feed her soup. Doreen informs her they discovered ptomaine in the banquet’s crabmeat. Esther feels ravenous.
Analysis
Esther Greenwood, the protagonist of The Bell Jar, narrates her story in a youthful, colloquial style, exuding maturity and detachment when discussing her depression and morbidity. The novel’s opening sentence sets the tone: “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” Esther feels out of place, melancholic, and disconnected from reality. She struggles to maintain the cheerful demeanor that society expects of her and that she expects of herself. Despite knowing that many girls would aspire to be in her position, she can’t comprehend her lack of enthusiasm.
Plath portrays Esther as not just unhappy, but also touchingly naive. When Doreen declares that Yale men are stupid, Esther, easily influenced, immediately concludes that Billy, a Yale man, is indeed stupid. Esther is ignorant about alcohol, and dreams of one day ordering a drink and finding it delightful. Despite her inexperience, Esther demonstrates determination, as evidenced when she grits her teeth, consults her street map, and manages to walk the miles back to her hotel while intoxicated.
The initial two chapters contrast the ideal life that a talented and fortunate girl like Esther should have, and her actual experiences of the world. She should be thrilled by the social whirl of her charmed life in New York, but she is obsessed with the execution of the Rosenbergs. The wealthy girls at her hotel should epitomize glamour, freedom, and happiness, but they seem spoiled and bored. New York should provide romantic, magical encounters with fascinating men, but Esther ends up with a short older man, and Doreen’s encounter with Lenny proves ugly and frightening.
In the third and fourth chapters, Esther begins to feel inadequate and directionless. She has always been a model student—intelligent, hardworking, and destined for great things—but suddenly her future seems unclear. When she admits to Jay Cee that she does not know what she wants to do after college, she shocks herself, realizing that what she says is true. She has always planned on studying abroad, then becoming a professor, and writing and editing. Now, however, she has lost her drive.
These chapters detail the financial difficulties that increase Esther’s insecurity. She has grown up poor, understanding the cost of every bite of food she eats. Working hard and doing well in school are not just matters of personal ambition, but matters of survival. The charity of others allows Esther to go to school and to live in New York, and her mother has no money to keep her at her expensive school should she lose her scholarship.
Esther welcomes her illness, as she enjoys allowing other people to take care of her. When her physical health fails, she no longer has to engage actively with the world, and her body mirrors her mental state. When sick, Esther welcomes Doreen’s almost maternal comfort. Doreen represents several varieties of freedom for Esther—freedom from fear of convention, endless pursuit of achievement, and mandates against sex. While Esther feels she can never behave as Doreen does, she finds comfort in Doreen’s freedom from worry, and her brash good humor and self-confidence.
