Bell Jar ends with an extremely inconclusive scene. She walks into the conference room with all of the doctors and that's where it cuts off. For me at least, I wasn't happy with this ending at all. I was left with a feeling of "well what happened after?" I've been right next to Esther the entire novel and I was dying to know if all worked out. I'm not going to lie, I felt slightly cheated. I mean, I had to watch Esther suffer but I wasn't allowed to see the brighter side of her life? It made me feel like maybe Esther didn't have a bright side to her life, and Sylvia was saving us from realizing that Esther never got over her depression and never recovered. Instead we are left to our own imagination and we are spared the grief of a, well, not happily ever after. Esther might have been mentally healthy at that moment at the end of the book, but who's to say that it wouldn't come back. This is something that even Esther thinks about for herself. Even if Esther was announced as being mentally stable, I don't think that much would change in Esther's life. She would still have her feelings and thoughts and her memories and would essentially be the same person. Hopefully though, she is able to move on and continue living.
Depression isn't something that can just be cured, and I think that since Sylvia Plath suffered from it herself, she knew that and decided it wasn't fair to say that Esther never relapsed. As readers we shouldn't expect anything less, but for me, I really wanted to see Esther live a long happy life. I felt that's what she deserved. I was frustrated with the ending, but I guess I will never know.
I agree with this 100%, from being unhappy with the inconclusiveness of the final scene to the statement that depression isn't something that can just be cured. And I also now find myself agreeing with what Mr. Mitchell said in class about knowing what happened with Sylvia Plath's life and trying to read the book without putting her Plath's suicide at the end of it. I really want Esther to live a long happy life as well, but I know that she probably still struggled a lot after the end of the novel, because it's not that all of her problems went away. What happened by the end was the she (hopefully) learned better ways to deal with them.
ReplyDeleteI understand what you're saying. I thought the ending was considerably satisfying, but more due to the style, and not so much the "resolution." I myself don't enjoy cliffhangers, and it is a little irritating to not have a definitive ending, but at least we know that for now, Esther is in a better state of mind.
ReplyDeleteWell, novels have to end somewhere, and endings are always artificial to a point--stories always continue after a particular narrative has closed. I would defend Plath's open ending by pointing out that it puts the ball in our court--we are compelled to "assess" Esther ourselves, and imagine how the panel of experts would view her. Given the novel's general skepticism toward such panels of male experts, in some sense our judgment is even more credible than theirs. And the overall tone of competence and self-awareness at the end gives us a lot of evidence that Esther will "pass."
ReplyDeleteEven if Plath had given us the "verdict," there'd still be that row of question ma rks in Esther's future. This is the nature of the future, and the nature of coming of age. Don't expect too many definitive, neatly wrapped-up endings on this syllabus.