The Bell Jar Chapter 19-20

Esther feels like she needs to sleep with Irwin because she thinks she will feel better once she is not a virgin anymore.  Also the whole thing with Buddy and how he had lost his virginity really bugged Esther.  She couldn’t get over the fact that he didn’t wait and she wanted to catch up with him.  Esther didn’t want to be behind Buddy and that is why she wanted to be with Irwin.  It really didn’t do much to help improve Esther but maybe make her feel a little more free.  She had a bad experience with it and never wanted to see Irwin again.  Although it did seem she felt better about having experienced it and gotten it over with.  I think it helped her move on in her life from things.  

The Bell Jar Chapter 17-18

Esther talks about feeling trapped in a bell jar a couple times in the book.  She feels this way because she cannot go anywhere.  She is stuck at the asylum with being depressed and feeling suicidal.  All Esther wants to do is be able to walk around freely and go about her life in a normal way.  She knows that even if she went back into the real world she would still be trapped, because of being depressed and the fact that she has no idea what she wants done with her life.  She will always feel stuck and she cannot do anything about it.  It really bugged her that she was stuck with the way she was and couldn’t get out of it. It made Esther mad that she couldn’t do anything about it.  

The Bell Jar chapter 15-16

The new asylum that Esther goes to is much nicer than the state hospital.  It has a huge property with tennis courts and lots of land for them to walk around.  There are different buildings each for the level of depending on the severity of your case.  The doctors there really were concerned for her and talked to her in a better way.  They actually paid attention to her and gave her treatment that would actually help her instead of just doing the first thing they could think of.  Dinner was much more formal and there were more options.  She was able to have a little more freedom there but not as much.  If she had stayed at the state hospital then things most likely would never have gotten better.  She wouldn’t have been treated as well and just pushed aside, they would have never treated how she should be treated and ignored her.  

The Bell Jar Chapter 13-14

Esther is depressed and has trouble seeing the point of living and why things are the way they are.  She cannot find the point of life and this started when she was really confused on what she wanted to do with her life.  She also became more upset when she lost her chance for that summer writing class.  Everything was falling apart in her life and she couldn’t find anything that truly made her happy but the depressing stories and that didn’t make her happy just was the only thing she could stand.  She could only handle pain and suffering.  She tries killing herself to get rid of the pain and to be done with the world.  She doesn’t want to be here anymore and it was kind of a call for attention, to get somebody to notice her.  

The Bell Jar Chapter 11-12

Esther doesn’t like doctor Gordon at first because he is not like the typical psychiatrist who she was expecting.  He turned out to be perfect, had a job, perfect family and everything was going great for him.  She hated that, that he had everything he wanted in life and it seemed like he bragged about having everything he wanted. He also didn’t act like a psychiatrist like she thought, he didn’t tell her what was wrong with her and she didn’t like that.  He was too happy for her and she needed someone just to tell her what was wrong with her.  He obviously was not helping her because at the end of chapter 12 she still was thinking of suicide and gave up treatment.  She was still just as bad and not sleeping well and nothing was really improving for her.  What he did, did not help at all and she was still a total wreck.   

The Bell Jar-Chapter 9-10

When Esther returns to Boston she goes into this state of not wanting to do anything.  She keeps to the house and gives up on doing anything over the summer.  She goes through all these different options saying she will do this and that but actually she decides not to do any of it because she is defeated with everything that has happened.  Before she came home she and Marco had this thing where he was very rude to her and he attacked her outside.  That really scared her and made her really down when she left New York for Boston.  Then she got to Boston and found out she wasn’t chosen for the summer program.  All of this led to her being sort of depressed and not happy with how things were.  She considered changing majors and not doing stuff that she might have done.  She just gave up on everything and felt very defeated.  

The Bell Jar-chapter 7-8

Esther wants Constantine to seduce her and they actually end up just falling asleep.  She wants to be with Constantine and Constantine want to be with her.  Constantine doesn’t really react any way other than just keeping his distance from her and not trying to seduce her.  She ends up falling asleep and he ends up falling asleep along with her.  Then the next morning they wake up and go their own ways.  I think that he doesn’t try to seduce her because he is a gentleman and keeps to his values.  He was trying to not be like all the other guys.  He also probably didn’t have enough interest in Esther to want to seduce her either.  He liked her but might not have liked her in the way of wanting to seduce her.  

The Bell Jar-chapter 5-6

Before Esther had really gotten to know Buddy she thought of his as this amazing wonderful person.  She had such a big crush on him and always wanted to get attention from him.  She finally did get attention when he asked her to the junior prom.  At the dance he didn’t get too close to her and she was very disappointed but then later on in the night he did become more close and they shared their first kiss.  She wanted this from Buddy for him to see her as a girlfriend but then after the had been dating for a while Esther finally found out that Buddy was a fake.  It was after Buddy had taken Esther to see these surgeries and they had seen the birthing of a baby.  Then Buddy had kind of showed his true colors of being ignorant and thinking he is better than everyone.  Esther didn’t like this and avoided Buddy from then on.  She was actually very happy when he got TB because that meant she wouldn’t have to break up with him.  

The Bell Jar-chapter 3-4

Esther avoids chemistry in college because she takes physics for the first semester and absolutely hates it.  She does get an A though and that does help a little to make sure she doesn’t have to take chemistry.  What she did was she went to her dean and asked if since she needed more literature courses if she could op out of chemistry and take a Shakespeare class.  She and the dean agreed that it was pointless to take chemistry because they knew she could get an A and it would be better spent taking a literature class.  She also said that she could sit in chemistry just not have to get credit for it or take marks. This impressed the chemistry teacher and everyone was on board for it.  Science probably overwhelmed Esther because she is more of a creative thinker and not someone who focuses on facts.  It probably was hard for her to learn scientific stuff involving math when she is a writer and sounds like she is stronger on the right side of her brain than the left.  

The Bell jar chapter 1-2

The first line of the novel is talking about New York and the Rosenbergs being executed that year.  It was a bad case with the Rosenbergs because they had exploited important information to the Soviet Union over the bomb.  You get the sense in the first line that Esther was not having an amazing time in New York like she should have.  It seems that she was just ok with being in New York and it wasn’t this awesome experience that she should be having.  The other girls around her were excited and crazy about getting the experience to go to New York and have this modeling opportunity.  She said in the first line that she didn’t understand why she was in New York.  It was like she was there because she had gotten the request to come and that was that.  

Mona Lisa Smile-character decision

In the movie from what we watched today we see Betty get married to the perfect man.  She finally got her ideal life and conformed to society doing what every women is supposed to do, get married and became the perfect wife.  Of course it wasn’t her perfect world she and her husband didn’t seem to have that emotional connection it was like they were married because they had to be.  In the dinner scene we see that they are very distant and Betty doesn’t seem happy at all.  She feels like this is what is supposed to happen for woman and nothing else it is how society works.  When her friend told her she applied to go to law school,  Betty was outraged and thought of it to be terrible but actually Betty’s way of life doesn’t seem like she is all that happy with it.  

Women in the 1950s

Women in the 1950s were not meant to have very high education and to basically end up being the perfect housewife who took care of her family and her husband most of all.  It also was a time of conformity and not to have people stand out.  There were a lot of rules to follow too and things were strict for women and even for men in society.  People had to be poised and smart.  We see some of the strict rules when Julia Roberts character first comes to the school.  The lady tells her about how she is not allowed male visitors or to have even a hot plate.  They are strict rules and also we see conformity and strict rules at the very beginning when all the teachers are dressed the same and when they girls enter they are conservative and poised and all look the same.