Shock Therapy: The Cure for Feminist Housewives!

‘The Bell Jar’, by Sylvia Plath, follows the experience of the nineteen-year-old Esther Greenwood. The story tracks Esther through her time in New York after winning a short internship with Ladies Day magazine. Esther then falls into a deep depression and is treated with a horrendous experience of electro shock therapy. After several attempts on her life, and time in a state mental institution, Esther is admitted to a private hospital where she begins to make progress with her psychiatrist, Dr Nolan. Various readings can be taken from ‘The Bell Jar’, but one of the most important is an early feminist reading. The novel gives an insight into the expectations society put upon young ladies during the fifties and sixties.

The book, published in 1963, is based in the fifties and illustrates to its audience the social pressures placed on young women. From the start, it is very clear that Esther is under an internal tension. This is between her ambition to become a writer and the expectation society has for her to get married and have a family. Even though Esther is very intellectually successful, the assumption is still made that her goal in life is to marry and have children. Esther’s female roommates only really acknowledge and respect her when her boyfriend, Buddy Willard, pays a visit. Even Buddy expects Esther to give up her career goals when they marry and she becomes a mother.

These issues are raised by Betty Friedan in her 1963 book ‘The Feminine Mystique’. Originally, the book started out as a survey to find out whether women who had been through higher education were able to adapt to the role of mother and wife. The results made Friedan question the restrictions put on women through their social expectations. These ideas that Friedan, and novelists like Plath, put forward instigated the second wave of feminism to take place. Friedan argued that women were still under a great deal of suppression, and eventually her message went international. In 1966 Friedan formed NOW to help organise the beginnings of the movement taking place.

The issues of sexuality, virginity, and contraception also come up in ‘The Bell Jar’. Women were not allowed to be sexually free, unlike men, as a respected woman was to remain a virgin until marriage. This lack of control over their own bodies was broken down with the introduction of available and successful methods of contraception. In ‘The Bell Jar’ Esther wrestles with the burden of her virginity. However, Dr Nolan helps Esther to purchase a diaphragm to allow her to explore sexually without the fear of pregnancy. This parallels the introduction of the Pill as a method of birth control at the start of the sixties. This shows the start of the movement, in the sixties, towards sexual equality between men and women.

‘The Bell Jar’ is a good introduction into the views and expectations that women faced during the fifties and sixties. It shows the constrictions women had to handle and allows us to explore the second wave of feminism, helping society to rethink its views on women.

By Lauren Shaw