I came into all three of the novels we've read so far this semester with significant ideas already formed about them, all of which turned out to be flawed. Probably the worst concerned Catcher, which I had seen since middle school as the book for pseudo-intellectual jerks who wanted an excuse to complain about other people -- without ever having actually read it. I mixed it up with Naked Lunch and the Sex Pistols as "phony" expressions of contrarianism, which might just be because everyone around me liked them and so I decided that I didn't want to. After all, what's worse than a contrarian? Anyway, by the time I actually read Catcher this year my mood had mellowed enough that I was only mildly apprehensive towards it, which was just enough for me to be extremely pleasantly surprised. I definitely was not expecting to relate to Holden as strongly as I did, especially because I had no idea that he would have such a nuanced and well-explored history. Ironically, the sense of surprise that I felt as I got to know Holden -- kind of like the feeling of disliking someone for years for some ill-formed reason, only to find that you really get along once you actually try to talk to them -- probably really enhanced my enjoyment of the novel, as it made me eager to learn more about him so that my old ideas could be completely replaced.
My idea of The Bell Jar was similar to that of Catcher, if a bit less intense. I knew that Bell Jar fans were basically equivalent to Catcher fans, except for a slightly different gender ratio, but I guess I never knew enough personally to get really worked up it. If I was at all anxious about The Bell Jar, that feeling vanished by the middle of the first page, and I've essentially forgotten whatever worries I had going on when I started reading. In that sense my opinions on starting weren't really significant enough to change my reading experience. However, I have known enough Bell Jar fans that I started the novel with an idea of her biography, and I do think that knowing about her suicide changed how I viewed the book. I tried to put it out of my head, but I can't totally rule out the possibility that, had I not known what happened to the real-life version of Esther, I would have been slower to accept the severity of her illness, and maybe even been less sympathetic towards her than I ultimately was. It's a tragic story no matter what, but knowing that the "bell jar" does come back down makes the novel's end just that little bit more scary. On the other hand, maybe knowing that Plath lived to be 30 also changed my reaction; it's possible that if I hadn't made the connection between Esther and her author, I would have been even more frightened by her suicide attempts, because I wouldn't have known for certain that she would live, even in the middle of the novel.
Speaking of biographical information changing my reading of a book: I hadn't read anything by Joyce before starting Portrait, but I did have a pretty strong sense of him as the kind of author you're supposed to respect, for writing big, experimental novels of impenetrable genius. If anything, Portrait was probably a little less challenging than I was expecting, and not because it was an easy read. But knowing a little about Joyce didn't just mean that I was relieved that his book was manageable; it also really changed my interpretation of Stephen. We've talked a lot in class about Joyce's active position as author, and especially the irony he uses in narrating his own past, but his story also has a passive effect on how we view Stephen. It's possible that if we didn't know that Stephen actually would turn out to be one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century, we would be less patient with his (at times) extreme arrogance and sense of "otherness." I know that a lot of people still found Stephen insufferable even knowing who he eventually becomes, but for me his behavior is acceptable for someone who actually is different somehow; after all, if Joyce hadn't been as self-centered and dismissive as he makes his younger self out to be, then he may never have been able to develop to the point where he could write something like Portrait. Of course, that doesn't mean his behavior is necessarily good, just that it's somewhat understandable.
It reminds me a little bit of how I reacted to Lady Lazarus today; the language feels hyperbolic in its intensity, but I was somehow able to forgive that having already read The Bell Jar. Somehow that text, along with the knowledge of Plath's suicide, gave me enough background knowledge about the nature of her illness that I believed her hyperbole, and accepted that her inner turmoil actually was as bad as she makes it out to be. I guess that's the third kind of preconceived notion: the background knowledge you have from simply having read a given author's work before. Having already read something by the author of whatever you're reading is an unavoidable familiarity; no matter how hard I try, I can't avoid drawing parallels between the two texts, to try and understand the author better. Every piece of writing is like a conversation, and as you go along you can end up feeling a familiarity (or even friendship) with the person whose stuff you've been reading for so long. This type of relationship might actually be the most "damaging" to the integrity of whatever you're reading, because you can't help but connect the opinions and experiences you already associate with the writer to the new work. The question is whether this is actually a bad thing; unlike the experience of disliking a book because of the people you associate it with, coming in with a pre-established relationship with the author probably helps you understand their actual thought process, and by extension the meaning of their book, better. I guess it just comes down to what the author wants of our their book: some people want their books to be a way to make themselves better understood, while others (like Salinger) may want to keep their novels as separate from their own lives as possible. If they seem to want the latter, then we owe it to them to at least try to forget about how much we loved their last book, or that juicy story we heard about their younger days, or how the people we didn't like in middle school wouldn't shut up about them.
Friday, March 6, 2015
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Buddy Buddy
When I started this post a few days ago I was a little afraid that I'd waited to long to write about Buddy, given how far removed he seems from Esther's experience in the hospital, so I was weirdly pleased to see him return at the very end of the novel. Buddy strikes me as an extremely important character, if also a somewhat one-sided one. As the primary male figure in Esther's life, his failings seem to play into the specific form Esther's depression takes, even if she does assure him that he doesn't cause it. I'll get to that conversation and his return further down, but it's probably worth starting with his initial significance as the face of oblivious masculinity.
What Buddy represents is not just Esther's first love; he is the stand-in for men as they are meant to be, the husband promised by Reader's Digest. He appears to be everything that women in the 1950's were trained to want: kind and sexually innocent while still having the "masculine" traits of intelligence and physical fitness (as his beach push-ups are meant to indicate). His identity is wrapped up in being a caretaker, both of sick patients and the "weaker sex;" it's a role which he sees as loving and natural but which Esther comes to see as stiflingly authoritative. The "comes to" there is important, because at first Esther more than buys in to the Buddy Willard hype. She crushes on him from afar for years, and is absolutely thrilled when he asks her to the Junior Prom. This excitement quickly dissipates as he reveals himself to be an uninspiring kisser and less than engaging conversationalist. By the time Buddy reveals his "hypocrisy" while revealing himself, Esther seems bored by Buddy, to the point where his revelation may be a convenient dummy on which to blame her own flagging attraction.
The time during which Esther gets sick of Buddy also sees her begin to strain against the place of women in her society. While she still buys into the prescribed advice on things like dating and fashion, it is mostly because she fails to see any alternative. She commits minor acts of rebellion, such as refusing to learn shorthand or eating caviar the way she wants to, but is never able to remove herself fully from the fear of both marriage and spinsterhood. Sexuality is not the only expression of Esther's confinement by gender roles, but it is probably the starkest and (to Esther) most bewildering example. Trapped as she is between taboo sexual desire and the fear of childbirth, she not unfairly begins to blame men for their seemingly easy time navigating the sexual world without fear of repercussions. When Buddy admits his past sexual behavior, it doesn't just make him a hypocrite -- it confirms Esther's suspicion that men live totally different sexual lives than women, and therefore have no right to expect or prescribe anything. Men in this view keep women complacent through flattering lies about their own naivete, while giving them what amount to mind control drugs to make them think that childbirth is an acceptable consequence of sex. Buddy's carefully crafted identity as the friendly, knowledgeable doctor is shattered -- as is Esther's leg the last time she gives this character any leeway.
While much occurs between Esther's visit to Buddy's hospital and his visit to hers, whatever lessons she learns cohere and allow her to finally clear up her position with the "sick doctor." Having had significantly more experience with bad doctors by the time of this visit, she feels no respect for Buddy's position. Esther's time sick has, if nothing else, diminished Buddy's importance in her mind. His duplicity in dumping Joan as soon as Esther was available barely even registers as hypocrisy, the way this information would have if it had come earlier; Buddy just isn't that important any more. He's reduced to watching Esther shovel snow while needling her about if something is wrong with him; a significant role reversal in terms of both competence and authority. Now it is the patient reassuring the doctor, who can only sigh and dream of being taken to a Junior Prom.
(For what it's worth, I think this blog post is overly harsh on Buddy; I actually kind of feel for him as a character who's possibly even more dominated by his gendered place in society than Esther is, even if he does have a cushier position. But unfortunately this post is more about his role in Esther's mental journey, during which he kind of has to get thrown under the bus.)
What Buddy represents is not just Esther's first love; he is the stand-in for men as they are meant to be, the husband promised by Reader's Digest. He appears to be everything that women in the 1950's were trained to want: kind and sexually innocent while still having the "masculine" traits of intelligence and physical fitness (as his beach push-ups are meant to indicate). His identity is wrapped up in being a caretaker, both of sick patients and the "weaker sex;" it's a role which he sees as loving and natural but which Esther comes to see as stiflingly authoritative. The "comes to" there is important, because at first Esther more than buys in to the Buddy Willard hype. She crushes on him from afar for years, and is absolutely thrilled when he asks her to the Junior Prom. This excitement quickly dissipates as he reveals himself to be an uninspiring kisser and less than engaging conversationalist. By the time Buddy reveals his "hypocrisy" while revealing himself, Esther seems bored by Buddy, to the point where his revelation may be a convenient dummy on which to blame her own flagging attraction.
The time during which Esther gets sick of Buddy also sees her begin to strain against the place of women in her society. While she still buys into the prescribed advice on things like dating and fashion, it is mostly because she fails to see any alternative. She commits minor acts of rebellion, such as refusing to learn shorthand or eating caviar the way she wants to, but is never able to remove herself fully from the fear of both marriage and spinsterhood. Sexuality is not the only expression of Esther's confinement by gender roles, but it is probably the starkest and (to Esther) most bewildering example. Trapped as she is between taboo sexual desire and the fear of childbirth, she not unfairly begins to blame men for their seemingly easy time navigating the sexual world without fear of repercussions. When Buddy admits his past sexual behavior, it doesn't just make him a hypocrite -- it confirms Esther's suspicion that men live totally different sexual lives than women, and therefore have no right to expect or prescribe anything. Men in this view keep women complacent through flattering lies about their own naivete, while giving them what amount to mind control drugs to make them think that childbirth is an acceptable consequence of sex. Buddy's carefully crafted identity as the friendly, knowledgeable doctor is shattered -- as is Esther's leg the last time she gives this character any leeway.
While much occurs between Esther's visit to Buddy's hospital and his visit to hers, whatever lessons she learns cohere and allow her to finally clear up her position with the "sick doctor." Having had significantly more experience with bad doctors by the time of this visit, she feels no respect for Buddy's position. Esther's time sick has, if nothing else, diminished Buddy's importance in her mind. His duplicity in dumping Joan as soon as Esther was available barely even registers as hypocrisy, the way this information would have if it had come earlier; Buddy just isn't that important any more. He's reduced to watching Esther shovel snow while needling her about if something is wrong with him; a significant role reversal in terms of both competence and authority. Now it is the patient reassuring the doctor, who can only sigh and dream of being taken to a Junior Prom.
(For what it's worth, I think this blog post is overly harsh on Buddy; I actually kind of feel for him as a character who's possibly even more dominated by his gendered place in society than Esther is, even if he does have a cushier position. But unfortunately this post is more about his role in Esther's mental journey, during which he kind of has to get thrown under the bus.)
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Dedalesther
So far a lot of people have been talking about the connections between Esther Greenwood and Holden Caulfield, which makes sense. After all, the two characters have very similar experiences of alienation in New York City at around the same time, and they describe many of the same problems. However, I also think it might be worth looking at the ways in which Esther compares to Stephen from Portrait, because despite their different settings I think their personalities have a lot in common. More specifically, both of them are academic prodigies who must find a way to reconcile themselves to the end of their formal education, and the social independence to come. In particular, they are different from Holden in that both struggle more (or at least tell us more about their struggles) with their internal identity than with the failings of the outside world.
It would be an understatement to say that Esther and Stephen have difficult relating to the people around them. Neither character is able to have anything like an easy rapport with even their supposed friends -- Esther seems to have nothing to say to Betsy and is mostly interested in Doreen as an observer, while Stephen mostly takes social interaction as an opportunity to lecture (at least once he's grown up). Both of them yearn for a real connection with others, but have difficulty expressing their "true" selves, in part because they are afraid of the social consequences of revealing their reservations about the conservative society around them. Together with the fact that writing is what has always come naturally to them and what has earned them praise since they were young, this perceived inability to express themselves authentically to others may be what leads them to seek expression through art, and to identify themselves as artists.
Despite the probable similarities in motivation for Stephen and Esther to identify as self-consciously "artistic," the ways in which the two characters express this identity are remarkably different. The obvious example is the fact that Joyce feels free to proclaim his character as an artist in the very title of his book, and to draw connections with such famous artists as Lord Byron and Dedalus. His belief in his own nature is expressed loudly and ecstatically, on almost every page of the last few chapters, and the book closes with Stephen at the cusp of finally living up to the ideal to which he has compared himself for the entire novel, with fully-defined aesthetic beliefs and the journal entries which presumably began the process of writing Portrait itself. By comparison, Esther is much more hesitant to call herself a poet. Despite having created what appears to be a much larger body of work than Stephen's by the time of The Bell Jar, and clearly harboring the desire and talent to write professionally, she has difficulty seeing herself outside of the preconceived "figs" for which she has been prepared. In contrast to Stephen's driving devotion to poetry, Esther's dreams seem to take one of two: either she gives up literature entirely to live as a housewife, or she is allowed to engage with it only the academic setting, as a professor writing long essays about Joyce (interestingly enough). Unlike Stephen, who feels empowered to do as he pleases, and define himself however he wants, Esther feels hemmed in by existing norms. While her collapse towards the end of the book is probably attributable to many causes, one of the biggest must be her inability to imagine a future in which she actually gets to do the one thing she actually wants to do, and the way in which her very ability to do so is slowly taken from her as she loses her ability to read and write.
It would be an understatement to say that Esther and Stephen have difficult relating to the people around them. Neither character is able to have anything like an easy rapport with even their supposed friends -- Esther seems to have nothing to say to Betsy and is mostly interested in Doreen as an observer, while Stephen mostly takes social interaction as an opportunity to lecture (at least once he's grown up). Both of them yearn for a real connection with others, but have difficulty expressing their "true" selves, in part because they are afraid of the social consequences of revealing their reservations about the conservative society around them. Together with the fact that writing is what has always come naturally to them and what has earned them praise since they were young, this perceived inability to express themselves authentically to others may be what leads them to seek expression through art, and to identify themselves as artists.
Despite the probable similarities in motivation for Stephen and Esther to identify as self-consciously "artistic," the ways in which the two characters express this identity are remarkably different. The obvious example is the fact that Joyce feels free to proclaim his character as an artist in the very title of his book, and to draw connections with such famous artists as Lord Byron and Dedalus. His belief in his own nature is expressed loudly and ecstatically, on almost every page of the last few chapters, and the book closes with Stephen at the cusp of finally living up to the ideal to which he has compared himself for the entire novel, with fully-defined aesthetic beliefs and the journal entries which presumably began the process of writing Portrait itself. By comparison, Esther is much more hesitant to call herself a poet. Despite having created what appears to be a much larger body of work than Stephen's by the time of The Bell Jar, and clearly harboring the desire and talent to write professionally, she has difficulty seeing herself outside of the preconceived "figs" for which she has been prepared. In contrast to Stephen's driving devotion to poetry, Esther's dreams seem to take one of two: either she gives up literature entirely to live as a housewife, or she is allowed to engage with it only the academic setting, as a professor writing long essays about Joyce (interestingly enough). Unlike Stephen, who feels empowered to do as he pleases, and define himself however he wants, Esther feels hemmed in by existing norms. While her collapse towards the end of the book is probably attributable to many causes, one of the biggest must be her inability to imagine a future in which she actually gets to do the one thing she actually wants to do, and the way in which her very ability to do so is slowly taken from her as she loses her ability to read and write.
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