"nobody understands me"

     A lot of Esther’s narration and her interactions with other people reminded me of Holden, and I realized that the commonality was their impression that they are truly alone and unique in all of their thoughts and opinions. Each of these characters are very distrustful of others (Holden especially so of adults) and therefore both project a lot of assumptions onto others, even when they have very little evidence of them. I think this attitude contributes a lot to both characters’ deteriorating mental states, and builds as the novel goes on.   

    The first instance I noticed of this was Esther saying, “I am an observer” to herself (Plath 55). This is a pretty neutral start, nothing too out of the ordinary to just be on the quiet and more observant side. But Esther being an observer extends a lot further than that, as she sees herself as completely separate from other people on some fundamental level – hence, of course, the bell jar. On Page 67 she meets Doctor Gordon and immediately assumes, “He was young and good looking, and I could see right away he was conceited”. This is distinctly reminiscent of the way Holden would describe other people – after a general description he would throw the reader right into a very charged set of assumptions about the person or their thoughts or motivations. I don’t think that this is a coincidence – both of these characters’ disconnections from others, enable them to make such confident assumptions, and therefore make them feel as if their experiences and perceptions of the world are so unique that no one else would really understand. 

    On multiple occasions, Esther contemplates the idea of marrying men that she encounters (such as the prison guard), thinking about what her life could be like if she had. Again, these instances show that Esther doesn’t actually see others as complex individuals but more like replaceable characters in her game of life, onto which she can project any idea or possibility. Even with people she’s close to – people we’d say, of course she has to at least empathize with them – she can’t find any connection either. As we discussed in class, her dismissal of her mother’s emotions is a very significant result of her mental illness, and her getting angry at her mother for being sad, asking Esther what she did wrong, and apologizing, are prominent examples of Esther pushing away the people who could help her because she’s unable to relate to them. If she sees everyone else as just a two-dimensional idea of a person, it’s no wonder that she felt increasingly isolated – to not be understood or understand anyone is basically like being all alone, isn’t it? I guess that brings us right back to the title of the book.