It’s always an interesting experience to uncover and dig into the symbolic and cultural codes of a text. Symbolic codes look simple and finite, but the cultural codes that reinforce them reveal an endless black hole of discovery (and maybe an existential crisis or two).
Symbolic codes, as we have read so far, are made up of binary opposites. These binaries are reinforced by cultural codes that exist in our world. These ideas aren’t trapped in the world of novels or rhetorical essays, they exist in ourselves and in the society that we were born into. At first, it’s difficult to understand just how intense these intertextual codes are. Let’s dig into the codes using The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.
The novel tells the story of Esther Greenwood as she interns in NYC, traverses through the expectations of love and sex, and grapples with her mental health. Plath offers a platter-full of symbolic codes in the novel: oppression vs liberty, life vs death, sanity vs madness, innocence vs decadence, intelligence vs idiocy, etc. There is a particular binary that caught my attention rather quickly at the beginning of the novel: straight vs non-straight sexual identity.
To preface, The Bell Jar is set in the 1950s, so rights for queer couples aren’t at an all-time high. People who don’t conform to a heteronormative lifestyle are at risk of social persecution. So how is sexual orientation at work within the novel? I find the most compelling evidence in the language that surrounds the description of men and women from Esther’s perspective.
Esther spends a lot of time describing Doreen, how she looks, smells, what she sounds like, what she does. When talking about her nightclothes, Esther describes her and the other women’s clothes as simple and plain but “Doreen wore these full-length nylon and lace jobs you could half see through, and dressing gowns the color of skin, that stuck to her by some kind of electricity” (5). As a reader, I started to question why I need to know that Doreen’s nightgown is lace and the color of skin. Does Esther think she’s flaunting her body? Does she look down on her for this? I don’t think so.
The two take their own cab to another boring “party” with the other girls from the magazine. In the cab, we get Esther’s description of Doreen’s outfit, “She was wearing a strapless white lace dress zipped up over a snug corset affair that curved her at the middle and bulged her out again spectacularly above and below, and her skin had a bronzy polish under the pale dusting powder” (7). Again the reader can ask why? Why do I need to know the hourglass figure that the dress accentuates on her friend?
And there’s yet another more intimate moment that happens later on. Esther watches on like a wallflower as Doreen dances with Lenny:
I noticed, in the routine way you notice the color of somebody’s eyes, that Doreen’s breasts had popped out of her dress and were swinging out slightly like full brown melons as she circled belly-down on Lenny’s shoulder… 17
How do you notice a woman’s breasts the same way you notice someone’s eye color? Esther is focused on Doreen, the way her body moves, the way it looks, the way it smells. Sure we can think that Esther just notices these things about people in general. Well, let’s look at some of the language she uses to talk about Lenny and his friend Frankie.
When Lenny approaches their cab, Esther’s first thought is that he “had a big, wide, white toothpaste-ad smile” (8). Essentially saying he looks fake and inauthentic. The description makes me (the reader) picture his smile as a caricature, exaggerated and maybe even a little unnerving. What does Esther think of Lenny’s friend, Frankie? Well for one, Frankie is short, so she is already displeased with him physically. When he asks to dance she thinks, “The thought of dancing with that little runt in his orange suede elevator shoes and mingy t-shirt and droopy blue sports coat made me laugh. If there’s anything I look down on, it’s a man in a blue outfit” and then replies “I’m not in the mood” (11-12). Frankie’s height is exaggerated much like Lenny’s smile. Esther dismisses Frankie entirely and even moves her chair closer to Doreen after turning him down.
There is even a moment where Esther compares Buddy, her long time de-facto finance, to Doreen, “But he didn’t have one speck of intuition. Doreen had intuition” (7). Esther focuses all of her attention on the physicality of Doreen, to the point that it feels romantic, and she entirely dismisses the men around her. As you continue reading, the difference in the language surrounding men and women leads me to believe that Esther is not a heterosexual person. I believe that Esther denies this part of her and that the guilt of not abiding by the expectations of heteronormativity bubbles up and threatens her throughout the novel.
This brings me to the cultural code, the pressure that Esther feels to be straight, and follow the expectations that are set for her as a woman. Kaja Silverman in “Re-Writing the Classic Text,” explains that “cultural codes function to not only organize but to naturalize that field- to make it seem timeless and inevitable” (274). The scary truth in cultural codes is that they are hard to destroy. They are timeless and a person will have to grapple with impositions of a particular cultural code at some point in their lifetime. Esther struggles with many in the novel, but the performance of gender roles seems to be reinforcing her struggle with sex and sexuality. The heteronormative society of the 50s heavily imposed the idea that women are here to love a man, bear his children, and spend their adulthood and motherhood in the house raising children. This is the beginnings of the “nuclear family.” The pressure Esther feels to be this particular sort of woman weighs on her heavily.
Even when Esther first meets Frankie she changes herself to make herself seem more “womanly.” She explains that “I’m five feet ten in my stocking feet, and when I am with little men I stoop over a bit and slouch my hips, one up and one down, so I’ll look shorter, and I feel gawky and morbid as somebody in a sideshow” (9). She changes her physical stance to make herself appear as the small woman on the arm of a big, tough man, even though she already detests the man. Esther finds short men irritating and yet makes herself small in their presence to please them, and to abide by the cultural code.
So not only is Esther struggling with the expectations of “how to be a woman” but also how to be a straight woman. She struggles to find her place sexually. I find this particular instance of the symbolic and cultural code is especially trapped within a network of controlling values. Esther has 2 choices, or two controlling values that she can operate in. Of course, the novel doesn’t let her settle with one, feeling safe and warm and comfortable, but she is constantly bouncing between the two of them.
The network controlling value is made up of 2 sets of a negatively charged context and a positively charged purpose. Right now the context of controlling value seems to be, Distinguishing yourself from others will lead to suffering and loneliness, and its corresponding purpose, Suppress your individual thoughts and conform to others expectations in order to be fulfilled in life. The controlling value tells Esther that being different, in her gender or sexual performance, will lead to suffering. She won’t be able to live a fulfilling life if she doesn’t submit and conform to society’s expectations.
Then we move to the opposing controlling values. The context here presents itself as, Operating within an imposed set of expectations will destroy you, and the corresponding purpose as, Remove all inhibitions around being different and you will be able to lead a fulfilling life. The opposing controlling value tells Esther that it is okay to be different. It’s okay not to fall in line in a suppressive heteronormative society. She is more than that, her individuality and self-expression can lead her to fulfillment. Ultimately I find that the dooming pressure of the controlling value wins time and time again.
Take for instance, the night after Esther goes out with Doreen and Lenny. Esther leaves early and arrives back at the hotel and decides to take a bath. She shares with the reader why she enjoys baths so much, “Whenever I’m sad I’m going to die, or so nervous I can’t sleep, or in love with somebody I won’t be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then say: I’ll go take a hot bath” (19). Why do people take hot baths or showers? Well, the heat helps de-stimulate the senses. Think about the guilt Esther would feel for being attracted to Doreen. Wouldn’t it set off all of her senses, the anxiety and guilt that would create within her mind would be overwhelming. She’s starting to struggle with the controlling value.
Instead of rolling with it, saying “Screw you!” to the controlling value, she submits to it. Esther says, “And I felt myself growing pure again. I don’t believe in baptism or the waters of Jordan or anything like that, but I guess I feel about a hot bath the way those religious people feel about holy water” (20). And this is the whole function of a hot bath for her. Esther is able to cleanse herself of her “sins” and repent all the ways she broke from heteronormativity.
It’s frustrating to watch, to read. It breaks my heart as a reader. I want to root for Esther’s success so badly. But I can’t help but read her as a woman who is so trapped in the dominant cultural code that she suffocates under the bell jar itself. Esther becomes the bell trapped in the jar, with the vacuum of this cultural code sucking all the air out until her bell can no longer ring. It pushes her further and further down into this pit of despair and the reader is helpless to it all. She isn’t able to challenge her roles as a woman, she isn’t able to be anything but a good housewife.
A Reading List By Group 5 
I agree with the idea of cultural codes trapping Esther to be a perfect woman. Such as saving your virginity until you marry and then have kids, but Esther was not sure about that and did not want to pick the wrong guy to have her lose her virginity to and marry. But I also thought about how in Brendon’s blog, he mentioned how Esther had suicide tendencies like when she saw a rope, she thought of hanging herself. Another example is on page 156, where she was at the beach and asked her friend how he would commit suicide. Is that alarming to ask someone, or maybe it’s part of society for people to have suicidal tendencies? I believe that’s another part of cultural codes. It goes both ways for The Bell Jar as the cultural codes could be about the sex and mental illness within the novel and how complex it was.
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Hello Angelina, you bring up a good point that Esther could very well be having her own inner struggle due to her sexuality. I like how you pointed out that the reader was supposed to notice the way that Doreen looked, or how she is different from those around her. It’s a good point, but I wanna adjust it a bit because you are already doing this within the blog. I think the reader’s attention wasn’t supposed to be focused on Doreen. It was supposed to notice Esther’s own focus on the way Doreen looks and how she is different from other people around them. You bring up a good point that dualism is a theme that is hinted at throughout the narrative, but I think there is yet another that has to be highlighted. Friendship and Romance, as you pointed out Esther could be a bisexual woman who might have a crush on Doreen. However, the love is unrequited as not only would the two of them be ostracized within their homophobic society, Doreen doesn’t seem to reciprocate similar feelings towards Esther herself. Not only is she feeling the pressure to become acceptable by society, but she is barred from being with the one person she has true feelings for.
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Your bring up very important points that tie together the cultural codes and Esther’s depiction of “perfect.” Esther questions the codes back then of waiting till marriage to have sex. But she constantly questions her life with multiple guys, to think of what life and their family would be like. What is unique to me is that we all have these different interpretations of what Doreen represented to Esther. As in Brandon’s comment he mentions that he think the reader’s attention wasn’t supposed to be focused on Doreen. It was supposed to notice Esther’s own focus on the way Doreen looks and how she is different from other people around them. But when reading your blog you brought up that there could be more to that then just a typical friendship, Esther could be a bisexual woman who might have a crush on Doreen. I actually thought that Esther despised Doreen and wanted everything she had. She was constantly comparing her life to her own. I never even thought of how Doreen could have meant more to Esther then she did. It also opened my mind to the fact that maybe this is about Esther exploring who she is, maybe she’s stuck in a stage where she isn’t sure if she wants a guy or a girl.
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