The Bell Jar

by Sylvia Plath

“Don’t let the wicked city get you down.”

Later Buddy told me the woman was on a drug that would make her forget she’d had any pain and that when she swore and groaned she really didn’t know what she was doing because she was in a kind of twilight sleep. I thought it sounded just like the sort of drug a man would invent. Here was a woman in terrible pain, obviously feeling every bit of it or she wouldn’t groan like that, and she would go straight home and start another baby, because the drug would make her forget how bad the pain had been, when all the time, in some secret part of her, that long, blind, doorless and windowless corridor of pain was waiting to open up and shut her in again.

He even seemed relieved to have somebody to tell about how he was seduced. Of course, somebody had seduced Buddy, Buddy hadn’t started it and it wasn’t really his fault.

The trouble was, I hated the idea of serving men in any way.

Real

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

I mean, I’ve obviously heard of this metaphor before, but still, what a crazy way to word things.

Ever since Buddy Willard had told me about that waitress I had been thinking I ought to go out and sleep with somebody myself.

I love how predictable human emotions are. This is the equivalent of saying you are going to fuck somebody cause your ex did.

Sleeping with Buddy wouldn’t count, though, because he would still be one person ahead of me, it would have to be with somebody else.

Like she’s so funny.

but Eric said it would be spoiled by thinking this woman too was just an animal like the rest, so if he loved anybody he would never go to bed with her. He’d go to a whore if he had to and keep the woman he loved free of all that dirty business.

And I knew that in spite of all the roses and kisses and restaurant dinners a man showered on a woman before he married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding service ended was for her to flatten out underneath his feet like Mrs. Willard’s kitchen mat.