Jillian Allen answers “As the book ended and Esther was about to...”

Kathy E. asked this question about The Bell Jar:

As the book ended and Esther was about to leave to go "home", I wondered about her future. I really didn't feel she was well enough yet to live independently and concluded that she would return to the asylum or commit suicide. Does anyone have other thoughts on Esther's life outside "in the real world"?

Jillian Allen This is very late, but maybe you'd still be interested in hearing what I have to say.

When Esther had sex and was hemorrhaging and asked for help, that…moreThis is very late, but maybe you'd still be interested in hearing what I have to say.

When Esther had sex and was hemorrhaging and asked for help, that was a very good sign that she was no longer suicidal. A few months prior, and she probably would have used that as an excuse to die. She wouldn't have asked for help and would have let herself bleed out. It shows that she was fighting for life again.

However, I do not think she was ready to be on her own at all, and, like you said, probably would have ended up dead or back in the asylum in probably a month's or a year's time.

I have this belief for two reasons:
1. I know that Esther was basically Sylvia Plath in disguise, and I know what happened to Sylvia, in the end.

2. I know what happened to me. I was in the hospital for a suicide attempt (same way as Esther, but with Tylenol rather than sleeping pills). I lied my way out of the hospital because I was so desperate to get out; I made it seem like I regretted everything. In a sense, I did regret things, but I was nowhere near as "okay" as I made myself out to be. And I fell right back into the same cycles; same thoughts, same feelings, same spectacular lows. And I recognize some of the characteristics Esther was having towards the end of the novel in myself after I got out of the hospital. Clinical depression like that tends to come back, and I'm fairly positive it would have come back for Esther too.(less)

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