Bell Jar,19-20

When Esther meets Irwin, at first she doesn't think anything of it, but after a few cups of bad coffee at the cafeteria, and then she went back to his house, everything changed. She could tell he was successful, and that was when she decided to " seduce him." She had always imagined that her first time would be with someone who was intelligent, which Irwin obviously was if he was a college professor at the age of 26, someone she didn't really know, and someone who was very experienced to make up for the fact that she wasn't experienced at all. Irwin fit all of these standards, so after a few alcoholic beverages, they ended up sleeping together. The reason she felt such a need was because he was the perfect guy, and she was in the perfect situation, so she might as well jump on it. After the experience, she at first couldn't tell if she achieved her mission or not so she didn't feel much, but once she felt the proof that her virginity was actually taken from her, she felt happy that it finally happened to her. She was proud, at first that she had to deal with the problem she had, but once it kept happening, and it got to the point where she had to go to Joan, she was sort of embarrassed, and didn't want to tell Joan what really happened because she was afraid that Joan either wouldn't believe her or would look down upon her.

Bell Jar,17-18

The first time we hear Esther compare herself to a bell jar, it is because she is talking about how she doesn't feel that grateful that Philomena Guinea is getting her into the special asylum. She feels like Mrs Guinea could buy her a plane ticket to Paris, or a hotel in another wonderful place in the word and she would still feel the same way, trapped. No matter where she goes, the bell jar will always be on top of her, preventing her from escaping, and keeping her trapped. She thinks her sickness will follow her everywhere she goes, preventing her from going and living her life and being happy. In chapter 18, when Esther talks about the bell jar, it is after she had her second shock treatment, and this one actually worked. When she woke up she said that the bell jar was suspended a few feet away from her head. This means that after the shock treatment, she finally began feeling better. Esther no longer felt as trapped as she had in her previous months and years. This treatment gave her hope, and she didn't have to worry anymore about her sickness bringing her down. This was true because after she began having the shock treatments three times a week, she also started being able to get more privileges. Esther was now no longer trapped within the asylum, or emotionally trapped, and as unhappy.

Bell Jar 15-16

Esther goes to a new asylum because Philomena Guinea, the person who paid for her scholarship, hears about her in the newspaper, comes to Boston, and offers to pay for Esther to get help, because when she was younger she had to go to an asylum herself. The new asylum was like a country club in that it had golf and badminton and other activities for the patients to do. When Esther described it, she said that there was alot of the same furniture, but the room she was staying at did not have bars on the windows, like the other hospital did. Also, at this hospital, she had a female doctor, which was sort of different for her. She also had much more freedom at this hospital. If she got well enough, she would be able to go into the town and shop or see a movie. She can leave her room whenever she would like, and go out side for walks. At the other place, she would have been stopped. Also, when the doctor at the new location heard about her shock treatment experience, she was told that isn't what it was supposed to be like, and that she wouldn't have to go through that, which was good news for Esther. If Esther stayed at the other hospital, she would not have gotten any better. She would have been less likely to courperate, and then been treated worse and worse, which wouldn't have helped her at all.

Bell jar

( I accidentally answered skipped a question and have been answering a question ahead of what I should be answering. Last thursday I talked about the hospital she was at when she was first found after she took the pills, and when it asked about why Esther tries to kill herself, i talked about the razor instance I think, so here is my Dr. Gordon question that I skipped.)

Before she goes to Dr. Gordon, Esther assumes that she will be able to walk into his office, and he will look at her and solve all of her problems. When she meets Dr. Gordon for the first time, she notices right away that he is an attractive man. Then, she looks at his desk and sees a picture of his perfect family, dog and all, that is half facing her and half facing him. She gets really upset at this because she feels like he is doing that to show off that he has a perfect family. Then when he starts asking her to tell him what she thinks is wrong with her, he doesn't really do anything to acknowledge that he has any idea what is wrong, or that he really cares. He asks her what college she went to, and if it had some program he was affiliated with, which just shows he doesn't really care about figuring out Esther's problems, and he would rather talk about something that has no significance. He does not give any advice, and at the end of their meeting, all he says is "I'll see you next week." His sessions are $25 a hour, and after a few sessions he recommends that Esther goes to his hospital, for shock treatments. Dr. Gordon isn't helping Esther at all, he is just doing it to get money. He hasn't given her any advice or help since she started going there, and the only thing he has done was shock her, and cause her pain.

Bell Jar, 13-14

At the new asylum, the people there are not very positive. When she firsts gets the the asylum, she says she is blind and one of the nurses simply says yes you are but it is ok, you will find a blind husband. The truth was she was not blind, and the nurse did not do a good job trying to calm down Esthers nerves. Also, the nurses are quick to get angry at the patients, and you would think at a place where there are mentally unstable and suicidal people, they would try their best on making it a positive environment for them, and try to use as much positive reienforcement as possible in order to make them better in the long run. Also, another example of them being negative is when Esther wants to look at herself in the mirror. Instead of the nurse making up an excuse about why she can't see a mirror, she simply says, you won't be happy with what you see because it is not beautiful. This is not something that would help a person with so many problems, like Esther has. It is probally better for Esther to be moved to Mrs. Moles room, because she does not take all of the crowds well. she says she hates talking to groups now, so this would probally limit th eneed to talk in a group some. Also, if she is so secluded, then random people might stop going to visit her.

Bell Jar, 11-12

Esther is just a messed up girl. She doesn't know what she wants from her life, and when she thinks she is happy, she does something to make herself not happy. Also, part of Esther's problem is that she doesn't think she is crazy. She wants to stop seeing Dr. Gordon, which makes a little bit of sense because he isn't doing much, but if she stops seeing him, she doesn't realize that she is sick and needs to go see someone to help her. Esther has gone completely off the deep end. She spends the latter part of her scholarship time in New York, worrying about what she will do once she gets out of college. Then she finally decides that she will be a writer, because that is the only thing she is good at, but the first thing she finds out when she gets home to Boston is that she didn't make the writing class. This completely turned her life upside down, because now what she planned to do the rest of her life was not going to happen, or at least happen the way she wanted it to. Esther had this all on top of her already crazy life and personality, which did not help her at all. All of this probably had a impact on her thinking about killing herself. She is not happy with her life, and that she isnt really successfull, on top of the fact that her mother is upset that she isnt normal.

Bell Jar 9-10

When Esther returns to she is really weird. She goes through a phase where she doesn't want the dried blood on her phase to fall off, because she likes it there, and likes sort of the idea of what happened. She is also very irritated and sort of lazy when she returns. She sits and just watches the woman with the baby for a while, and then proceeds to go and lay down in her bed. When she is in the bed her phone keeps ringing, and she very angerly gets up. When her friend Jody is on the other line, she shortly tells her she didn't get in the class, and she doesn't want to stay with her. After that she starts writing a story, which she quickly runs out of things to say. Then she goes through 20 other possibly things she could spend her summer doing. In a period of around 3 hours, she goes from writing a short story, to wanting to spend her summer in Germany until she can speak both German and English perfectly. She is extremely indesisive once she gets back to Boston, and is also in a bad mood. This could be because of what happened with Marco. He was a complete jerk to her, and pushed her into the mud, and ripped her dress. This would explain why she was short tempered.

Bell Jar,7-8

Esther is very unhappy with the double standard of pureness between men and women. She is upset that men can be as un pure as they want, but the second women become unpure, they are now untrustworthy, and unappealing. The same men who tricked them into sleeping with them, and now telling them that they want nothing to do with them because if they were so easily tricked with them, they might do the same thing with other men. Also, while reading an article about chastity that her mother sent her to college, it talked about what the men felt, but never mentioned anything about women, which also made Esther mad. When Esther meets Constantine, one of her first thoughts was that she could get with Constantine, and make it so Buddy and her are equal when it comes to sleeping with people. She doesn't like the fact that men can live the pure and unpure life, while women have to go through their whole life with only one person. This is why she wants to try ang get with Constantine. He is extremely cute and talented, and while she thinks he is much better than she is, she thinks he still might be willing to seduce her. When she gets to his house, he doesn't seem has down with the plan as she is. They start holding hands, but nothing seems to be happening after that. She asks him what the deal was, and if he had a girlfriend she didn't know about, and he responded by saying he didnt get involved like that. They ended up sleeping in the same bed, which was a first for Esther, yet nothing sexual came out of the night. This was not something most men would do, which makes it intersting.

Bell Jar,5-6

When Esther firsts meets Buddy, she spends alot of time admiring him from a far. They went to church for a while, and whenever both of them were home, they saw each other on Sunday's, but their relationship didn't really mean much. Then one day during Christmas break, he told her he might stop by every once and a while at her college to say hi. Well he finally did this, and ended up asking her to the Yale Junior Prom the same day. When they were first dating, they both were extremely happy. Buddy would always plan things so they could always say they had a good time and were never bored. What Esther wanted out of Buddy was for him to be more honest to her. She felt as if he was acting like she was the prettiest, and sexxiest person on the planet, and that he was more innocent than her, when really he was having all sorts of relations with a skanky waiter. She didn't really care about him and the waitress, she just wanted him to be able to tell her, and not act like he is this perfect angel with he is with her. To be honest, while this is a little rude of Buddy to do, I just think Esther is doing like she does with everything. She never wants to be happy with anything she is doing, and once she gets to that point, she starts to think her way out of things.

Bell Jar, 3-4

Esther's plan to miss chemistry was quite tricky. Because of she got an A in physics, when all of the other girls failed, she figured that she would get an easy A in this class also, so what is the point in taking it. She decided to send in a petition to the school asking if it was alright if she took a Shakespeare class instead of Chemistry, because she was an English major, not a science. Also, college's had gotten rid of the second year of science requirements, so Esther really had no reason to take that class. She told the board that she was going to get an easy A, so she wanted to talk a more challenging class, that was in her major. This made all of the teachers happy with her. The chemistry teacher was also happy because he realized that she didn't want to take his course just to get an A. She was so willing not to get graded in that class, that she willingly agreed to go to her Shakespeare class on top of attending the Chemistry class just to go and watch, which gave her extra brownie points. I don't think Esther wanted to take this class because she is afraid of doing better than other people. She was extremely embarrassed when all of the other girls failed and she got an A, and also on the trip she is at, hundreds of girls would die to be there, but she doesn't like the fact that others envy her.

Bell Jar, 1-2

"It was a cool and sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York."

The first line of the book means that Esther was feeling upset about the Rosenbergs, and she didn't think she had anything to do about it. The second half of the line means that Esther feels lost in New York. The second line especially just shows that Esther is extremely lost. She doesn't have a sense of purpose in life, or in New York. She is apart of this fashion contest that hundreds of girls would die to be apart of, yet she doesn't feel the same excitment. She is living through her life contemplating things, and second guessing her self. Esther knows this contest was a big deal, but she still can't bring herself to feel happy about the whole idea. This sentence shows that she kind of thinks her being in New York, going to all of the parties, wearing all of the glitz and glam, is extremely pointless for her. As for the middle part of the sentece, she is saying they because she doesn't want to be associated with the idea of the Rosenbergs being electrocuted at all.

Mona Lisa Smiles 2

Throughout the movie there are many examples of women both conforming to society and going against it. Betty Warren is a perfect example of someone who did exactly what society expects her to do. While Miss Watson is showing the girls a painting they have never seen before, she is the first to say how awful it is because it isn't famous it therefore isn't art. She says the right people have to say its good for it to actually be good, and since it wasn't in any of their textbooks, it obviously couldn't be good. She also was the first one to conform to society and get married, even though it was obvious that she did not really love her husband. Betty always writes about people in her articles, and in a way serves as the Wesseley police force. Gissle is the complete opposite. She is the one who is going against the society. While talking about the same picture Betty hated because it wasn't famous, she thought it look good and wasn't bad at all. She is the rebel who uses illegal contraceptives, her parents were divorced, and she wasn't completely focused on settling down in her life. These two are complete opposites. Betty has the same values has the rest of the perfect society, while Gissle is the rebel of the group that does not want to conform at all.

Mona Lisa Smiles

During the 1950's, it was a time of strict social rules that everyone followed. For the most part the woman's only job was to do stuff at the home while the husband went out and did the real work. The exception to this was when women went to school, only to waste time and not really use the education she got. Like I said earlier, this was a time when there were strict social rules that for the most part everyone followed. This is seen lots of times so far in the movie. When the teacher first arrives at her room, she is given a list of rules, which included the playing of your radio at certain times and the last of which says that you aren't allowed to have men in your room. If you did such a thing it would be promiscuous and it would go against society. When the teacher went to the next housing location, the host spent most of the time explaining the aspects she has added to the house, like the matching embroidery, and she seemed extremely proud about this, which goes along with the goal to be the perfect house wife. She also spent alot of time priding herself on how the teacher doesn't have to worry about cooking dinner because she will be taking acare of it, and for everything else there is a shelf in the fridge. The girls in the teachers class were all perfectlywell behaved also. They all did their homework before class and very activily participated. This just shows that for the mot part, people did what they were told.