A Study On The Body Politics In The Bell Jar

The Bell Jar is a widely acclaimed autobiographical novel by Sylvia Plath(1932-1963),a famous American poet and novelist.By delineating the protagonist Ester Greenwood's mental collapse,her experience in the college,New York City,her hometown in Boston suburb and various hospitals and asylums,Plath masterfully exposes the complex working of the dehumanizing mechanism of body politics exercised to discipline,manipulate and control women so as to train and produce docile female bodies in the Cold War America.This thesis,from the perspective of body politics,attempts to probe into the social discipline of women in the field of culture,commerce and medicine.It also aims to investigate women's struggle to deconstruct the hegemonic hold of the disciplinary power upon them in an attempt to reconstruct their identities and to reclaim the autonomy of their own bodies through challenging cultural ideology of femininity,resisting commercial manipulation and escaping medical control.Against the backdrop of post-modern feminism,a close study of this novel through the lens of body politics might provide us with an access to a further and fuller understanding of Plath's humanistic concern about women's predicament in modem society.Revolving around the central issue of the body politics embedded in The Bell Jar,this thesis approaches this novel through three aspects,namely female images under discipline,discipline of women and resistance of women.Chapter one examines the images of American women in the Cold War era on three levels:culture,commerce and medicine.First,this thesis surveys the female images as mothers and wives under the spell of the "feminine mystique".A close examination of some of the representative female characters is to be conducted in order to glimpse the living reality of women in the patriarchal society.Mrs.Willard and Dodo Conway represent the married women who live by the "feminine mystique" and devote themselves to fulfilling their obligations as mothers and wives.Unmarried women,represented by the twelve interns of the Ladies'Day magazine and the schoolgirls from Ester's college,also show their commitment to the mystique,as most tellingly demonstrated by their desperate pursuit of a future husband.Second,women are portrayed as tame consumers and commodities in the consumer society.The twelve guest editors' lives in New York are conspicuously characterized by excessive consumption revelry.Their fanatical consciousness of fashion and fascination with consumption of commodities mark them as tame consumers,who are disciplined and manipulated by the consumer society.Third,the patients,represented by the laboring woman in the maternity ward and the mental patients in the asylums,are depicted as submissive,obedient and helpless in medical institutions.They are disciplined and forced into conformity and "normality" by the hospitals.In brief,The Bell Jar presents a train of docile female characters who are disciplined by various societal forces.With chapter one addressing the phenomena of the disciplined women,chapter two proceeds to explore three major societal means of discipline:cultural discipline;commercial discipline;medical discipline.In terms of cultural discipline,the patriarchal society seeks to discipline women through the ideology of femininity with its prescriptions governing every aspect of women's lives,in order to produce docile female bodies and safeguard the dominance of patriarchy.On the commercial level,the consumer society disciplines women as tame consumption subjects and turns them into commodities in the sex market.The myth of consumption weaves an illusion of equality and success,thus generating in women insatiable desires for commodities.In this way,the consumer society effectively turns women into tame consumers.Meanwhile,visual media objectifies and commercializes women as sexual beings and commodities for male desires.In the medical milieu,the hospitals intrude in women's bodies and discipline the patients by means of normalizing treatment and the mechanism of surveillance.In a word,the society seeks to train and produce docile female bodies with the exercise of disciplinary power penetrating every corner of the society.The last chapter investigates female characters'struggle to resist the hegemony of the disciplinary mechanisms by means of deconstructing the inscription of femininity,consciously resisting commercial manipulation and tactfully escaping medical control.First of all,women's refusal to identify with the ideal female role models and to conform to the patriarchal norms of female gender role and the ideology of femininity demonstrate their conscious resistance to the cultural discipline.Ester challenges the cultural taboo of virginity in the patriarchal society by deliberately losing her chastity.Joan radically subverts the ideology of heterosexuality through embracing lesbianism.Furthermore,Ester expresses her rejection of consumerism and commercial manipulation through refusing to engage in excessive consumption.In her refusal to identify with her image in the magazine is evinced her defiance of the commercial presentation of women by visual media.Additionally,the protagonist's strategies of rebellion against medical control change from violent,direct confrontation to tactful,roundabout manipulation of the rules of "normality"of the mental hospital.By leveraging the rules of "normality" and "recovery" of the asylum and putting on a good front according to the norms,Ester tactfully escapes medical confinement and control.Under strict surveillance and control of the society,women's revolt against disciplinary mechanisms is ineluctably restrained and limited.Yet meanwhile,their active resistance to the disciplinary power is meaningful and profound,since their efforts of anti-discipline enable them to reclaim part of the autonomy of their own bodies.This thesis argues that American women during the Cold War are living in a suffocating and repressive society with its pervasive power structure and body politics seeking to train and produce docile and submissive women by means of multifarious disciplinary mechanisms,including inculcation of social ideologies,omnipresent surveillance,justified medical examination and normalizing treatment.Meanwhile,it inquires into the female characters' struggle to break through the bell jar,a metaphor for the stifling and destructive atmosphere of the 1950s,to assert themselves as subjects against the dehumanizing hegemony of the body politics and to reclaim the autonomy of their own bodies.