Is Esther Greenwood Homophobic?
Much like the rest of Plath’s comedic genius within The Belljar, Esther’s brief train of thought about homosexuality is incredibly hilarious. I cannot get the line “I wondered if all women did with other women was lie and hug” out of my head— no one will tell the poor girl anything about what lesbians actually do.
Esther’s first real introduction to gay behavior is when she forgets to leave after knocking on DeeDee’s door to no reply (218). She’s here to retrieve some sheet music, when she happens upon DeeDee and Joan vaguely lying on the bed together instead. We know it’s Joan because Esther describes “pale, pebble eyes regard[ing] me from the gloom,” and Esther had just finished ranting about how “horsey” Joan looked a page earlier: “I thought how sad it was Joan looked so horsey, with such big teeth and eyes like gray, goggly pebbles” (216). (Holden Horse Hypothesis, anyone? You know it’s Joan when the eyes are horsey goggly pebbles and you know it’s Doreen when they’re indestructible marbles.) Interestingly, that description had been prompted by Esther observing DeeDee and Joan learning a piano duet together– Esther was feeling sorry for both women individually for not being able to attract quality male partners, saying that Joan “couldn’t even keep a boy like Buddy Willard” and that DeeDee’s husband was probably cheating on her.
Chronologically, Esther had stumbled upon Joan and DeeDee doing the aforementioned morally nefarious and disturbing lesbian ritual “that morning” (218). At noon, after her electroshock therapy, she asks Dr. Nolan “What does a woman see in a woman that she can’t see in a man?” to which Dr. Nolan replies “Tenderness,” which Esther has no response to (219). (Et tu, Dr. Nolan? Another missed opportunity to have examined the possibility of Dr. Nolan also being a woman-loving woman.) On page 216, Esther eats an egg (presumably for breakfast, so this could occur either before or after the above discussion with Dr. Nolan) while Joan and DeeDee play piano together, whereupon Esther insults them in her head. And in the “present tense,” Joan has just popped into Esther’s room with a letter from Buddy Willard.
They talk together about Buddy, and Esther learns that it seems like Joan liked her boyfriend’s mother MUCH more than her boyfriend himself. (Joan, it seems you have a type in older women.) Now that Esther knows that Joan is interested in women, we know exactly what she was thinking during “Joan and Mrs. Willard. Joan… and Mrs. Willard…” on page 218. Then Joan tells her that she likes HER, and while she does so she stretches out on Esther’s bed. That reminds her of the one other lesbian experience she’s heard about, when two girls were caught “embracing” which apparently was just petting each other’s hair. After she finishes her musing, she coldly and immediately tells Joan that her existence makes Esther want to puke, in response to being told by Joan that she likes her.
Notably, during that sequence of out-of-order events, Esther says that she and Joan “were close enough so that her thoughts and feelings seemed a wry, black image of my own” (219). An implication here is that Joan and Esther might share some of the same queer (which I mean in the modern sense) inclinations, and that Esther sees Joan as a reflection of a version of herself that did not emotionally reject sexuality (in all forms) the way Esther did. Esther is repulsed by Joan. Is she repulsed by homosexuality itself? The concept of homosexual affections, pointed towards herself; the possibility of being a subject of hair-petting? Or a combination of all of those factors? We may never know to what extent Esther is or is not homophobic, and whether or not that homophobia is internalized and rooted in self-hatred. But I have to say, poor Joan; you’ve got to have some crazy crush or something to keep thinking of a girl as one of your best friends after they tell you you make them want to puke.
[Shoutout to Adrian, Miranda and Emma for amazing blog posts which I referenced or took inspiration from for this post! Also, I would just like to share an observation that will have nothing else to do with my blog: Dr. Gordon’s electroshock therapy bears a striking resemblance to the electroshock treatments performed under the CIA’s 20 year long covert series of operations, Project MKUltra. Which would have been active during the events of The Belljar. Hypothetically, I could have analyzed the possibility of Dr. Gordon being an MKUltra operative, but alas, I decided I wanted to write a blog that was a little more substantive and less speculative. Uh... hope I accomplished that!]
Hi Jemina,
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh, I can't believe someone was breave enough to write a blog post on this. I really shouldn't find it funny, because it certainly wouldn't have been for Joan, or for anyone involved. The way Esther narrates finding Joan and DeeDee in this caricature of a post-sex scene, with Joan's creepy pebbly eyes and "cornhusk" voice, completely playing it for melodrama like some horrible revelation, which it would have been at the time, is made somewhat funny by the fact that Esther and Joan remain friends-ish after this. Esther's solipsistic internal monologue hates everyone, but that's just Esther's default while she's sick.
I would be considerably more upset about the incident if it derailed her relationship with Joan, but the fact is that it doesn't, and they remain friends. I guess you have a good point that Joan could do better than Esther, but they both seem to keep hanging out together. Esther can be pretty cold, but I don't think she hates Joan.
Like, I guess Esther is being an awful friend here, and I should want better for Joan, and she's probabyl discouraging her greatly and being treemendously unkind, but she doesn't act like Joan's untouchable forever for it, and she tries to understand her thought process in her appeal to Dr Nolan.
I think Esther has not spent enough time on lesbianism since she asks for help to her confidant. However, I wouldn't say she is homophobic. She is similar to her mother in a way that she does not grasp the concept. Also, she doesn't react the same way on Deedee and joan as joan confessing to her.
ReplyDeleteJemina, great post! Penny compared the death of Joan to kind of society's "killing" of lesbianism, which I thought was a super interesting read of it and related well to your post. I think the idea of Esther herself perhaps being queer is interesting. She clearly finds no enjoyment in pretty much anything she does with Buddy, but it's unclear whether that is just because of the bell jar's distortion or because of her sexuality. In my mind, Esther is an ace icon, but of course all of this is purely speculative. I must admit I was thinking about the Holden Horse Hypothesis while reading the descriptions of Joan. I wonder if Adrian will come out with a sequel theory anytime soon. Wonderful job <333!
ReplyDeleteHi Jemina,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the reference to the Holden Horse Hypothesis. It's nice to know my blog has fans. Speaking of fans of blog posts, I appreciate how in depth your blog goes! I agree with Harmony that I think Esther Greenwood is ace, but lesbianism is definitely a prominent part of the book especially with Joan in mind. I feel like Joan is kind of a doormat for Esther and that makes Esther's worldview of all lesbians a little tainted, because Joan is her only "frame of reference", so to speak. Great blog!
Hello Jemina,
ReplyDeleteThis post is especially relevant after reading Fun Home, and I think some of the dynamics from that book could help with the analysis of the comparatively sparse mentions of homosexuality in this book. I think there is a real possibility that Joan's personal struggle and eventual death had a lot to do with her feelings for other women, in line with Bruce Bechdel's lifelong dilemma. I also like the point you make about the possibility of Esther not being directly repulsed by homosexuality in general but instead being more concerned about Joan's willingness to engage in these relationships given the degree of similarity between the two of them in other respects. Seeing Joan defy societal norms in this way could have made Esther contemplate her own conflicted feelings regarding traditional expectations. Overall, great post!
Hey Jemina,
ReplyDeleteI absolutely loved reading through this blog post. I mean there is really no denial that Esther Greenwood certainly has homophobic tendencies, coming off as such no matter true intention. This blog post was really solid in terms of bringing out specific evidence from the text to allow the reader to make their own interpretations and speculations about Esther's relation to sexuality/homophobia within it.
Hey Jemina,
ReplyDeleteReally interesting post! I'm glad to see you exploring this topic, because this was something that really confounded me whenever I read the scenes between Esther and Joan. I thought it was so interesting that Esther had such terrible experiences with men and with the general expectations of women in marriage and relationships, but still reacted so viscerally to the idea of a homosexual relationship. But when you look at it from Esther's viewpoint, in which she sees Joan as a twisted reflection of herself, it makes a little more sense why the idea that Joan likes women seems to have such an effect on her. Great post!
This is a super interesting post Jemina! I think Esther being homophobic would definitely fit with her other characteristics, and would make sense given the time period. It is elements of her speech and character such as this that remind us Esther is still a very flawed and raw character. Thank you for bringing this up, great post!
ReplyDeleteI would say that "homophobic" is a perfectly apt term to describe Esther's reflexive recoiling when she walks in on Joan and DeeDee: she isn't hateful or violent, she's *afraid* and freaked out by this totally unexpected and surprising revelation. She suddenly glimpses this idea that there is much more going on under her nose than she has realized, and she surely bristles at the knowing, in-joke ways that she sees Joan and DeeDee interacting. She feels like they are in on some secret, or some joke, and that they're laughing at her behind her back. She already feels this way when they do the duet on the piano together, but it's exacerbated when she realizes that there's even more to the picture.
ReplyDeleteI would strongly emphasize the important corrective that Dr. Nolan offers Esther, though: the one-word shut-down which reminds Esther that she too has some issues with cis-het sexuality as she's experienced it through Buddy (and soon with Irwin), situations where "tenderness" is not in evidence. (Note also that Esther says she "loves" Dr. Nolan, mainly in a quasi-maternal way, but she also finds her stylish and attractive, comparing her to a movie star and admiring her professionalism and intellect: she is attracted to Nolan in a range of ways, not necessarily sexual but not necessarily NOT sexual?)
I also find Esther's naive bewilderment about what Joan and DeeDee might actually DO to be funny, but also don't neglect the moment when she briefly wonders if there's something going on between Joan and *Mrs. Willard,* the paragon of normative sexuality in the novel. For a fleeting moment, Esther glimpses the idea that there's a LOT going on right in front of her eyes that she's been naive to, but Plath chooses not to explore this angle further. (Imagine the questions Buddy might have for her in that final scene if Plath HAD gone this route!)
Hello Jemina. I like your thoughts and observations in parentheses. Esther may vary well be homophobic. I mean she tells Joan her existence makes her want puke which isn't really the response you want after confessing. To be fair she does say that she doesn't like Joan before in the book when talking about how Buddy is going to a sophomore prom with her. Esther is pretty pure and did not understand what was happening in many explicit scenes throughout the book so she could also be a pure person who just really doesn't like Joan.
ReplyDeletehey Jemina, I was wondering this while reading Ester's brief mentions of sapphic relationships, and I'm glad someone wrote a blog on it! Through Ester's shallow understanding of lesbianism, considering her only example is Joan, she falls under the same shallowness she dislikes society for. She constantly critiques the world around her for seeing things so simplistically, as she does the same. In that sense, I think Ester is more ignorant than maliciously homophobic. But I do think this blog highlights how she's still, despite everything, a product of her time, especially with that first comment thats very reminiscent of both "women are drama" and "all women do is lie and cheat." She still falls into the misogynistic traps of her time, which is frustrating because she feels just a step away from getting the actual point.
ReplyDeleteHi Jemina, I thought it was an interesting angle to look at Esther's potential closeted lesbian-ness (if that's a word) as a source of Esther's homophobia. I also noticed that in both The Bell Jar and Catcher in the rye, the main characters take a "holier than thou" approach against the evil views of the world. Yet, there's still the legitimate criticism that they portray blatant homophobia and racism throughout.
ReplyDeleteHi Jemina! You're so smart for this. I didn't clock this part of the narrative AT ALL. I'm so glad you brought this up and I wish we could've discussed this in class. You present a great argument that Ester is homophobic (maybe not in the super icky-hyper-intentional way, but still homophobic, maybe out of shock?) that I agree with fully. I remember the line about what lesbians even do, and I just thought it was funny and more than a little sad for Ester.... but those were the times, I guess.
ReplyDelete