Fear Skiing™ with Esther
At the beginning of the decline of Esther's mental health, there is a scene where she skiis for the first time from a tall hill, resulting in a painful stay at the hospital as she crashes violently at the bottom. This scene stuck out to me a lot, as by great coincidence I had skied for the first time just a few days before this reading. I think the way Esther describes her experiences says a lot about what she thinks "happiness" is, and this scene gives us insight on how she sees the world in general.
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| Jonathan Yu, moments before tumbling all the way down Hemlock run for the third time in a row |
There's not much time to observe your surroundings when it feels like you're sliding down a hill at terminal velocity. However, I can give a few insights knowing what it's like to have "aimed straight down" (77) as Esther did. From personal experience I know that the excitement and focus Esther felt was unique to one who knew they didn't really deserve to make it to the bottom. Both of us knew for sure that we should know how to zig-zag to slow our speeds so we could descend safely, and neither of us knew how to. This situation adds some extra fear and helplessness to the other normal skiing emotions. I think it's telling that Esther feels this rush as she speeds to the bottom, barely in control, and thinks "This is what it is to be happy," showing that she confuses strong emotional excitement with happiness. At this point Esther has been so far removed from strong emotions for so long that she is glad just to experience the rush of emotions.
I fortunately can't relate to Esther breaking her leg in a fall, but the fact that her little glimpse of "happiness" is taken away so quickly and violently is also significant. She tells Buddy from the ground after skiing "I’m going to do it again," so she can experience her "happiness" again, but can't, just adding to the list of things that she can't control. I think The Bell Jar does a great job of showing all the little things that push Esther into more and more stress until she starts to break, and this scene where Esther has no control over anything and is denied happiness definitely adds another element of stress to her overall story.
I think you make an excellent point here. Esther appears to have an absence of emotion as a result of her depression. I think that her fear and excitement is the first real emotion she has had in a while and she confuses them with a feeling of happiness. I am not sure if she would have gotten the same emotional rush going down a second time as she would know what to expect. I do not really know if she is truly denied happiness though because I think this is just her misconceived perception of what happiness is.
ReplyDeleteI really love how you related your own experiences to Esther's, and this blog post actually helped me realize what a perfect metaphor skiing is for Esther's situation. There's the momentary rush of speed and adrenaline followed by the (in esther's case, and yours) inevitable tumble and pain of the fall. Regardless of whether or not skiing was actually something Sylvia did in her life, I can appreciate the metaphor.
ReplyDeleteI loved how you drew parallels between your experiences skiing and Esther's - especially how they both stem from a need to experience a rush of emotion. Of course your rush of emotion is rooted in a want to complete a difficult task while Esther's came more from a place of wanting to feel any type emotion. I wonder how the fact that Esther's small attempt at happiness led to her falling further into the hole of depression reflected Plath's own experiences.
ReplyDeleteWhen you shot down the slope like Esther did, did you also feel "happiness"? Also, I noticed that the idea of knowing that you should be able to zig zag down the slope but not being able to ties into Esther's impostor syndrome. I think you had a really interesting parallel to draw with Esther, and I hadn't thought of the significance of how she considered the rush of excitement to be happiness until I read your blog.
ReplyDeleteI did feel happiness and I know it's happiness because I overcame an obstacle. That's kind of where our stories differ, as Esther pretty much just assumed her rush of emotion from the scenery and falling down the hill was happiness.
DeleteThere's a lot to say about this scene (see Erin's recent post, on "Coming of Blog"), but as you analyze the rush of exhilaration that Esther feels just before the crash, I would only add that this is yet another example of her "rebirth fantasy," which we see in the bath scene (where she emerges "pure" and like a baby again, washing away all the gross experience of New York night life), and again when she and Betsy are food-poisoned (which makes her feel "purged" and "new"). In this scene too we see her rushing "into her past," seeming to clear away Buddy and everything else that has stressed her out, in an almost "purifying" way. This too comes to a rapid halt when she crashes, but I would posit this as one more example of Esther's attraction to ideas of rebirth and a fresh start.
ReplyDelete