Esther Greenwood’s Alienation in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar

Abstract

Esther Greenwood’s Alienation in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar Dennisa Retviandra English Literature Faculty of Languages and Arts Surabaya State University [email protected] Drs. Much. Khoiri, M.Si. English Department Faculty of Languages and Arts Surabaya State University [email protected] Abstrak Fokus skripsi ini adalah alienasi Esther Greenwood dalam novel semi-autobiografi karya Sylvia Plath berjudul The Bell Jar. Skripsi ini bertujuan untuk mengungkap alienasi yang dialami karakter utama, Esther Greenwood, dan untuk menjabarkan upaya Esther Greenwood dalam mengatasi alienasinya dalam novel The Bell Jar karya Sylvia Plath. Skripsi ini mencakup analisa mengenai bagaimana alienasi terwujud di tiap keadaan yang berbeda, pemicu terjadinya alienasi, serta strategi untuk mengatasi alienasi itu sendiri. Metode analisa deskriptif beserta teori alienasi dari Melvin Seeman, dan teori partisipasi dari Karol Wojtyla diaplikasikan di dalam pengerjaan skripsi ini. Dalam analisa data, teori ini digunakan untuk mengungkapkan alienasi yang dialami Esther Greenwood dengan menggolongkan isu alienasi tersebut menjadi lima kategori: yakni powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, isolation, dan self-estrangement; serta menganalisa cara Esther Greenwood mengatasi alienasinya dengan beberapa upaya untuk berpatisipasi dengan masyarakat di sekitarnya. Hasil dalam skripsi ini menunjukkan bahwa alienasi Esther Greenwood mempengaruhi perilaku serta kondisi mentalnya. Perlahan namun pasti, alienasi membuat Esther Greenwood menjauh dari keadaan sosial di sekelilingnya. Dalam hal ini, alienasi yang muncul dalam kasus Esther Greenwood terlihat melalui beberapa gejala. Saat alienasi yang dialami Esther Greenwood memburuk, dia dibawa ke rumah sakit jiwa untuk pengobatan. Dalam hal ini, dengan bantuan psikiater pribadi, Esther Greenwood mengidentifikasi penyebab terjadinya alienasi yang ia alami dan perlahan-lahan pulih. Ia mulai berusaha untuk berpartisipasi dalam kegiatan dan hubungan yang berarti dengan sekitarnya. Kata Kunci: alienasi, powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, isolation, self-estrangement,    partisipasi   Abstract This study focuses on Esther Greenwood’s alienation in Sylvia Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel entitled The Bell Jar. The purpose of this study is to depict the central character’s, Esther Greenwood, alienation and to describe how Esther Greenwood copes with her alienation in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. This study includes the analysis of how the alienation itself manifests in different ways, the triggers of alienation, as well as the strategy to overcome it. The study applies descriptive analysis method and the theory of alienation by Melvin Seeman, as well as the theory of participation by Karol Wojtyla. In the data analysis, they are used to analyze the alienation happened to Esther Greenwood by categorizing the issue into five senses: i.e. powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, isolation and self-estrangement; as well as analyzing the way Esther Greenwood copes with her alienation by the several attempts to participate with society around her. The study finds out that Esther Greenwood’s alienation affects her in both behavior and mental state. Alienation slowly but sure distances her from the society around her. In this case, alienation that appears in Esther Greenwood’s case is seen through several symptoms. As Esther Greenwood’s alienation worsens, she is taken into the mental institution for treatment. In this case, with the help of private psychiatrist, Esther Greenwood herself identifies her root cause of alienation and slowly recovers. Later she maintains a particular way of participation in meaningful activities and relationship. Keywords: alienation, powerlessness, meaninglessne, normlessness, isolation, self-estrangement, participation           INTRODUCTION In this 21ist century, novel is quite possible the most popular part of literature, in other words, novel is used for the sample literary application. Sylvia Plath regarded her only novel The Bell Jar as an “autobiographical work”. Semi-autobiographical means of or relating to a work that combines autobiography and fiction; “as semi-autobiographical novel” (Retrieved January 12, 2014, from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/semiautoigra phical). From the definition above it can be concluded that semi-autobiographical novel is one of literary form, so it can be chosen as a data in this thesis for further study. The study of literature is no longer—if it ever was—simply the study and evaluation of poems, novels and plays. It is also the study of the ideas, issues and difficulties which arise in any literary text and in its interpretation (Parsons, 2007: viii). In this thesis, the novel which will be interpreted is The Bell Jar. In this thesis, the novel which will be interpreted is The Bell Jar. The Bell Jar is the only novel written by American poet and writer, Sylvia Plath. It is first published in London in January 1963 by Heinemann Limited, under the pseudonym “Victoria Lucas” for several reasons. Sylvia Plath was worried about the pain publication might cause to the many people close to her whose personalities she had distorted and lightly disguised in the book (Plath, 1963: 247), as it is a semi-autobiographical novel which many of the events were based on Sylvia Plath’s own life. So far, The Bell Jar has been translated into numerous languages. The Bell Jar was made into a film in 1979 directed by Larry Peerce, based on the novel, came up with the same title The Bell Jar, and in 2003 released a film based on Plath’s true story, starring Gwyneth Paltrow as Sylvia Plath, entitled Sylvia. Despite The Bell Jar is Plath’s only novel, it is one of the twentieth century’s best-known works. The Bell Jar records seven months in the life of Esther Greenwood. The story mostly takes place in New York city, Boston and its surrounding suburbs where the main action takes place in the summer of 1953. It is told that Esther Greenwood tries to conform to the sophisticated, urban world into which she has been inserted, she remains essentially withdrawn from it—and, more significantly, from herself. She finds herself increasingly apathetic about the writing and editing career she thought she wanted and from the life of success and privilege she thought she was pursuing. Isolated from the professional world unfolding around her, and from the mainstream of American life, she is also exiled from her own feelings and desires. The Bell Jar functions on many literary levels, but it is perhaps most obviously about the limitations imposed on young, intelligent American women in the 1950s. Moreover, this Plath’s only novel The Bell Jar dramatizes the collusion between the notion of a separate self (or bounded, autonomous subject) and the cultural forces that have oppressed women. The pervasive imagery of dismemberment conveys the alienation leading to main character’s, Esther Greenwood, breakdown. A German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, uses the Biblical metaphor of the Fall to describe this condition. In everyday social life we “fall” away from ourselves, into the world and into relations with others (Heidegger, 1962: 220). We are “dispersedd” in our involvements, lost in the world, dominated by the “they” (Heidegger, 1962: 1966-1967) In accordance, by alienation is meant a mode of experience in which the person experiences himself as an alien. He has become, one might say, estranged from himself (Fromm, 1955: 117). Alienation results when person cannot feel any rewarding satisfaction from his/her social involvement. It means that alienation results from guilt that has a social origin, from guilt that is generated by the social roles that the person has to play. Nonetheless, based on facts lay on the background of the study above, then the problem are emerged and divided into three: (1) how is Esther Greenwood’s alienation depicted in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar? (2) what is the root cause of Esther Greenwood’s alienation in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar? and (3) what is Esther Greenwood’s strategy to cope with her alienation in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar? As referred to the background and statement of the problems above, the objectives of the study are devoted to know three purposes as results of analyzing the problem: (1) to depict Esther Greenwood’s alienation in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar (2) to describe the root cause of Esther Greenwood’s alienation in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and (3) To describe Esther Greenwoood’s strategy to cope with her alienation in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. In accordance, it is expected that this study can give both theoritical and practical significance. In theoritical significance, on the most common interpretations of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, sees Esther Greenwood’s life as an example of the difficult position of educated women in America in the 1950s. It raises the issue of alienation. Esther’s dissatisfactions of herself and also her life may be typical of well-educated American women of her generation. Yet, Esther does not imagine herself as part of a community and identify herself in contrast to other women as well. Specifically in this study, through the analysis of main character in the novel, it will reveal about the process and cause of alienation matter. Therefore, this study is intended to give a meaningful contribution for a better understanding and deep comprehension of alienation. Additionally, in practical significance, this study can obtain positive contribution towards the development of analyzing literary works, which studies literature and society under the concept of alienation. This significance is hopefully merit for students, lecturers, and institution. Hopefully, to whom this study may concern, it can be utilized as reference, especially those who conduct studies upon sociology of literature under the concept of alienation. Besides, as reference, it can be used as model or media in studying and applying the above concept when analyzing the literary works. Furthermorre, this study hopefully can assist the institution to provide rich collection of research references.   RESEARCH METHOD A method is always needed as a tool while technique is the way a tool (method) is used to solve the existed problems (Ratna. 2004: 34-37). Therefore, based upon the objectives of study above, this stuy will be analyzed by using descriptive analysis method. This method, Ratna explains further, is use to analyze a problem by describing the facts that contained in the object of the study and then analyzing it with the specific aim to give best explanation and understanding (Ratna, 2004: 53). Moreover, in this research method also comprises three parts, which are data source, data collections, and procedure of analysis.  The first part is data source. The data source is taken from a semi-autobiographical novel entitled The Bell Jar written by Sylvia Plath. Published in New York, the book is reissued as 50th anniversary edition by HarperCollins Publishers in 2013 (Harper Perennial Modern Classic deluxe edition) with eISBN-13: 978-0-06-114851-4 and eISBN-10: 0-06-017490-0, and foreword by Frances McCullough. The second part is data collections. Data are quotations taken from the novel which includes narration and the characters’ dialogue and action in the novel that reflects the objective of the study, Esther Greenwood’s alienation and how she tries to cope with it. In collecting data, there are three steps to be accomplished. First of all, the beginning step to derive the data is by close reading the novel entirely. It is done over and over in order to be able to catch and understand the core story—intrinsically and extrinsically—of the novel. Besides, it also aims to support collecting and analyzing the objectives of the study later on. Secondly, it comes to the step where data is collected through noting the narration and characters’ dialogue and action in the novel, which reflects the idea of the central character’s alienation and the attempts on coping with it in the form of quotation. Thirdly, then it comes to the step of classifying data. The classification of the collected data is divided into three parts relating according to the three objectives of the study—the data which represents the case of Esther Greenwood’s alienation, as well as the other data which reflects the root cause of alienation and how she tries to cope with it—in order to ease observing the story. The last part is procedure of analysis. Here, to simplify the analysis of the stuy, there are also important steps needed to be done. The first is decribing the facts. At this point, the facts are the data in the novel which supports the study of the objectives of the stuy. It is done by describing the collected and classified data based on the subject of this study—Esther Greenwood’s alienation, the triggers of alienation, and how she copes with alienation. The description will touch upon mentioning the detail of the subject, how alienation is experienced (through how society affects and leads to this behavior) an the attempts to cope with it (by finding the root caue with the help of psychiatrist, and soon). Last but not least, the second is doing the analysis towardss the described data. It will dig the information beyond the data deeper by explaining it thoroughly. It is taken from the data in the novel first and, then, it will be analyzed by based on the thought of researcher. At this point, to make best explanation and understanding of the study, it will relate the data with acceptable theory and concept of alienation and other references taken from library and internet to support the analysis.   ALIENATION In general, based on fields and domains of research, the concepts and theories of alienation can be classified into two theoretical domains of sociology and psychology. Although there is not a complete agreement and unanimity between sociologists about the meaning of alienation, it is obvious that they have complete agreement about the role of social external factors in emergence of alienation (Tabrizi, 1991: 1-2). Melvin Seeman, an American sociologist, has made his best in developing the concept of alienation, explaining its links, and suggesting a more precise definition of alienation. In On The Meaning of Alienation (1959), Seeman explains the case of alienation taken from the social-psychological point of view. He devided alienation into five senses: i.e. powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, isolation, and self-estrangement. Powerlessness is a state in which the individual has some expectations but he supposes that cannot afford meeting them. Meanwhile alienation in the sense of meaninglessness happens when the individual cannot identify any meaning for his action; as a result, the outcomes of his action cannot be predicted. This refers to the individual’s sense of understanding the events in which he is engaged. The third is normlessnesss. Normlessness may occur where the disciplining effect of collective standards has been weakened. The fourth refers to isolation. That is isolation from the society when the individual does not respect the social norms seclusion takes place. The last one is alienation in the sense of self-etsrangement. Seeman refers to the aspect of self-alienation which is generally characterized as the loss of intrinsic meaning or pride in work.   THE ROOT CAUSE OF ALIENATION Karol Wojtyla in Theory of Participation (1995) says alienation is a problem and a hindrance to a person’s fulfillment through his actions. Alienation can be caused by the person to himself or it can be done to him by society or it could be a combination of both. In Wojtyla’s analysis of alienation, he presents two prevalent systems that foster it: invidualism and totalism. Individualism is a system that puts high emphasis on the individuality of persons. Wojtyla explains that individualism sees in the individual the supreme and fundamental good, to which all interests of the community or the society have to be subordinated. Individualism isolates the person from others as an individual who concentrates on himself and on his own goods. As priority is given to individual goods, individualism also considers community goods as threat to the individual. The opposite of individualism is totalism. This system is a reversal of individualism in the sense that the individual is seen as a threat to the good of the community. The dominant trait of totalism is characterized as the need to find protection from the individual, who is seen as the chief enemy of the society and the common good (Mejos, 2007:77). As the opposite of individualism, it works under the assumption that all the goods that the individual is seeking are only individual goods and thus are understood as an obstacle to the common good. The good of the individual must be put aside for the sake of the common good. The common good can only be achieved if the individual is limited.   PARTICIPATION: A STRATEGY TO COPE WITH ALIENATION Wojtyla’s answer to the problem of alienation is his theory of Participation. This theory is described as a property of the person as well as an ability to share in the humanity of others. It means that the theory affirms the fact that man exists and acts together with others. Wojtyla reveals the word “participation” to indicate the way in which, in common acting, the person protects the personalistic value of his own acting and participates together in the realization of common action and its outcomes. Participation points to the ability of the person to exist and act together with others without losing oneself as he moving towards his self-fulfillment. The participation itself takes different forms. Wojtyla in his Theory of Participation (1995) differentiates into two forms which are solidarity and opposition. Solidarity means a constant readiness to accept and to realize one’s share in the community because of one’s membership within that particular community (Wojtyla, 1979: 285). Solidarity expresses the unity of the parts (members) in their pursuit of the common good. Persons who are linked together in the attitude of solidarity realize the fact that they are members of a group and that they have to work together to achieve the good of the group. Opposition is not the opposite of solidarity but is another mode of it. Opposition means to oppose something for the sake of the common good. Opposition is when, in the name of participation, one opposes what is or what one judges to be contrary to the common good. There are many goods that are presented as apparently common. The attitude of opposition is borne out of the recognition that there is a need to defy from the apparent common good for the sake of the real common good (Mejos, 2007: 81). Opposition does not mean the denial or the withdrawal of the person in pursuit of the common good. But it is a result of their recognition of the common good.   ESTHER GREENWOOD’S ALIENATION The occurrence of Esther Greenwood’s alienation depicted in the story manifests in different ways. In this case, Esther Greenwood’s alienation manifest in five senses; those are powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, isolation, and self-estrangement. Esther’s alienation in the sense of powerlessness can be seen on her jealousy of unable to experience such luxuries which the other girls have, since Esther is only raised in the middle-social-background family (Plath, 1963: 4). This sense of powerlessness traps Esther into jealousy to socially estranged. She self-consciously distances herself from the other girls. Esther feels overwhelmed and powerless to break free the emotional burdens of status and social class difference. As a result, she does not get along very well with the social world around her. Life is also viewed as meaningless if Esther does not have her own identity and freedom. Trapped as well inside this meaninglessness sense of alienation, she feels all of her working life seems dominated by piles of meaningless manuscripts, compared the way that people around her are living it in luxury, the thing that she never has (Plath, 1963: 29). As a result, Esther does not find any purpose and goal to even act any single action as she feels indecisive all the time. Furthermore, Esther’s alienation in the sense of normlessness appears when she is against the conventional attitude of what a woman’s place in society is. It can be seen that Esther, unlike many women of her time, refuses to be controlled by society’s gender-based constraints. She decies not to marry (Plath, 1963: 76), not to have children, to have sexual freedom (Plath, 1963: 90), and to be a different kind of woman than what the society norm would wish for. She is so determined where her concerns are different, as well as her obstacles, especially in the general of social-ethos in 1950s America. In the other side, Esther’s isolation is implicitly depicted even on the meaning of the title The Bell Jar itself. Plath chooses this imagery which holds a perfect key to reveal Esther’s isolation.  Here, the bell jar is viewed as a symbol of society’s stifling constraints and confusing mixed messages that trap Esther within its glass dome. Esther has her own “bell jar”, where she feels isolated all the time. To complicate the matters more, Esther’s sense of isolation is worsen when she loses interest in both social life and her work (Plath, 1963: 31-32). The last but not least is Esther’s alienation in the sense of self-estrangement. This is where Esther herself unsure about her true identity. She has sense of inner absence, vacuity, a loss of self or estrang