Blood, Sex, and Birth: Esthers Quest for Agency in a Buddy Willard World

Written by: Danna Ogden

Sylvia Plaths The Bell Jar (1971) is a thinly veiled memoir detailing the inner
monologue of mental illness. Having been riddled by depression herself, Plath has us follow her
protagonist, Esther, and her journey of self-discovery in order to assert her views on the link of
instability and traditional femininity. In the novel, blood serves to mark transitions in Esthers
life. Time after time, blood intersects with largely feminine milestones and the shifts in her
mental health as she witnesses births, is sexually exploited, and must confront her own sexuality.
Esther struggles to fit into the narrow feminine role and views the world with a predisposition for
depressive thoughts. The traditional era in which she exists enforces binary gender roles and
places her purity under a strict microscope. Under the suffocating bell jar of conventional
womanhood, Esther must rebuild herself in the most fundamentally feminine way routine
bleeding.
Blood first appears in the novel as Esther accompanies Buddy to watch a woman in labor.
The woman is given an episiotomy and begins to bleed heavily. There, the connection between
birth and blood is created: I heard the scissors close on the womans skin like cloth and the
blood began to run down a fierce, bright red. Then all at once the baby seemed to pop out
(66). Even though Esther is not supremely off-put by this gory scene, it does seem to draw the
relationship between birth and transformation with blood and pain. The woman in labor is more
or less disregarded by her male doctors, and Buddy even goes so far as to say that the woman
was on a drug that would make her forget shed had any pain and that when she swore and
groaned she really didnt know what she was doing because she was in a kind of twilight sleep
(66). This happenstance is also significant because it represents the lack of empathy that
traditional (patriarchal) values hold for the female experience. Esther internally challenges
Buddys claim that the woman doesnt feel whats happening, though in the end she keeps her
thoughts to herself. This experience serves to not only create the blood-birth relationship, but
also includes some of the internalization with the ideals of masculine dominance in the world
where Esther lives.
Later in this same chapter, Buddy exposes himself to Esther and she expresses feeling
depressed about it, asking him about his virginity immediately afterward. He reveals that he slept
with a woman multiple times, and Esther feels that he is a hypocrite. This entire chapter initiates

a turning point in Esthers views on traditional womanhood and her position in the gender
hierarchy. Esther has always felt a certain sense of unease about her relationship with Buddy, but
now she begins to pinpoint the source of her aversion.
The most significant transformation Esther undergoes is in New York where she attends a
party with Doreen. Marco, the man she is being set up with, gives her his diamond pin and then
forcefully pushes her into dancing before he attempts to rape her. While dancing, he said
Pretend you are drowning. After a while I thought, It doesnt take two to dance, it only takes
one (107). In this scene, Marco acts as an extension of Buddy Willard.
Where Buddy is passive in his contempt for women and exposing himself, Marco is
vicious. Buddy uses social and emotional manipulation to continue to herd Esther his way, while
Marco creates an atmosphere of sinister physical oppression. As Marco gives Esther his diamond
pin (a representation of marriage), he parallels Buddy Willards proposal and the symbolic trade
of marriage for her freedom and sexuality. The comparison between a single leadership in
dancing instead of a partnership is a reflection of the lack of control women held in their own
lives. Beyond that, this heavily implies the idea that Esther cannot be both married and in charge
of her own sexuality and life. By accepting a diamond, she would surrender her wellbeing to the
patriarchal roles set forth for husbands and wives.
The two men, Buddy and Marco, so easily represent two sides of the same coin. Buddy
depicts the version of patriarchal power that dismisses women. He easily discounts the
experience of the woman giving birth, and readily assumes the power position in his relationship
with Esther. Buddy, notably a carrier of tuberculosis, is the seemingly innocuous character
willing to overlook the blood. He fails to acknowledge the woman giving birth and overlooks his
role in impacting other people. Marco, on the other hand, epitomizes the version of patriarchal
power that actively exercises supremacy. He is physically domineering and unused to being told
no. Marcos power is derived from his ability to make others bleed, and in that way become
the governing entity. It is Marcos nonchalant violence that makes him such a horrifying
character, but make no mistake: both Buddy and Marco are equally dangerous. Each one belittles
women in order to retain their masculinity.
During Marcos attack, Esther manages to punch him in the nose causing him to bleed
when deliberately, he wiped his finger under his bloody nose and with two strokes stained my
cheeks (110). The bloodshed in this passage is significant because he intends it as a slight to

Esther, but instead it becomes her war paint. The blood from the instance of Esthers triumph
becomes a symbol of her war on masculinity, her strength as a woman, and the stance she was
taking against both. Instead of a simple assault of feminine sexual vulnerability, it becomes a
transformative anointing. Esther takes the blood of her attacker and goes home to throw her
clothes out the window. This is an emblematic release of her femininity and the resulting
weakness that it creates in her. Having refused to wash the blood off of her face, she even takes
measures to prevent it from coming off. Wearing the clothes of the most sexually liberated
woman she knows, Esther wears Marcos blood as a mark of the fundamental change that has
rocked her to her core.
The presence of Marcos blood is especially important, because it represents a
transformation and shift in the power dynamic. Esther does seem to come undone after his scene,
but is more in control than she ever has been. Had her sanctifying war paint been her own blood,
it would have simply been another example in Esthers life where a womans wellbeing was
challenged at the hands of a man. Instead of grouping Esther in with the woman giving birth,
being dismissed by the leading male presence of the scene, she becomes a power figure. In many
ways, her own blood would have been symbolically insignificant.
Since the blood was Marcos and not Esthers, it creates a masculine connection to our
previously established tones of blood. Marco becomes markedly more vulnerable and less
dominant, as he must take pause to feel his wounds. By trying to regain the power, he
inadvertently gives Esther permission to mask herself in masculinity. By decorating herself in her
weakest moment with the blood of her captor, she assumes the power the patriarchy has never
afforded her.
Nearly being raped clearly changes our protagonists psyche, but had the blood been her
own, the attack wouldnt have represented the power shift in to Esthers hands. In this way,
Marcos blood serves as a gruesome transition in to a more formidable Esther.
Blood develops into a more gendered symbol, almost always being mentioned in the
context of transformation and birth at the expense of a womans wellbeing (except in the context
of Marco). Because Esther sees her own blood as a reminder of the femininity expected of her,
her first idea of suicide is slitting her wristsfiguratively draining herself of femininity. The
focus on blood is a recurrence showing that her ritualistic bleeding is an attempt to continue to
transform, this time presumably to counteract the violence that was forced on her.

Ironically, she claims, My trouble was I hated the sight of blood (138). A true hatred of
blood seems unlikely, as Esther had previously gone to great lengths to preserve Marcos blood
on her face. It can be implied that this hatred stems from the feminine connotation of blood and
the reminder it brings of her own femininity. Her (frankly) false claim of hating blood is an
attempt to undermine the intense vulnerability that is resultant of the feminine role she has been
forced in to. In spite of the zealous craving she has for the change and transformation blood
represents, this line acts as a metaphorical hatred of her biological, social, and societal
weaknesses.
After serious consideration of attempting to bleed herself out, she moves on to other
methods of suicide like drowning and hanging. When Esther tries to swim out to sea impossibly
far, a rather sexist acquaintance, Cal, attempts to follow her. Unable to keep up, he turns back
while Esther continues on. As I paddled on, my heartbeat boomed like a dull motor in my ears. I
am I am I am (158), Esther narrates. This last phrase, which is repeated at the end of the novel,
is a substantial connection to blood and its role in Esthers suicide, considering that the heart not
only represents the core of emotion, but also the conduit to pump blood. Though she seeks selfdestruction, Esthers blood is personified, as it seems to have a mind of its own in saving her,
ultimately suggesting her considerable transformations have been her saving grace.
Esther wakes in a hospital after her most drastic suicide attempt, and after looking in a
mirror she is pleased to not recognize the deeply bruised reflection as either male or female. This
move from obsession to almost indifference is significantly due to the fact that Esther, feeling
more ambiguously gendered than before, feels she has been emancipated from much of her
femininity. Her indistinct gender serves as a statement that Esther has finally reached a form of
balance: a happy middle ground where she is unrestricted by social norms and positions. As the
blood pools beneath her skin a potential insinuation that her femininity doesnt need to be
released, but simply redirected she reaches a point in the novel wherein she can rebuild herself
anew.
As a result of her suicide attempt, Esther is placed in an all-womens asylum where she
makes incredible improvements under the watch of Doctor Nolan. Blood appears in a more
nuanced way while Esther is in this asylum, in her description of a gift of roses from her mother.
Esther looks around her room while Doctor Nolan speaks to her: Out of the wastebasket poked
the blood-red buds of a dozen long-stemmed roses (201). This portrayal of the roses as blood-

like is interesting simply because it draws connections between blood, romance, and femininity.
Long-stemmed red roses hold a clear connotation of clichd and traditional romance, and the
pointed comparison of blood represents transformation. Truly, the roses represent her former life
through the common metaphor of female sexuality as a flower: easily ruined and dying.
It is revealed that the roses were for Esthers birthday, and her complete rejection of the
blood-colored flowers from her mother represents her rejection of the life she was born into and
the role that accompanies it. The point is further made because as a birthday present, blood red
roses sew the thread between blood, sex, and birth. A sign of her increasing degree of agency,
Esther was able to deny the transition back to her former self that is implied by the flowers. The
power Esther has gained is reflective of the improvements she has made in her mental health.
Soon after her massive steps in recovery, Esther decides to lose her virginity to a man she
finds respectable. Irwin is a math professor, and Esther hardly knows him a move indicative of
her newfound sense of command. The choice she makes to sleep with Irwin would not have
happened had her transformations left her accepting of the gender norms she had previously
subscribed to. This proclivity to lose her virginity, something widely valued in traditional purity
politics, to a man who is barely more than a stranger shows Esthers utter rejection of the
patriarchy la Buddy Willard.
Esther describes her virginity as a heavy weight, and feels crushed under purity politics.
She sleeps with Irwin and ends up bleeding profusely, even warranting a trip to the emergency
room as she threatens to bleed out. Esther looks at the blood she is shedding as her final rebirth:
It occurred to me that the blood was my answer. I couldnt possibly be a virgin any more. I
smiled into the dark. I felt part of a great tradition (229). This form of bleeding represents
Esther coming to terms with her femininity and the power she can gain from it. Though the
connection between sex and violence (and therefore the battle between masculinity and
femininity) is not fully dissolved, the tone is distinctly changed in this scene. Where Esther was
previously deterred, fierce, and unrestrained (during the birth, rape, and suicide, respectively) she
is now enamored by the grisly rite of passage and what it means.
This final rebirth is the balance of accepting a liberated role instead of a subordinate one,
and Esther sheds her skin once more. Deeply feminine, this blood is the common thread between
the sexual experiences of women. Ritualistic in a way, this feminine initiation makes Esther feel
at peace with her womanhood.

Plath employs the bell jar over and over again to symbolize the lens through which each
person can view life. For women, specifically, she is pointed about how gender expectations
place women on a pedestal of objectification. Using blood, Plath paints a picture of continual and
painful transformation that must occur to escape a glass cage. Blood is the common thread of
each change that occurs in Esther, and her transformation evolves from traumatizing to liberating
as she struggles to allow her femininity to be synonymous with her freedom instead of her
capture.
Esthers narration I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I
am, I am (243) is given as a final affirmation of life. An obvious connection to the sound of a
beating heart, Esther finds peace in the declaration of existence instead of feeling trapped
between a biological desire for life and an emotional desire for death. Her heart pumps blood and
with that she confirms her autonomous existence and transformation. Instead of rejecting her
own blood, Esther is finally accepting of the power she can gain from her femininity. Still, the
repetition of I am is in poignant contrast with its previous repetition: Esther hears the
drumming of her heart as a peaceful encouragement of life rather than a barrier holding her back
from her desire for death.
Appropriately, Esthers closing note on birth says: There ought, I thought, to be a ritual
for being born twice (244). Reflecting the larger point of the novel, Esther rebuilds her unstable
past as she escapes the conventional bell jar by claiming her agency through the bloodshed and
the femininity she once was crippled by. Blood thematically plays a vital role in The Bell Jar as
it intricately threads together Esthers life and continual transformation. Blood pinpoints her
aversion to romantic involvement with Buddy, it becomes her permission to take power with
Marco, and ultimately it is her medium by which she can obtain agency, reject the patriarchy, and
reclaim healthy femininity. Routine bleeding, a correlation to menstruation and femininity, sex
and romance, and birth and transformation, is her eventual saving grace in a Buddy Willard
world.

Works Cited
Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. 1971. New York: HarperPerennial, 2005. Print.