Is Mrs. Greenwood a Good Mother?
The Bell Jar follows the mental breakdown of Esther Greenwood as she struggles through the social expectations and pressures of early 1950s America. As Esther’s mental state descends into depression, she sends many cries for help to her mother, Mrs. Greenwood. Yet, many of Mrs. Greenwood's responses only seem to exacerbate Esther’s condition. But is Mrs. Greenwood really a bad, indifferent mother?
Undeniably, many of Mrs. Greenwood’s comments on Esther’s condition are inappropriate. When Esther tells her that she has not slept consecutively for seven nights, Mrs. Greenwood completely denies her insomnia by stating that she “must have slept, it was impossible not to sleep in all that time (Plath 127).” Instead of taking Ester’s confession as a serious warning sign, Mrs. Greenwood dismisses it as an exaggeration. Her response both invalidates Esther’s struggles and pushes her into deeper isolation. A similar instance happens after Esther receives her first electroshock treatment. When Esther declares that she will not return to Dr. Gordon, Mrs. Greenwood answers with relief that “I knew my baby wasn’t like that…like those awful people…I knew you’d decide to be all right again (145).” Mrs. Greenwood’s response reveals the stigma she ties with Esther’s condition. Mrs. Greenwood misunderstands mental illness as a moral issue rather than a medical one. She sees mental illness as a voluntary choice, something one can decide to fix. To this point, she still thinks that Esther is just throwing some rebellious tantrum. She doesn’t comprehend that Esther’s suffering is above her willpower.
In addition to terrible responses, Mrs. Greenwood contributes to Esther’s breakdown by imposing patriarchal values on Esther. On Esther’s first couple of days in the suburbs, Mrs. Greenwood tries to convince Esther to learn shorthand so she can eventually become a good secretary (121). In her perspective, learning shorthand and taking a secretarial career is a woman’s only route to success. In Esther’s view, these two exact things represent confinement. Becoming a secretary means serving (slaving) for a man rather than pursuing her own ambitions. And she is being pushed by her own mother towards patriarchal oppression.
Despite Mrs. Greenwood’s shortcomings, I’m still reluctant to call her an incompetent mother. All of Mrs. Greenwood's seemingly insensitive responses are rooted in her ignorance of mental illnesses. This is logical in the context of 1950s American society, as mental health awareness was still extremely unpopular. Mrs. Greenwood may not understand depression, but when she recognizes that Esther needs psychiatric help, she is willing to invest all her money to help Esther (185). On one of her visits, Esther narrates that “She [her mother] never scolded me, but kept begging me, with a sorrowful face, to tell her what she had done wrong (202).” Mrs. Greenwood blames herself for Esther’s illness. She is not a neglectful, but a desperate and helpless mother.
Plath did not portray Mrs. Greenwood as an evil figure; rather, she embodies a quintessential woman trained by the patriarchal values of 1950s America. Unquestionably, Mrs. Greenwood endearingly loves Esther and is willing to give her everything for Esther. She has been trained in a society where women are held to double standards to serve men and keep virginity. She loves Esther and wants the best future for her. In her conservative perspective, there is no alternative to reaching success and obtaining happiness in the system other than conforming to it. She is both an enforcer and a victim of this system. Straight-up labeling Mrs. Greenwood as a “bad mother” oversimplifies the tragedy. Yes, she fails to catch Esther’s emotions, but this failure is not rooted in the lack of love. Mrs. Greenwood is too constrained in the cultural framework to understand Esther’s progressive views.
Thank you for reading :D
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Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. Heinemann, 1963.
Yes, Esther's mother does not fully grasp Esther's condition. This does not help Esther. However, she does help Esther receive help by medical professionals which does help her condition. Also, I like the way you include the concepts of gender at this time! Great job!
ReplyDeleteHi Ruijing! I definitely agree that Ms. Greenwood is a complex character, and cannot be fully defined as an evil mother, nor a faultless one. You bring up a great point, which is that Ms. Greenwood's actions can partially be justified by the notion that she is simply a product of her time. Esther's mother believes in women pursuing secretarial work because that's the path that has awarded her the most success, and she invalidates Esther's mental illness because it was widely stigmatized in the 1950s. While the fact that Ms. Greenwood's behavior is shaped by society allows us to partially defend her actions, she is not blameless. As you menton, she repeatedly invalidates Esther's extremely real struggles, and is almost completely absent from Esther's time in the psychiatric hospital, apart from one time on Esther's birthday. Given both interpretations, it is difficult to label Ms. Greenwood as a bad mother or a good mother without oversimplifying her character. Great blog!
ReplyDeleteThroughout the novel, Mrs. Greenwood is 100% represented as a terrible person from the perspective of Esther. We always get her point of view and comments, and, as you said, Esther seems to simply dismiss all of her mother's comments and suggestions because she doesn’t understand her. I think it really reassures us as readers that Esther is isolated, and a lot of the time, doesn’t necessarily seem to want help. Especially from her mother. Of course, it’s important to note that the understanding of mental illness was completely different there, and Mrs. Greenwood simply didn’t know how it worked. I do think she was sincerely a good person and tried to help her daughter, even if it wasn’t the right way.
ReplyDeleteHello!
ReplyDeleteI do think it is really important to highlight that Mrs. Greenwood is acting based off of her worldviews. Her love for Esther is undeniable and she is just severely uninformed about mental illness. That said, I wonder: since Mrs. Greenwood is both an enforcer of societal rules and a victim, has she had any trauma similar to Esther's in her life? Is her fear of being a bad mother because she can relate a little too much?
Too be honest, I think that's a little bit of a stretch, but it's interesting to consider :)
Dear Ruijing, this blog was the bees knees! I really agree with your sentiment that Mrs. Greenwood is a product of her time - her shortcomings (inability to understand Esther's complex feelings) are really due to her circumstances. I think that maybe Esther's disdain of her mother actually comes from the fact that she hates that her mental condition is inexpressible in that time period, which is a fact that her mother embodies. Great blog.
ReplyDeleteHi Ruijing! I definitely agree with your point of view on Esthers mother and I do feel like she can be misunderstood at times. The examples you gave certainly show that she isn't the perfect mother, but like you also said this time period did not acknowledge mental illness the way we do today. I don't feel like there is ill intent behind the things she says to Esther, but rather that she is in an uncomfortable position and doesn't fully know how to go about it. Great blog!
ReplyDeleteHi Ruijing, I do share your unwillingness to say that Mrs. Greenwood is bad mother, and also unwilling to say for certain that she is a good mother. Because while she does fails to truly help Esther a lot of the time, you can't say its for a lack of trying or caring about Esther. The idea that some of her failings are partly a product of the time is quite compelling, one of those things that I think may also be a product of the time is when Mrs. Greenwood treats Esther's depression as a moral failing or a choice. I think this is the case primarily because the Christian Scientist visitor from when Esther was in the asylum also said some things similar to that.
ReplyDelete"Mrs. Greenwood misunderstands mental illness as a moral issue rather than a medical one" does a very nice job of summing up the failed connections between Esther and her mother in this novel. It makes sense that Esther would resent her mother for seeming to so badly misunderstand what her daughter is going through, but this resentment is clearly a symptom of her emerging disorder in many ways--she sees her mother as one more oppressive force, trying to cram her into a conformist or subservient role (learning shorthand, for example), and she also sees her as the epitome of everything society at large misunderstands about Esther's experience as a medical rather than moral issue. (In brief, there's no reason to feel ashamed of a medical condition, but for a moral failing, shame is appropriate.) Because the bell jar is limiting her more capacious critical intelligence, Esther can't help but experience this whole story as about *her*--but with a broader view, she might be inclined to see her mother too as a victim of the system. The other "girls at college" are "sitting under bell jars of their own," as Esther points out late in the novel--maybe, with a little more perspective, she could see her own mother as sitting under a bell jar of her own, too.
ReplyDeleteHi Ruijing, I love how you complexify the character that is Esther's mother. Particularly I do agree that it's valuable to place her in the context of a 1950's social world, where mental illness is not taken to be a medical condition, and the role of a woman is to be subservient to a man. Another cause of Mrs. Greenwood's mistreatment of Esther may stem from the works of psychology at the time, where a child's development was seen to entirely depend on the merits and faults of the mother. For Mrs. Greenwood, Esther's condition is not only harmful for their family image, but a pure reflection of her own character. This fact may help explain why she's quick to discredit Esther.
ReplyDeleteHi Ruijing! I definitely agree that the 1950s social climate helps explain Esther’s mother’s worldview in The Bell Jar and why she can come off as dismissive even if she doesn’t intend to be harmful. The era’s conservative expectation around gender and roles differs a lot from Esther’s progressive outlook. I also appreciate your point that purely labeling her as a “bad mother” is too simplistic, since she still attempts to support Esther in ways she understands. Good post!
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