Before the winter break, I found myself in a reading slump. I was struggling to find and pick up a book that interested me, and then I found a recommandation on the internet that moved me, so I decided to give it a try. Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar tells the story of Esther Greenwood, a young woman that moves to New York City in the 1960s after winning a presigious internship but finds herself struggling with her identity and mental health while feeling trapped by society’s expectations. Even though she seems to have everything – talent, opportunities and a promising future – she feels disconnected and lost. Esther struggles to ‘find herself and her identity’ and she feels society pressuring her, which all leads to her falling into a depression. Through Esther’s journey, Sylvia Plath leads us through themes of identity, mental health and societal expectations placed on women in the 1960s, which I find very interesting. One of the book’s most famous metaphors, the fig tree, illustrates Esther’s fear of making life-defining choices and their consequences.
I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.
From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out.
I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.
The fig tree metaphor really stuck with me because I believe that it perfectly captures and explains the fear of making decisions and the weight and responsibility of having so many options. Esther’s vision of the figs, each representing a different future is such a relatabe image, especially for anyone who feels pressured to make the ”right” choices. But what even are ”right” choices? I think that especially young people feel so overwhelmed by the amount of choices waiting to be made by them, that could completely alter their future. Me and many others find ourselves at the point in life where every day, we decide something which slightly changes our paths. There’s so much to do, see and explore and every single decision in our lives leads up to these moments. There is so much that I want to experience and do, but I know that I can’t and this thought paralyzes me. Sometimes this feeling of paralyzation drives me so far, that I end up undecided and see the opportunities ‘wither away’ infront of me. That is why I always like to remind myself of how important it is to make choices, even when they feel slightly daunting, rather then letting fear stop me entirely.