Esther’s first meeting with Dr. Gordon, (Plath 126-129)
Doctor Gordon twiddled a silver pencil. ‘Your mother tells me you are upset.’ I curled in the cavernous leather chair and faced Doctor Gordon across an acre of highly polished desk.… ‘Suppose you try and tell me what you think is wrong.’I turned the words over suspiciously, like round, sea-polished pebbles that might suddenly put out a claw and change into something else. What did I think was wrong? That made it sound as if nothing was really wrong, I only thought it was wrong. In a dull, flat voice—to show I was not beguiled by his good looks or his family photograph—I told Doctor Gordon about not sleeping and not eating and not reading. I didn’t tell him about the handwriting, which bothered me most of all… The whole time I was talking, Doctor Gordon bent his head as if he were praying, and the only noise apart from the dull, flat voice was the tap, tap, tap of Doctor Gordon’s pencil at the same point on the green blotter, like a stalled walking-stick. When I had finished, Doctor Gordon lifted his head. ‘Where did you say you went to college?’ Baffled, I told him. I didn’t see where college fitted in. ‘Ah!’ Doctor Gordon leaned back in his chair, staring into the air over my shoulder with a reminiscent smile. I thought he was going to tell me his diagnosis, and that perhaps I had judged him too hastily and too unkindly. But he only said, ‘I remember your college well. I was up there, during the war. They had a WAC station, didn’t they? Or was it WAVES?’I said I didn’t know. ‘Yes, a WAC station, I remember now. I was doctor for the lot, before I was sent overseas. My, they were a pretty bunch of girls.’ Doctor Gordon laughed. Then, in one smooth move, he rose to his feet and strolled towards me round the corner of his desk. I wasn’t sure what he meant to do, so I stood up as well. Doctor Gordon reached for the hand that hung at my right side and shook it. ‘See you next week, then.’
“’Do you mind if I smoke?’ Doctor Nolan leaned back in the armchair next to my bed. I said no, I liked the smell of smoke. I thought if Doctor Nolan smoked, she might stay longer. This was the first time she had come to talk with me. When she left I would simply lapse into the old blankness. ‘Tell me about Doctor Gordon,’ Doctor Nolan said suddenly. ‘Did you like him?’I gave Doctor Nolan a wary look. I thought the doctors must all be in it together, and that somewhere in this hospital, in a hidden corner, there reposed a machine exactly like Doctor Gordon’s, ready to jolt me out of my skin. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I didn’t like him at all.’ ‘That’s interesting. Why?’ ‘I didn’t like what he did to me,’ ‘Did to you?’ I told Doctor Nolan about the machine, and the blue flashes, and the jolting and the noise. While I was telling her she went very still. ‘That was a mistake,’ she said then. ‘It’s not supposed to be like that.’ I stared at her. ‘If it’s done properly,’ Doctor Nolan said, ‘it’s like going to sleep.’ ‘If anyone does that to me again I’ll kill myself.’ Doctor Nolan said firmly, ‘You won’t have any shock treatments here. Or if you do,’ she amended, ‘I’ll tell you about it beforehand, and I promise you it won’t be anything like what you had before. Why,’ she finished, ‘some people even like them.’ After Doctor Nolan had gone I found a box of matches on the window-sill. It wasn’t an ordinary-size box, but an extremely tiny box. I opened it and exposed a row of little white sticks with pinks tips. I tried to light one, and it crumpled in my hand. I couldn’t think why Doctor Nolan would have left me such a stupid thing. Perhaps she wanted to see if I would give it back. Carefully I stored the toy matches in the hem of my new wool bathrobe. If Doctor Nolan asked me for the matches, I would say I’d thought they were made of candy and had eaten them.”
Esther’s first meeting with Dr. Nolan, (Plath 189-190)
These two sections of Sylvia Plath’s novel, The Bell Jar, indicate the resounding juxtaposition between the two psychiatric providers Esther interacts with: Dr. Gordon and Dr. Nolan. One of the clear differences between Esther’s interactions with Dr. Gordon and with Dr. Nolan, in the first few sentences they say to their patient. Dr. Nolan asks a question about whether or not Esther minds if she smokes. Dr. Gordon indicates that Esther’s mother, her authority figure, has told him that she does not feel well, and demands Esther try to tell him how she feels. Dr. Nolan’s question has, as such, a question mark at the end of it. Dr. Gordon’s sentence has a period at the end of it. Dr. Nolan’s question to Esther is significant, because it imparts some power unto Esther as the patient– she can control whether or not her Doctor smokes while she is being treated and is assumed to have a preference. Dr. Gordon’s first sentence disempowers Esther, because it indicates that she is not the primary authority over her body– it is her mother and Dr. Gordon, who have already determined that Esther is not feeling well. Additionally, Dr. Gordon’s second sentence upholds this lack of authority, as Esther has no perceived choice over whether or not she wants to tell Dr. Gordon knows how she is feeling, and isn’t assumed to be an expert on how she feels. As can be read above, Dr. Gordon’s Meeting with Esther is short, and he asks few questions about how she feels, or what she wants, and doesn’t express any meaningful resolution or concern over Esther’s experience being mentally unwell. Dr. Nolan’s meeting with Esther is long, she asks about her previous experiences, her opinions, and validates her feelings regarding her traumatizing ECT. The final difference between Dr. Noland Dr. Gordon is their trust in Esther. Dr. Gordon’s language expresses that he doesn’t trust Esther to even accurately describe her own emotions, as he asks her to try to tell him what she’s feeling as if she would not, by nature of existing within her own body, know how she is feeling. Dr. Nolan leaves behind the matches she used to light her cigarettes. Even Esther questions why she would do something so stupid, but it is implied to the reader that it is done on purpose because she trusts that Esther is not dangerous by virtue of being mentally ill. Finally, Dr. Nolan spends all of their time together focused on Esther. This ensures that Dr. Nolan is there for Esther’s treatment, and she is the focus of the work being one by Dr. Nolan. Dr. Gordon spends half of the time he has with Esther talking about himself, and the aesthetic benefits of the ‘girls’ at the college when he worked there. Not only does this draw attention away from Esther, but it also upholds the societal belief that women are meant to be looked at over heard while simultaneously infantilizing college-aged women by referring to them as girls. Plath’s choice to depict Dr. Gordon’s meeting with Esther ending on such a note explicates one of the ways in which gender interpolates with psychiatric care.
Stephanie de Villiers, in their article, “Metaphors of Madness: Sylvia Plath’s Rejection of Patriarchal Language in The Bell Jar” explains why male psychiatrists felt as though they had authority over the emotions of their female patients, writing, “The concept of madness has generally been linked to women and defined by men” (de Villiers 2). This systemic issue is shown through Dr. Gordon’s detached treatment of Esther. He does not expect her to be able to know how she’s feeling because he has been taught and societally conditioned to assume that, as a male physician, he has the ability to define her experience through medical authority– as the female psychiatric patient, she can only offer useful context to help him make a diagnosis. Additionally, Dr. Gordon does not inform Esther what he diagnoses her with, or about her treatment options. The nature of the appointment indicates that Esther is simply to do what Dr. Gordon tells her in order to feel better. By robbing Esther of knowledge and choice, Dr. Gordon is subjugating and oppressing Esther– an already vulnerable patient experiencing mental illness. Dr. Nolan is not capable of engaging with oppression through psychiatry in the same way by virtue of her gender– as she is a female physician, and therefore would not have been socially conditioned to think that her gender affords her authority over others. However, Doctor Nolan is also depicted as differing from Doctor Nolan in her use of language– which empowers Esther, while Doctor Gordon’s language, oppresses her. The differing effects of Dr. Gordon’s engagement with Esther and Dr. Nolan’s engagement with Esther can be seen in her thoughts during the appointment. Throughout the appointment with Dr. Gordon, Esther is cognizant in deciding not to trust Dr. Gordon. Throughout the appointment with Dr. Nolan, Esther is concerned with making it different than Dr. Gordon’s– she wants to make sure the appointment is longer, and doesn’t end in ECT. Not only do these differences make it clear that Esthers appointment with Dr. Nolan was more effective, but that her only concerns with Dr. Nolan were results of the trauma inflicted by Dr.. Gordon. This is an important point to note: not only does gender have a significant impact on the quality of care provided in psychiatric settings, but the effects of systemic sexism and oppression can result in the administration fo traumatizing psychiatric care.
