“Doctor Gordon was fitting two metal plates on either side of my head. He buckled them into place with a strap that dented my forehead, and gave me a wire to bite. I shut my eyes. There was a brief silence, like an indrawn breath. Then something bent down and took hold of me and shook me like the end of the world. Whee-ee-ee-ee-ee, it shrilled, through an air crackling with blue light, and with each flash a great jolt drubbed me till I thought my bones would break and the sap fly out of me like a split plant. I wondered what terrible thing it was that I had done.”
Dr. Gordon’s administration of Esther’s ECT treatment. (Plath 141-142).
“At last a tall, cadaverous woman in a white smock entered the room from an inner door. I thought that she would go up and take the man in the maroon bathrobe, as he was first, so I was surprised when she came towards me. ‘Good morning, Doctor Nolan,’ the woman said, putting her arm around my shoulders. ‘Is this Esther?’…Miss Huey helped me climb up and lie down on my back. ‘Talk to me,’ I said. Miss Huey began to talk in a low, soothing voice, smoothing the salve on my temples and fitting the small electric buttons on either side of my head. ‘You’ll be perfectly all right, you won’t feel a thing, just bite down….’ And she set something on my tongue and in panic I bit down, and darkness wiped me out like chalk on a blackboard.”
Dr. Nolan’s administration of Esther’s ECT treatment. (Plath 214- 215).
Before delving into the analysis of these quotes, some important historical context for The Bell Jar was the Rosenberg assassination. While not included in the text above, it is important to note that Esther discusses the Rosenberg assassination at the beginning of the book. As the Rosenbergs were executed through the use of electrocution, electricity is presented from the beginning of the book as a method of capital punishment (Fernandez 165). The inclusion of the Rosenberg assassinations indicate an association between the use of electricity as punishment for transgression, thus creating a rational association between Doctor Gordon and the executioner— someone who robs another of their autonomy. Additionally, the Rosenbergs were executed after being prosecuted for espionage— which, at the time, was an unforgivable transgression against American society. Therefore, an association can be made to Esther’s behavioral transgressions as she experiences mental illness. Therefore, ECT and consequential effects of ECT— when delivered in the absence of a functional patient-provider relationship— are perceived as a form of punishment for the transgressions, and not a form of treatment for her illness (Fernandez 165; Senuick 18).
The use of metaphor to describe depression is analyzed in Jonathan Charteris-Black’s article, Shattering the Bell Jar: Metaphor, Gender, and Depression. The article details the difference between male and female uses of metaphors describing depression, writing:
“We have seen how containment related verbs such as “pour out” “unleash,” “escape,” and so forth show evidence of ideas relating to loss of control, especially in women’s metaphor use and it seems that losing control is an essential stage in the communication of depression; although “control” is a concern of both men and women loss of control may be more threatening to typical masculine identities than it is to feminine ones…”
(Charteris-Black 214)
Above, Esther uses containment related verbs to describe the feeling of her initial ECT treatment, which indicates a loss of control. This indicates that her experience in Dr. Gordon’s Care was that, through treatment for her depression, those negative feelings were exacerbated as she lost even more control. Not only did she lose control over her ability to write, read, and sleep— through ECT she lost control of everything inside her. Essentially, Dr. Gordon’s ECT treatment caused her to lose control of herself. Conversely, in her treatment with Dr. Nolan, Esther equates the experience to the wiping of a chalkboard clean— which can be extrapolated to a new beginning. It is clear that, through analysis, the experience that Esther has with Dr. Gordon is focused on the maintenance or loss of control, and Dr. Gordon’s treatment is ineffective in providing Esther with more control, and instead robs her of control. Alternately, it is clear that the treatment Dr. Nolan provides Esther with exists outside of the control or lack thereof that defines Esther’s depression, and works to erase instead of maintain.
“The 70-year history of ECT is marked by abuse and misuse. Much to the chagrin of contemporary psychiatric clinicians, the less than flattering aspects have been portrayed in narratives such as The Bell Jar and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. These representations have, perhaps, encouraged beliefs that ECT is a cruel and anachronistic practice. Yet, for contemporary psychiatry, ECT is one of the four positively indicated treatment modalities to treat major depression. In fact, according to the American Psychiatric Association (APA), “electroconvulsive therapy has the highest rates of response and remission of any form of antidepressant treatment, with 70%–90% of those treated showing improvement” (APA 2010, 88).”
(Senuick 18-19)
The two sections of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath featured above, detail Esther’s first and second encounters with electro-convulsive therapy. ECT is a psychiatric treatment that is commonly misrepresented in media and news due to its inhumane origins in the 1930’s (Kellner 220). However, by the time that Plath was writing The Bell Jar, the treatment would have been closer to it’s modern day administration and should have been a procedure that required consent and some mild anesthesia. Alternately, ECT is commonly thought of as a form of ‘mind control’ as it originated in the desire to change behavior instead of treat mental illness (Kellner 220-221). Plath’s depiction of Dr. Gordon’s administration of ECT clarifies the use of the psychiatric treatment as a form of oppression— meant to control behavior, and not treat symptoms. Dr. Gordon only received information about Esther’s behavioral nuances and not how she feels, this is the only thing that Dr. Gordon is aware of and is able to treat. This correlates with the gender of each provider as determined above, as the association of maleness and authority is easily transposed from medical provider onto correctional officer or judicial executioner. Thus, within the context of the Rosenberg assassination, Esther treatment from Dr. Gordon is quickly associated with the criminalization of her mental illness. Consequently, Plath’s depiction of the juxtaposingly effective and accurate administration of ECT under Dr. Nolan’s care explicates the proper use of ECT as a useful psychiatric tool. This clarifies, further, that, for esther, receiving psychiatric care from a female physician improved the quality of her care and was associated with ethical administration of ECT.
