Rely on Unreliability

I think we can all agree, there’s something pretty captivating about indestructible marble agate eyes. Or just in general, there is something strangely fascinating about the strange, and disturbing ways Esther narrates the people in her life. It’s hard to necessarily understand, or envision exactly what she is attempting to explore.Take Doreen for the biggest, and earliest example of this. For the life of me, I can not imagine what Doreen would naturally look like. Her and her standing up bright white hair, or sweaty scent, or rock eyeballs. Or, maybe I can. I envision some electrocuted ghost girl, with creepy crystal eyes, and quickly disturb myself. It’s unpleasant. It really is. 

Similarly, I find her whole dance with Lenny to be, if not equally, far, far more disturbing than imagining her on her own. I mean, seriously, how can a girl hang onto a man by biting his ear? In my imagination the earlobe just stretches until my brain pivots to something that is easier to digest. Esther storms out of Lenny’s house as their animalistic dance ramps up. Such an action is entirely understandable to the reader, because, really, nobody wants to be invited to watch satanic humanized bird-mating. But, deep down, I think we all kind of understand that that really was not what was truly happening in that scene. In front of Esther, maybe on the other side of distorted glass, was probably just two (decently horny) lovers, dancing and necking. Would it have been better to read that truth? Such descriptions are clearly not true, and entirely unreliable, so why even entertain them at all?

As we read this story, I think we are all aware that as readers we too are viewing things from within the Bell Jar out. This is because we are reading from Esther’s viewpoint, an entirely unreliable narrator. It’s pretty easy to wonder, ‘so what was actually happening here? What did this look like in an objective state? Was it really this bad? What’s the real story?’ 

I’m inclined to make an argument that such extensions of fact, exaggerations, and twisted narration, is the real story. Sure, out there in the library of fact exists a narrative that contradicts Esther's. Accounts that tell an unbiased and dependable story about every single one of these moments, and how they would not line up straight against Esther’s depiction. But is that really so valuable? 

The story, at its core, is one surrounding Esther’s emotion, introspection, and complex thought processes. Sure, a reliable report of Esther’s life could help us understand her biography, but we’d have zero understanding of any of her reasons. Her extensions of the truth help fit the audience to her relatability. I feel the same disturbance by imagining satanic humanized bird-mating, that she felt seeing lovers dancing and necking. She extended this truth to set us readers up on an equal playing field. I want to make an argument that without Esther’s unreliability, this narrative would make far less sense. We can only begin to acknowledge what Esther was going through, by listening to her misconstructed viewpoints on each experience. The story is worthless without the lies. Her unreliability as a narrator is a clear advantage to the reader: her exaggerations, distortions, and disturbing imaginings are necessary to convey the intensity of her emotions and the isolation she experiences. Ultimately, the power of The Bell Jar lies not in factual accuracy but in Esther’s perspective. Her unreliable narration of the people in her life, and her experiences with them immerse us in her consciousness, allowing us to feel her confusion, and despair. Her lies help us see through her glass lens, and empathize easier with choices that might otherwise seem foreign to us.