what it must feel like to have malaria.

This chapter of The Bell Jar moves slow. Ordinary movements and mundane days are recorded methodically because there is really just nothing else going on in Esther's world. I haven't read all of The Bell Jar, but this chapter truly was like living a slow, slurred summer day with nothing to do. As tired is this chapter is, though, it does contain a great deal of foreshadowing and implications of Esther's emotional instability.

The solitary line on the first page "What a hotchpotch the world was!" immediately implies several things: Esther is unfamiliar with the world around her, the unfamiliarity annoys and confuses her and she cannot be bothered with it. "Hotchpotch" is such an odd word, I think, and calls to mind a scrambled mess of thread that cannot be untangled. It is just impossible to solve. A few paragraphs further down, Esther describes the two diagonal lines of blood she's left dried on her cheeks. This makes me think she does not want to belong in the "hotchpotch" world and will make no attempt to. She says, "I didn't really see why people should look at me," but she knows why and I believe she relished the fact that they did. She wanted to set herself apart.

(Before I go on, let me just say that I cannot stand Plath's use of descriptive verbs. She overwrites dialogue like "the conductor bawled," and excessively uses descriptive action like "negotiated the long aisle." It's unnecessary and almost sounds like something you might find written by a freshman in a college writing class.)

As the chapter progresses, Esther further disembodies herself from her actions. When Judy calls and encourages her to go through with her summer plans, despite being rejected by the writing program, Esther cannot say yes. She cannot make herself do what she knows will potentially make her happy. Little by little, she loses control over her will: "I could just about afford it. But the hollow voice said, 'You'd better count me out.'...The minute I hung up, I knew I should have said I would come...I reached for the receiver. My hand advanced a few inches then retreated and fell limp. I forced it toward the receiver again, but again it stopped short, as if it had collided with a pane of glass." She cancels her registration for summer classes at the college with a "zombie voice" that is not really her own.

Esther is indecisive and uncommitted to the few decisions she does try to make. She says she won't live in the same house as her mother for more than a week, yet she stays. She tries to write a novel, but puts it on hold because she decides she needs more experience. She decides to switch majors, learn short hand, write her thesis, and maybe go to Germany; but she does none of these things. She has no control over her will or her wants, because her depression has taken her over. A "zombie" of a person replaces her, choking her off.

This chapter is thick and appropriately zombielike--every minute action of Esther's is recorded dutifully. Plath makes the reader aware of each crawling moment through Esther's short, methodical ramblings of thought and action. Her sentences are statements and short, tired descriptions. Thus the reader moves as Esther moves (slow and deliberate) and thinks with her (indecisively and indefinitely).