The Bell Jar, Howl and the Divided Self

The Divided Self and Society in Ginsberg’s Howl and Plath’s The Bell Jar

In Jane Ussher’s landmark analysis of madness, sexuality and reproduction she defines the body as a product of “discourse, of signs and signifiers”[i]; being created by repetitive historical sociocultural practices. If we align ourselves to this concept of the body as a consequence of societally produced pressures, the preoccupation with and representation of the body in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” can be seen to offer an interesting perspective on the role of society in the perpetuation of an individual’s feelings of disembodiment in the 1950s.

The concept of disembodiment stems from the Descartes theory of Dualism, which holds that the mind and body are separate and that the mind is a non-physical entity. [ii] The evolution of mind/body consciousness was largely transformed with the publication of R.D Laing’s The Divided Self which documents the symptoms of disembodiment and attributes this occurrence to social origins;[iii] incrementally different to Ussher’s view. Laing underscores in his theory the importance of the body as a base for which individuals can relate to other human beings, and thus larger society. Nora Sellei clarifies: “the body becomes the authentic location where the core of the healthy, “embodied” psyche should be sought for.”[iv] Thus the textual representation of disembodiment within “Howl” and The Bell Jar aid the exploration of society’s role in re-embodiment.

Plath’s character, Esther Greenwood was popularly diagnosed in 1963 as suffering ‘feminine mystique’[v]; a school feminist thought which articulated the unhappiness of women within their prescribed gender roles. This theory extended amalgamates with Laing’s ‘Divided Self’ and sees Esther suffering from the conflict of personal desire and broader expectations. The suffering of disembodiment is clearly articulated in Plath’s fig tree metaphor:

            “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 Atila 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.”[vi]

This metaphor and its evident focus on desire can be seen to relate to the Zen theory of ‘body consciousness’ that was emerging in the 1950s and greatly endorsed by Ginsberg.  The physical suffering over the anxieties of Esther’s desires, “starving to death” intrinsically links body to mind, emphasizing the negative effect of disembodiment. Ginsberg wrote that ‘body consciousness’ and thus re-embodiment would occur when “there is nothing more to desire.”[vii] The only resolution then that is textually presented for Esther emotionally and physically is re-embodiment. Marjorie Perloff more concisely expresses: “The Bell Jar may be described as the attempt to heal the fracture between inner self and false-self system so that a real and viable identity can come into existence.”[viii]

The representation of disembodiment in “Howl” is considerably different to that of The Bell Jar. The concerns of “Howl” are not only limited to gender roles, but also heterosexual normalcy so the representation of disembodiment in the text is present in the seeking of re-embodiment. Jeffrey Falla suggests that the references to sexual encounters, drug use and meditation in “Howl” are “physical quests … a means of restoring mind to body.”[ix] This is evident in the conflated language of sexual and holy encounters throughout “Howl”:

            “who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly
                        motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,
            who blew and were blown by those human seraphim,”[x]

Directly expressing a connection between spiritual unity and physical experience; alluding to the attempt of re-embodiment through the fulfillment of desire.

There is a subversive undertone in “Howl” that is not seen in The Bell Jar. Ginsberg himself was aware of the divided self’s exasperation under societal pressures: “the body itself may be the by-product of a large-scale conspiracy by certain forces as Burroughs says, trying to keep the people prisoners in a prison universe made out of parent matter, subjected to appearances and apparent physical conditions defining their limitations.”[xi] Thus being cognizant of this effect broaches the topic in his work. Falla suggests the lines: “lacklove and manless in Moloch!”[xii] are a directed grievance at the “repressive socialization Ginsberg finds responsible for not only intimidating him from his “natural” homosexuality, but also for leaving him manless.”[xiii]

This expression of Ginsberg’s disembodiment suggests a defiance of the sociocultural norms in which he exists, he is liberating himself of stereotypical masculine identity, he is “manless.” This differs from Esther’s articulation of her disembodiment. Esther rather than renouncing the pressures she has acknowledged she seeks to realign her identity with established cultural outsiders; Chinese and Indians. “I noticed a big, smudgy-eyed Chinese woman staring idiotically into my face. It was only me, of course. I was appalled to see how wrinkled and used up I looked”[xiv] thus cementing her own disembodiment by conforming to the dominant social thought which oppressed her.

The defiance of social norms on the part of Ginsberg does not illustrate that the re-embodied individual is free from the pressures of social conformity. The significance of the Beat Generation was in the establishment of a new counterculture; thus it created a new society in which to exist as opposed to being liberated altogether. John D’Emilo observes this in regard the gay community of the 1950s:

            “Its description of gay male sexuality as joyous, delightful and indeed even holy turned contemporary stereotypes of homosexuality upside down … [Ginsberg’s poems] offered gay male readers a self-affirming image of their sexual preference … In their rejection of the nuclear family, their willingness to experiment sexually, and, most importantly, their definition of these choices as social protest, the beats offered a model that allowed homosexuals to view their own lives from a different angle. Through the beats’ example, gays could perceive themselves as nonconformist rather than deviates, as rebels rather than immature, unstable personalities.”[xv]

When Perloff suggests that “The novelist’s job is not to solve problems but to diagnose them correctly,”[xvi] she had obviously not examined Ginsberg’s response to male binary of the dilemma she posed for Esther: “being a woman in a society whose guidelines for women she could neither accept nor reject.”[xvii] Despite the advancement in understanding mental illness and the biological causes of Laing’s disembodiment these two texts offer a far more broad social critique of the phenomenon. Both texts preoccupation with the body as a product of sociocultural practices strengthen Laing’s theory of the social origins of disembodiment, with the relief Ginsberg found in the establishment of a gay subculture perpetuating Laing’s argument further. Thus despite academic advancement in the field of disembodiment, these texts provide strong evidence for Laing’s aging theory.

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[i] Ussher, J.M  “Introduction: Towards a Material-Discursive Analysis of Madness, Sexuality and Reproduction.” Body Talk: The Material and Discursive Regulation of Sexuality, Madness and Reproduction. Ed. Jane M. Ussher. London: Routledge, 1997. Pg. 1

[ii] This school of thought is no longer prevalent as the study of eating disorders and phenomenon such as body dysmorphic disorder clearly express the unnatural result of physical and mental dislocation.

[iii] This theory is now too largely invalidated by advances in the field of mental illness which understands schizophrenia to be a result of the ‘biological body.’

[iv] Sellei, N. “The Fig Tree and the Black Patent Leather Shoes: The Body and its Representation in Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar”,” Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies, 9, (2003) pg. 129

[v] Friedan, B. The Feminine Mystique. New York: Norton. 1963

[vi] Plath, S. The Bell Jar. New York: Harper Collins. 2005 pg. 77

[vii] Ginsberg, A. Allen Verbatim: Lectures on Poetry, Politics, Consciousness. Ed. Gordon Ball. New York: McGraw Hill, 1974 pg. 17

[viii] Perloff, Marjorie and Plath, Sylvia “A Ritual for Being Born Twice:” Sylvia Plath’s ‘The Bell Jar’,” Contemporary Literature, 13, (1972) pg.509

[ix] Falla, J. B “Disembodying the Body: Allen Ginsberg’s Passional Subversion of Identity” Interdisciplinary Literary Studies, 3, (2002) pg. 49

[x] Ginsberg, A. “Howl” Howl and Other Poems San Francisco: City Lights Books. 1959 pg.13

[xi] Ginsberg, A. “Allen Young Interviews Allen Ginsberg” Gay Sunshine Interviews. Ed. Winston Leyland. San Francisco: Gay Sunshine. 1978 pg. 123

[xii] Ginsberg, “Howl” pg. 22

[xiii] Falla, pg. 63

[xiv] Plath, pg. 18

[xv] D’Emilio, J. Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970.Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1978 pg.181 quoted from Falla pg. 54

[xvi] Perloff, pg. 512

[xvii] Perloff, pg. 511