Buddy or the Bell Jar

Based on the book 'The Bell Jar' by Sylvia Plath. Esther is 20 years in the future, the night before she is supposed to marry Buddy Willard.

Buddy or the Bell Jar

 

“I'm marrying Buddy Willard tomorrow. I'm actually marrying Buddy Willard.”

 

As I am sitting on the white cotton sheets of my hotel room bed, that thought swirls through my mind like a record stuck on repeat, slowly driving me crazy. The past few months had gone so quickly that I'd barely had time to think and before I knew it he had proposed to me and I had accepted. Only now on the night before my wedding day did I bother to consider my rash decision. The acceptance was instant; I didn’t think about what was happening or what marriage really entailed �" I’d returned to a childish ignorance, in love with the idea of being in love; with the idea of being in love with Buddy, if such things were possible.

 

What was it that Buddy had said to me all those years ago?

“I wonder who you'll marry now, Esther.”

 

Who’d have ever thought that I’d end up marrying him? Of all the men - of all the people in the world - I'm marrying Buddy Willard.

 

At times, I'd doubted that I ever would get married, after everything that... happened. Who would want to marry someone who had been in an asylum? No one sane, by any means. In great thought, it became apparent to myself that perhaps I was settling for Buddy because I feared that I'd never find anyone else that would accept me for who I am and everything I've suffered. Buddy was a compromise �" not all I wanted but what was there and was adequate. I could build a home with him.

 

Sitting in my grand hotel room which remained an empty space except from my unpacked suitcase and various items of highly expensive furniture, much like the hotel room I had shared with Doreen all those years on that writing scholarship, I began to question my current predicament. Did I really want to be with Buddy for the rest of my life? Did I really want to spend every night laying in bed beside him and every day cleaning the house whilst he was at work?

 

I wasn’t sure. I craved the idea of a home and a loving husband, but I wanted to write. I wanted to make something of myself. And look how far I’ve got. I’ve even got my own column in a magazine. Everything I wanted, everything I had always dreamed of, everything I was unsure of back when I tried to take my own life �" I’ve got it all now. I’ve got the job I wanted since I was a little girl, and I didn’t want to have to sacrifice that for anyone.

 

But then again, Buddy was my first love. He still is. I've never loved another man, not the same way I love him. I guess I never gave myself the chance. I detached myself from any males that were in my life �" to be honest; most of them were obnoxious fools who thought far too highly of themselves anyway. Buddy had always been here for me, even when I was in the asylum he came to visit me. How can I not marry a man who has done that for me? I supposed that he's the only man that would marry a girl who has been in my situation. I guess he must be quite infatuated with me to marry me.

 

The navy blue curtains that hang at my windows are still open, and the silver moonlight shines into my room, casting long shadows of the furniture on the carpeted floor, like drawn out silhouettes, frozen still in indecisiveness. I rise from the end of my bed where I had been sat contemplating and walk across the large room to the bathroom. Splashing cold water on my face, I try to wash away all the silly pessimistic thoughts I'd been having about the wedding. I'd committed now, and I couldn't just change my mind the night before the wedding. All the planning and money that had gone into making tomorrow the perfect day for both Buddy and I... I'd feel so selfish calling it all off.

 

After drying my face on one of the complimentary towels, I resumed my place on the end of the bed, where I perched like an owl deep in thought. My elbows rested on my knees and my chin in my hands as I remembered the night Buddy had proposed to me - oh, how perfect it could have been.

 

We had just ordered desert when Buddy went to use the bathroom. I sat waiting patiently, swirling the wine around my glass and then intently watching it flood back down the side of the glass, like blood running down a window pane. In my deep concentration, I didn’t notice Buddy reappear from his trip to the bathroom. It was only when he was down on one knee next to my chair did I pick up on his presence. At first, I was confused �" why would he be kneeling down on the floor? And then I realised. A sickness felt as if it was building in my stomach, swelling and bubbling, threatening to erupt as Buddy opened the box that I assumed held the ring. Heads turned as the gazes of the other people dining that night understood what was going on and all eyes were fixated on us.

 

“I love you, Esther Greenwood,” he said just loud enough for the tables near us to hear. “Will you marry me?”

 

I went into shock, staring at him but not really seeing him as the thoughts of the past few months ran through my head �" all the happy memories and all the day trips and nights out we’d been on, oh, how perfect they had been. And then my mind rewound back to the time I was in the asylum and all the events leading up to my admittance. I remembered how mechanically he had undressed in front of me, telling me to get used to the sight of him naked. I remembered how emotionless he was when he told me he had been sleeping with that waitress all summer when we were dating. I remembered how I purposefully seduced that teacher just to get even with Buddy and how horribly that had gone. I couldn’t stop bleeding.

 

“What?”

 

That was all I managed to say to him as he perched in front of me like the perfect gentleman, the ring sitting delicately in the opened box. I tried to gather my thoughts, to formulate a more appropriate response to his big question.

 

“Marry me, Esther.” He said, almost pleading.

 

But still, the thoughts just wouldn’t process in my mind and before I knew it I found myself accepting his proposal.

 

And now, here I am, sitting in my hotel room on the night before my wedding, indecisive as to whether I actually want to get married. I did and I didn’t, but I could never have all that I wanted, and at times I struggle to accept that. I’d have to sacrifice something, either way, and if I tried to call the wedding off now, I’d be silenced. She’s just nervous, they would say, just pre-wedding jitters. I could feel the bell jar hanging over my head again, threatening to smother me at any moment. It was ready to descent upon me, to crush the life out of me and send me into another world of depression. The bell jar was intimidating, and it scared me to the point that I would marry Buddy just to save myself from going through all what I had gone through once before.

 

I can still remember the asylum as if I had only been there yesterday. I can remember all the nurses, all the patients, or ‘residents’ as we were called. I can remember my rooms and the faint blood stain on one of the sofas. I can remember the night I caught Joan and DeeDee in bed together when I went to borrow some music from them. I can remember the electric shock treatment they had given me. The male doctor at the first hospital �"Doctor Gordon �" had given me a very horrible experience with the electric shock treatment, and how Dr Nolan deceived me into having it all again. It did no good, just slowed down me recovery from the depression. It was painful, too, like bolts of electricity radiating through my head. I can remember how I had screamed on my first treatment. I can remember my mother sending me those damned flowers that I didn’t want and how I’d thrown them in the bin. Oh God, there would be flowers at the wedding tomorrow. Even Buddy hadn’t made the mistake of sending me flowers. At least he got something right.

 

I could remember all of it, and I definitely didn’t want to go back to that place. Never. Never in a million years did I want to end up there again. What a choice, eh? Marry Buddy and be suppressed for the rest of my life or have that dreaded bell jar encase me again and end up back in the asylum. Goodbye, sanity. I’d always wondered when the bell jar, with all its stifling distortions, would descend on me again.

Author's Note

For my AS English lit/lang course, we had to write a piece based on a book we had read under the title 'Womens Lives'. I based my work on The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.