Before I begin, let me be clear that I know I already wrote a blog post about the similarities between characters in The Catcher in the Rye and The Bell Jar, but trust me, this one is different. Yes, I am about to show another similarity between the books, but just hear me out. Although I did appreciate the endings of both The Bell Jar and The Catcher in the Rye, in my opinion, there is something off putting about both of them. Recurring characters, or I suppose lack-there-of I should say. Both in Catcher and Bell Jar, there is an important character that I wish both authors had considered bringing back in the end. These are: Catcher’s Jane and Bell Jar’s Jay Cee.
In Catcher, Jane is one of the main reasons Holden goes haywire on Stradlater. We get glimpses of flashbacks where Holden is spending a lot of time with Jane, and how he explains that their relationship was one of the best moments of his life. Every time Holden would talk about Jane, my longing for her to reappear in the end grew stronger and stronger. This growing feeling caused me to be disappointed when I read the last page, and there was still no Jane. We don’t even get to see Jane in the present once. I think it would have been interesting to see how she would react to the Holden that ran away from his school and wandered the streets of New York. But alas, Salinger decided to keep Jane out of the end.
Now we have The Bell Jar. I really did enjoy the ending of Bell Jar. As readers, we were able to see Esther at her lows, and then at her new high at the end. She has a new positive outlook on the world around her. But, as you have all probably guessed, I am left with a little disappointment. In the beginning, Esther is working as an editor at a literature magazine company in New York. She works aimlessly until her boss, Jay Cee, approaches her and asks “What do you have in mind after you graduate?” This question stumps Esther, for she realizes that she doesn’t actually know what she wants to do with her life. If it weren’t for Jay Cee, Esther would have still been living a fake life until she had a mental breakdown sometime or another. In a sense, Jay Cee sped up the process, which in turn helped Esther to have her treatment completed, while still having a life ahead of her. Because of this impact, I wish Jay Cee had seen Esther after her treatment, or at least had visited her in her asylum. It would have been interested to see how the two would converse after so much has changed. But alas, that didn’t happen to Plath, (assuming the whole story is based off a true story), so it didn’t happen to Esther either.
In the end, I’ve realized that I am a difficult reader to please. Although both endings work well rounding up each story, I think bringing those impactful characters back in the end would have made them even better. But I’m curious to see what you guys think: Would bringing Jane or Jay Cee back have made a better ending to either book? Or was leaving them out in the end a better move?
I totally sympathize with your disappointment at the end of "Catcher" because I really wanted to meet Jane. Holden kept bringing her up throughout the story, so it was impossible to forget and not wonder about her when the novel came to a close. However, I think I'm glad on the whole that Jane was never brought into the present situation because I worry that she would have hurt or disappointed Holden. He was fragile at the end and I think she may have disturbed the relative calm that he reaches. As for Jay Cee, I kind of forgot about her during the novel, but now that you bring her up, I wish that she had seen Esther again. I didn't think that Jay Cee was particularly harsh towards Esther, but Esther did and it would have been nice for Jay Cee to see the progress that Esther had made, in sort of a vengeful way.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if I was exactly disappointed at the lack of Jane in Catcher, but I was certainly expecting her to make an appearance for all the reasons you listed. However, looking back on it, if Holden were to have met the present Jane, I think the resulting scene would very much parallel Holden's nocturnal visit to Phoebe, with her not exactly being herself in his eyes, and him trying to justify that.
ReplyDeleteYou have no idea how much time I spent trying to find any special meaning in the names Sylvia Plath used in Bell Jar. I'm not sure if it's just characteristic of mid-20th century American names, but I found a lot of the characters (especially the ones that disappoint Esther) to have double letters in the names. Jay Cee could also be shortened to J.C. AKA Jesus Christ, but I'm not sure if that's just an artificial significance. But like you said, Jay Cee's main role is to catalyze the Esther's disillusionment so for her to make a return appearance after Esther's transformation would feel somewhat fulfilling. At the same time, other than asking the earth shattering question that broke Esther's life into pieces, Jay Cee really did not make a lasting impression on me. For the two to reunite would also seem implausible seeing as Jay Cee works at the magazine that old Esther thought she wanted to work at and new Esther is now opening herself up to new paths beyond her past.