One psychologist interested in whether Plath might be a manic-depressive, depressed at certain periods and manic in her creative periods, believe that the girl in The Bell Jar (and thus perhaps Plath herself) had endogenous depression, a condition thought to be congenital, or something one is born with. He points out that none of the events of Esther's life prior to the overdose of pills were traumatic enough to warrant her reactions and that the descriptions in the book outline a character who has been depressed for a very long time. Many readers of the book itself are struck by how depressing the story is. One student recently observed that not only is the girl in The Bell Jar depressed, but that the woman who wrote it was probably depressed.
An interesting aspect of Esther/Sylvia's mental problems as a young girl is that her behavior took the form of withdrawal and then depressive suicide. When one compares this to other examples of intelligent youths who are disturbed, one observes that often young males act out their problems aggressively in society, sometimes appearing criminally destructive, while Plath's female characters, Esther and Joan, hide in lonely self-destruction. A contrasting example is Alex, from a 1978 Norwegian film Says Who? In this protest film, written, directed by, and starring Petter Vennerød, the young poet is angry at society's injustices and his own inability to find a good place in the world. Like Esther, Alex is very bright and sensitive, but he starts fights and is dragged off to mental hospitals while Esther just locks herself in her bell jars.
On the other hand, a 1983 Swedish film, Mama: Our Life Is Now, by Suzanne Osten, uses the diary of Ms. Osten's mother, written from 1939-44, to give us a portrait of a young female film director. The artistic and egocentric Gerd, "Mama," wrote about a bell jar that she felt surrounded her. When Osten was asked about her mother's use of that image in an obscure diary that Plath could never have read, her response was, "This must be some common experience that women have." Whatever the causes of this bell jar depression and whether or not women experience it differently than men can, of course, never be determined absolutely, but certainly these two women have given us memorable accounts of what it feels like to be encased within a bell jar.
