We see Esther at Joan's funeral, wondering what she is burying. "I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am."
In the last scene of the book, we see Esther leafing through an old National Geographic magazine, waiting for her interview. She is dressed correctly — in a red wool suit; her stocking seams are straight, but she has on her old, cracked patent leather shoes. She sees the silver-haired doctor who talked to her about pilgrims on her first day there, plus all the other faces, now without their masks. "The eyes and the faces all turned themselves toward me, and guiding myself by them, as by a magical thread, I stepped into the room."
So Esther leaves the mental institution, we assume, although we are never told that for certain. And certainly we never know if she was able to completely leave her bell jar. In fact, the room which she has just stepped into may be only another bell jar. The novel does not end with Esther's stepping into clear, clean air. Nor do we see her emerging with a new set of values for herself. Dr. Nolan has just guided her into another room.
When Esther steps into "the room" for her interview, hoping to be released from the mental hospital, the reader is reminded of Virginia Woolf's idea of "a room of one's own." It is odd that Esther has been studying James Joyce's works, but that Virginia Woolf's novels are never mentioned. Of all the women who might have helped Esther, Woolf is one whom we think of first. Woolf understood all that Esther is faced with, and she wrote brilliantly on so many aspects of being female in modern society, as well as confronting madness.
But more than just a mentor, even the idea of "a room of her own" has not occurred to Esther Greenwood, and we wonder if, indeed, it occurred to Plath. Esther goes from room to room, rooms prepared for her by others, all geared to others' and the world's expectations. And all these places have been inadequate, and they have often been very cold. Esther's mother's house, Esther's father's academic life, her schools, New York City, and Ladies' Day magazine, and the hospitals — these have all been "rooms." Now, at the end of the novel, a board room will judge Esther's mental health.
