The Bell Jar Reflection #11

Chapter 14 (pgs. 139-150)

When Esther wakes up, she hears voices around her, but she cannot see anything and she has no idea where she is.  She feels a chisel crack down on her eye and all she can see is a small stream of light.  She is convinced that she has gone blind, but she is told that she is lucky that her eyesight is normal.  After a few minutes, she can finally see and she sees nurses standing around her bed.  Her mother and brother come in to visit her and see how she is doing.  She tells them that she wants to be left alone.  Shortly after that, a man named George Bakewell that she met once comes in to visit her.  He tells her that he is that hospital’s watchmen and she screams and says “Get the hell out and don’t come back.” (pg.142) 

The next day, she asks a nurse to see a mirror.  The nurse tells her no at first, but after Esther continually bugs her about it she lets her see it.  Esther is convinced that the horrible image in the mirror is a picture and not her.  Esther accidentally drops the mirror and breaks it.  The nurses freak out and yell at her saying she will have bad luck for seven years.  Esther tells them that is just a superstition.  The next day, Esther is transported by ambulance to another hospital to see a ward.  She is put in a room with an Italian woman named Mrs. Tomolillo and after Esther tells her that she tried to kill herself, Esther asks for the privacy curtain to be put between them.  Esther finds out that she has been sleeping and eating in the hospital and she becomes upset.  She talks about the Negro waitress at meal time who gave her two servings of beans.  She becomes angry and kicks him in the calf.  This was during a time when some places were still segregated, so it was unusual to see a black man working at a hospital. 

That night, the nurses come to Esther’s room to take her temperature.  They lay their thermometers on her bed while they are busy and Esther purposefully kicks them over, although she claims it was an accident.  The thermometers shatter and glass and mercury go everywhere.  The nurses are furious and rush to clean everything up; however, Esther manages to grab a small, silver ball of mercury before they can get to it.  I am very nervous about Esther having mercury and I predict that she will swallow it and try to kill herself again.