The Asylum
In The Bell Jar , the line between treatment and control gets blurry. Esther’s time in the hospital doesn’t feel purely medical, but it does not read as cartoonishly cruel either. After her suicide attempt, she is moved into institutional space, evaluated, scheduled, handled. The first electroshock treatment, given by Dr. Gordon without adequate preparation, feels like he's trying to make it a punishment The room is impersonal and Esther experiences the procedure as violent and humiliating. The intent may have been therapeutic, but she is strapped down, silenced, corrected. Her body becomes something to manage. Later she receives shock therapy under Dr. Nolan and it's interpreted differently. There is an explanation. There is sedation. There is a sense, however fragile, of collaboration. The treatment itself is the same procedure, but the framing of it changes the experience. It shows that institutional care in the 1950s was not a single fixed thing. It depended heavily on wh...
