Are you there, Blog? It's me, Harmony

It is no secret that Esther Greenwood is enormously discontent in her current world, suffering in the sour air of the bell jar. The bell jar creates a dystopia of her own perception, one induced by her mental state and amplified by the expectations of womanhood. I can’t help but wonder if perhaps Esther would be more content in an entirely “other” world, despite it being dystopian, and flawed. Thus, I was drawn to my illegal copy of Brave New World (long story--I got it at a used book store and did not think to look at the publisher. Typos riddle my see-through pages that are centered in the strangest way. It really is the most interesting reading experience. I highly recommend, if anyone wants to borrow it). While there are certainly aspects of this dystopian world that Esther would not appreciate, there are a few that might alleviate her hatred of her current one. Throughout The Bell Jar , Esther displays a general disgust toward child-bearing and motherhood. She says, “If I had to ...

     The Catcher in the Rye, despite its sarcastic tone and unserious narrator, has some incredible Biblical themes that I couldn't stop thinking about. The thing that most interested me was "the Fall" mentioned by Holden after being beat up on page 104, prevented by Holden's imagined job of "the Catcher in the Rye" on page 173, and addressed on page 170 when James Castle presumedly jumped from the dorm room on a matter of principle. All of these instances are unique yet connected by their inclusion of "the fall."  Whether or not you believe what the Bible teaches or claims, these observations serve to me as striking literature parallels that I think would be a mistake to discard.      Let me begin with the first--and to me, most fascinating--reference to "the Fall" in The Catcher in the Rye. Holden tells Phoebe about how he would like to save children from falling off this imaginary cliff his mind has conjured up. He says, "I keep p...