Chapter 8 of the Bell Jar starts out with a universal lament. As Esther is riding up with Mr. Willard (Buddy’s Dad) to visit Buddy at the sanatorium, she considers the Christmas season that just passed. This paragraph is a perfect example of Plath’s architectural gift as a writer.

“It was the day after Christmas and a gray sky bellied over us, fat with snow. I felt overstuffed and dull and disappointed, the way I always do the day after Christmas, as if whatever it was pine boughs and candles and silver and gilt-ribboned presents and the birch-log fires and the Christmas turkey and the carols at the piano promised never came to pass.

At Christmas I almost wished I was a Catholic.”

Can we not all relate to this feeling? The feeling of being let down during the holidays? Do we not all have a little bit of Charlie Brown in us? Searching for the meaning of Christmas. Hoping to be lit by its promised magic, and depressed when we either can’t find it or it doesn’t come. We could say Esther is incapable of finding the magic, since she is obviously very depressed, but this chapter is a flashback and we cannot be absolutely certain to know what state of mind Esther was in when she made her trip up the Adirondacks to visit Buddy.

As they drive further north into the mountains, Esther’s mood grows bleaker and bleaker. Another delicious phrase Plath writes on the first page of Chapter 8, “I don’t know what we talked about, but as the countryside, already deep under old falls of snow, turned us a bleaker shoulder, and as the fir trees crowded down from the gray hills to the road edge, so darkly green they looked black, I grew gloomier and gloomier.” As they draw closer, her sour mood increases, her dread at having to see Buddy building.

I found Plath’s description of the sanatorium’s color scheme as “liver” to be fantastic. Can’t you just picture it? Perhaps, liver was considered a soothing color back in the day? More likely, if this were real life, it would have been what was on sale in industrial quantities. Some writers might have chosen maroon, mahogany, or just plain brown to describe the walls and furnishings. Plath chose “liver” and it is one of the most humorous parts of this chapter.

After Mr. Willard left Esther and Buddy alone, (much to Esther’s dismay) Buddy brings up the subject of marriage. Esther tries to explain to Buddy she doesn’t want to get married, ever. She cites a former conversation they had about choosing to live in the country or the city, as her means to explain this to him. How she cannot be happy, as she wants two mutually exclusive things.

Esther’s inner dialog is a wheel of conflict. She wants to be seen as pure to the opposite sex, but desires sexual affection, as men of that age were able to do. She wants to go to college, to be a successful writer, to get the best scholarships and awards, to do something fulfilling with her life, that doesn’t involve the practicality skills such as shorthand. This goes against the norm of the day. The one that pushed women to become mothers and stay home to tend to their family and household, and forgo a profession. She wants to have the status of being Mrs. Buddy Willard, but does not want to be Mrs. Buddy Willard. Esther is a perfectionist who wants it all, even if “all” conflicts with itself.

The absurdity of the ski scene is striking. The fact that Buddy, a man who has never skied before, is insistent that he can teach Esther how to ski, merely because he has watched others do it so many times before, highlights just how cocky and narcissistic Buddy really is.

Here we find our protagonist, Esther, at the top of a mountain, being goaded by Buddy to ski down a slope, she was not comfortable traversing. Inexperienced skier Buddy pressured her to take the tow rope, up, higher and higher. He pressured her, knowing she was a perfectionist and would never say no. That she had to master everything that came her way.

So, when Esther took that fateful trip down the side of the hill and breaks her leg, in two places, we see the full face of Buddy Willard plain as day. Is he concerned for Esther? Does he offer an apology or even acknowledge his role in the tragic event? No. He smiles. Not an awkward apologetic smile, but a “queer, satisfied expression” came over his face. Even if that expression came about as a nervous reaction, he doesn’t retract, withdraw or make his expression blank, knowing he is displaying an inappropriate expression, but he gives a “final smile”.

What a jerk. I wouldn’t want to marry Buddy Willard either. No matter how good looking or how much money he had, he is a conceited ass. How could one live with someone like that? Someone that makes an ashtray for his supposed love, a love who doesn’t smoke. Someone who plays on that same loved one’s insecurities. Her insecurity being that she is a perfectionist. He knows she’ll take any bait he dangles in front of her. He is a classic narcissist, always needing to be right, to be in control and to put those whom he “loves” down to lift himself up.

Esther is better off without Buddy Willard.