Esther tries to hang herself with the cord from her mother's bathrobe, but she can't find a place high enough in their low-ceilinged house. She tries to strangle herself with the cord, but when the blood rushes to her face, her hands go weak and she can't finish the job. She can see that her body has built-in ways to avoid suicide.
All she is able to read now are tabloid scandal sheets; but when Esther buys some books on abnormal psychology at the drug store, she finds that she can, in fact, read them. She compares the symptoms to her own and concludes that she is crazy, as she suspected. The only alternative to killing herself, Esther thinks, is to go back to Dr. Gordon and his instruments of terror; but she knows.....
This is a free excerpt of 135 words. This section contains 508 words. This
study guide contains 23,828 words (approx. 79 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Literature Guide with our The Bell Jar Access Pass.
