calling it even
This Week in Reading
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar reminded me of Catcher in the Rye, in that both books feature a protagonist that is very smart, and is deeply aware of their own cleverness. And like Catcher in the Rye, The Bell Jar is a book probably best read as a teenager (though I did genuinely enjoy reading it for the first time at age 24, which I do not imagine would be true for Catcher in the Rye). Sylvia Plath writes about mental illness with an entrancing kind of bland logic. Her protagonist, Esther, is compelled to kill herself not because she is deeply tormented, but simply because it seems natural. Why should she wash her hair today when she will just have to do it again tomorrow? Why separate the days of her life with sleep when a new day will come regardless?
Sylvia Plaths’s perspective on gender was pretty radical at the time of The Bell Jar’s publication, though it seems rather quaint through the lens of modern feminism.
At one point, Esther is shocked to learn that the boy she has been dating, a boy she considered to be clean cut and upstanding and fairly dull, was not, as she had assumed, a virgin, and had actually had a sexual relationship with a waitress the previous summer. In response, she decides that she should go out and sleep with a man. “Sleeping with Buddy wouldn’t count, though, because he would still be one person ahead of me, it would have to be with somebody else.” What motivates her is not jealousy, but a need to even things out.
If Esther fucks a man that is not Buddy, they will be even, but they will not be equal. What she is after is not just sexual freedom (these things are never about sex, are they), but the professional and personal power that Buddy takes for granted. Throughout The Bell Jar, Esther talks freely of her insatiable ambition. She describes a hypothetical fig tree where each fig represents a fabulous life she could lead. Unable to select which fig seems tastiest, she imagines the fruits withering on the branch. Esther doesn’t want to live in either the city or the country— she wants to travel between the two indefinitely (Buddy tells her this is “a perfect set up for a true neurotic”). In contrast to the blasé reasoning driving her numerous suicide attempts, this craving for more seems much wilder than whatever inner darkness landed her in an asylum. Sleeping with a man that is not Buddy will not grant her everything she wants, but it is the most concrete way she has of keeping score.
True equality is a futile effort. It is impossible to build systems that account for the specific conditions each of us face. If we can’t have equal, we might as well take even. That is the logic behind affirmative action. It’s not about making a system that is perfectly fair, it is about evening the playing field a little bit. It’s like splitting the bill at a restaurant— someone’s entree may have been $3 more, but it is more graceful to put two cards down than to fuss over a few dollars. At some point we just call it even.
Perfect fairness is a concept that doesn’t make sense past preschool. And even then— each kid is given a pack of fruit snacks, but some bags have more strawberry gummies than others. Or maybe the whole bag is strawberry, but I like strawberry flavoring more than you do. Is it fair that I am happier with today’s snack than you are? How would we even begin to make this more fair? To what end does this matter? There are too many metrics for us to measure to ever draw hard and fast judgements for fairness. I find a lot of discussions about social justice on the internet exhausting these days. Can’t we try to sort out the big stuff before we worry if this one quote by this one celebrity in this one magazine is problematic?
This desire to even things out pops up everywhere. We are uncomfortable with inequality, but instead of truly fixing it, we try to fudge the extremities. I notice it especially in conversations about wealth. America has fetishized the middle class to the point that we now all try to pretend we are part of it. Growing up, I assumed my family was middle class. We didn’t live in a shack and we didn’t live in a mansion, and when your understanding of income distribution comes from MASH, this meant that we were middle class. We were not middle class. It’s taken me years to begin to grasp the scale and scope of my privilege. But when I have conversations about my background I still feel an urge to downplay my family’s financial situation. I went to public school! Both my parents grew up poor! I don’t have a trust fund! I am financially independent! All of this comes from a need to prove that I am grounded, a fear that my parents’ affluence reflects badly upon me. It is an attempt to edge myself closer to the mythos of the American middle class. (In truth, it would be more grounded to own up to it all, to be frank and open about my upbringing.)
This edging happens in the other direction as well, the working class constantly asserting that they, too, are middle class. Money may be tight sometimes, but they want you to know that they aren’t poor. They can still buy their kids cool shoes and video games. We all posture towards the alleged middle in hopes of making everyone more comfortable, because it is awkward and socially unacceptable for us to discuss the haves and have- nots in public. Tabloids tell us that movie stars are Just Like Us, and we tell the world that we are Just Like Everyone Else, too. It’s an attempt to find common ground, even if we are all pretending to share it.
Maybe calling it even isn't enough, gives a free pass to small inequalities that add up to bigger injustices. But it is also an act of good faith. Faith that things will balance out next time. I will buy your drink and you will cover gas and one day, hopefully, the universe will spread good fortune more evenly.
Further Reading
I don’t really read classics, or really, old things in general because, quite frankly, I find them boring and difficult. I force myself to read one a year because I know it is good for me, so now I am set until 2019. The two classics I can whole heartedly endorse are East of Eden by John Steinbeck and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. If I, a classics-hater, loved them, you can be sure they are actually great.
Also, if you haven’t read that New York Times article from last fall about how the rich spend their money, please do, it is absolutely fascinating. I am having trouble linking it here, but if you google “NY Times What The Rich Won’t Tell You” it will pop up.
P.S. I just wanted to say thank you for subscribing to this thing. Thank you to everyone who texts me about this tinyletter and DMs me book recs on Instagram and replies to these emails. But mainly, just thanks for reading, I really truly appreciate it.