Dr. Gordon vs. Dr. Nolan
Dr. Gordon vs. Dr. Nolan
Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar follows Esther Greenwood through her journey and struggles with depression. She ends up going to an institution that helps her with her illness and suicide attempts. At the institution, she meets two doctors, Dr. Gordon and Dr. Nolan. Esther had two different experiences with Dr. Gordon and Dr. Nolan. Dr. Nolan made Esther feel more comfortable, and Dr. Gordon made her feel more uncomfortable and didn’t help her depression at all.
The first doctor who works with Esther is Dr. Gordon, and in my opinion, he was a disaster. He doesn’t listen when Esther is talking, and he thinks that Shock therapy is just going to cure her. Dr. Gordon tells Esther's mother, “A few more shock treatments, Mrs. Greenwood, and I think you’ll notice a wonderful improvement” (Plath 145). This quote shows that Dr. Gordon was so confident in his skills and his method to help Esther. But what happened after showed us readers that he was wrong. We realized that Dr. Gordon didn’t know what he was doing at all after his method didn’t work, and I personally think that Esther did too. Esther’s experience with Dr. Gordon just made her anxious, and he didn’t really help her at all.
Opposite of Dr. Gordon, Dr. Nolan is the doctor Esther likes and feels more comfortable with. Dr. Nolan listened to what Esther was saying, and she feels that she can say basically anything and Dr. Nolan will understand. I also feel like they have sort of built a trust bond with each other that Esther knows Dr. Nolan isn’t going to break. Esther said, “I liked Doctor Nolan, I loved her, I had given her my trust on a platter and told her everything” (Plath 211). This quote shows that, unlike with Dr. Gordon, Esther actually feels more comfortable with Dr. Nolan and that she actually trusts telling things to Dr. Nolan. I also feel like Dr. Nolan is a sort of mother figure to Esther. In the book, Esther says, “Doctor Nolan put her arm around me and hugged me like a mother” (Plath 212). This quote really shows the comfort that Dr. Nolan provides to Esther. Even if earlier in the scene, Esther was mad at her for not telling her about the electric shock therapy when she promised she would tell her, Dr. Nolan still came to comfort her and tell her about the therapy before she went and did it.
ReplyDeleteAntje, this is a really good analysis of Esther's relationship with her doctors. I like your point that Dr Nolan is kind of like a mother figure or a friend to Esther, and someone she can at least open up to about difficult things. I think Dr Nolan is an idolized figure for Esther on multiple levels, but especially because she doesn't force her to do anything. Dr Gordon is depicted more cynically and she's already biased against him to begin with because of her experiences with men. Nice post!!
I agree with the idea that Dr. Nolan was much better for Esther than Dr. Gordon. I can't help but wonder if that has something to do with Gordon's impersonal and purely conventional approach-- that like the sciences-- she found distasteful for their lack of humanity (like reducing words to numbers and concepts).
ReplyDeleteHi Antje, I liked this comparison. Also, her immediate disdain for Dr. Gordon might have something to do with her previous experience with Buddy and the medical industry. She has demonstrated her disdain for how the medical industry is male dominated and revolves around manipulating women, and is now worried about being on the receiving end.
ReplyDeleteHi Antje! Esther’s time in the mental institution definitely connects to her comfort with Dr. Nolan and Dr. Gordon. Dr. Nolan, as a competent pioneer and nurturing mother figure, gives Esther hope and a sense of being truly understood, while Dr. Gordon, with his traditional biases and rigid approach, makes it difficult for her to open up or be fully honest. And, I would say these differences directly affect the success of Esther’s treatment. Good post!
ReplyDeleteI think it is important to note that Esther encounters these two starkly contrasted doctors at two different clinics, and that one of them is BEFORE and one AFTER her suicide attempt. We don't know if Gordon might have taken her more seriously once she'd demonstrated the seriousness of her condition in this way, but it's likely he wouldn't have been AS dismissive with his "what do you think is the problem?"
ReplyDeleteShe meets Nolan at precisely the right time, as she's lost faith in the ability of doctors to even understand what she's experiencing, much less to aid in her recovery. And Nolan's gender has *everything* to do with this difference: Gordon immediately seems "conceited" to her, and she interprets his family photo as signaling his allegiance to the cult of marriage and family, which she feels "crazy" for rejecting. How could this guy *possibly* understand what she's going through? But from the start, in a way that is directly connected to Nolan being female, Esther is able to trust, confide in, and even "love" the doctor who is trying to help her. She never uses the word "love" to describe her feelings for Buddy Willard, and Gordon is sort of the Buddy Willard of psychiatry. In contrast, she talks about loving Dr. Nolan "like a mother" (as you note), and she clearly is MUCH more comfortable confiding in her than she is with her own mother. There's no way Esther would have had the radically honest conversation about birth control with Gordon, but Nolan jumps right in, giving her a "prescription" that allows her to defy her mother's values and rules. It's really hard to overestimate how important Dr. Nolan proves to be for Esther's recovery, while Gordon seems to accelerate her suicidal inclinations.
Hello Antje. I like how one of your contrasts between Dr. Gordan and Dr. Nolan is listening to Esther. Its almost like people are more inclined to trust you if you listen to them. The therapy treatments were also pretty different. I think Dr. Gordans treatment was made to giver her the same treatment as that one family at the beginning of the book because she mentioned she was afraid of that. Its also interesting how he is male. Its almost like there is a double standard between men and women in the book.
ReplyDeleteHi Antje! I'm glad you dove into the differences between Esther's relationship with her 2 doctors. When I read this the first time, I felt so, so bad for Ester because of Dr. Gordon's "mansplaining" and dismissiveness of Ester. He became another man in a long list of men who made Ester more suicidal. I also felt like he was a "Buddy" of medicine in the sense that he didn't realize how much damage he was doing, and he genuinely thought of himself as helpful, and to some extent, he deserved some grace for trying to actually help. Regardless, Dr. Nolan is exactly who Dr. Gordon should have been. It definitely helped that she was a woman, but I also think that she genuinely just was a better doctor because of her ability to really listen to Ester and not judge her.
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