Esther and the Future

In the first seven chapters of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath it becomes quite clear that Esther is a very strong woman who is somewhat unsre of what she wants out of her life. Throughout the first seven chapters, Esther talks about what she is planning on doing with her life and what has previously happend with her life thus far. She talks of how when she meets with Jay Cee (her editor), she tells her that she is uncertain of the profession that she intends to pursue after college. In a way this statement is odd to Esther because she always had ideas of what she was going to do and would allow herself to believe that this is what she wanted. However, when she lets out the words "I don't know," in her boss's office, they come as a relieving shock to her. She had never actually thought that, that is what she wanted to say all along. 

For a woman her age and in the point in her life where choosing a career is important, she was completely unaware of what she really wanted to do even if she had enteretained several options. Most women, like Esther, who have a steady major, which they love, and are able to win prizes and scholoarships with it, know that, that is what they want to do with their lives. But Esther realizes that although she has thought about it, she has never really thought about what she wanted her life to be like after college was over.

Along with this idea, Esther does toy with the idea of marriage a few times in the first seven chapters. She goes back and fourth on whether or not married life would be for her or not. There are times when she does say she does not want to get married and then proceedes to elaborate on why she would not want to. She has watched women cook and clean for their husbands and that was what their lives consisted of. She does not want that, she wants her own life, with a real profession that makes her happy. In a sense the fact that Esther is unaware of what her plans are after college and the fact that she does not want to waster her days in a household show that she does indeed have a small sense of direction on what she wants to do with her life. So why does she continue to toy with the idea of being a poet, a mother, an editor? Does she really not know what she wants to do with her life or is she simply putting up a wall and not allowing herself to venture off into new terriroty like Rachel had done in A Jest of God?