https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i2.097
Ableism and Psychic Distress: Rethinking Neurodiversity and Disability in The Bell Jar
FARHINA KHATUN
Independent Scholar
West Bengal, India
Abstract: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath has traditionally been read through feminist, autobiographical, and psychiatric frameworks. However, this paper examines the novel through the perspectives of neurodiversity, crip theory, and ableism, focusing on their role in shaping Esther Greenwood’s psychic distress. The study critiques an ableist social order and draws on disability studies to argue that Esther’s mental suffering is not a personal weakness but a neurodivergent response to a society structured around narrow expectations of normality. Esther Greenwood suppresses her desires and gradually becomes trapped within rigid social expectations. Society plays a crucial role in disabling individuals by denying space for difference. Such socially produced disability marks individuals as deviant, treating difference as a problem rather than as a natural variation of human experience. As Judy Singer argues in “Why Can’t You Be Normal for Once in Your Life?” (1998), the idea of “normal brains” is socially constructed and exclusionary. When social pressures intensify around Esther, she is labeled “ill” and subjected to psychiatric intervention that ultimately deepens rather than alleviates her distress.
Robert McRuer’s concept of “compulsory able-bodiedness” is central to understanding Esther Greenwood’s condition. Esther is not biologically defective; rather, the demand to remain emotionally stable, productive, and socially feminine intensifies her anxiety and alienation. Her difference emerges from pressure to conform to ideals of perfection rather than from inherent pathology.
By reframing Esther Greenwood’s distress through neurodivergence and crip theory, this study contributes to contemporary debates in disability humanities and mental health narratives. It ultimately advocates greater recognition of neurodivergence as a natural form of human variation comparable to differences in gender, temperament, or cognition. In contemporary society, individuals who think, learn, or behave differently are often misunderstood and pathologized; this paper argues that such individuals should instead be recognized as representing diverse modes of being human.
Keywords: Neurodiversity, Ableism, Disability Studies, Crip Theory, Medical Gaze
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