Dodo Conway and the "American Dream" Esther Never Wanted
Dodo Conway is barely in The Bell Jar, but I think she might be one of the most important characters in it. Even her name feels deliberate. Plath seems to have quite literally named this woman after an extinct bird, and not just any bird. The dodo was flightless, studied and catalogued by scientists like a specimen before it went extinct, defined almost entirely by its biology and its inability to go, quite literally, anywhere. Plath naming this character Dodo doesn't feel like a coincidence. She lives next door to Esther's family, and every time she appears, she is pregnant, pushing a baby carriage and trailed by "two or three small children…wobbled along in the shadow of her skirts" (Plath 116). She is not presented as miserable or trapped. She is devoted to her life, almost radiant in it, and that is exactly what makes her so unsettling to read. Plath doesn't use Dodo to argue that domesticity is a trap for all women. She uses her to show that it doesn't matter whether it's a trap or not, because Esther was never really given the option to decide for herself.
What Esther feels watching Dodo isn't pity, it's something closer to suffocation. At one point, she watches Dodo wheeling her youngest up and down outside and notes that she "seemed to be doing it for my own benefit" (Plath 117). Esther isn't just observing a neighbor living her life. She is watching a performance of what she is supposed to become, and she knows it. Which is a lot to take from someone pushing a stroller, but that's kind of the point. The 1950s had a very clear picture of what a successful woman looked like once she was married, and it looked exactly like Dodo Conway, perpetually expecting, surrounded by proof of her reproduction. Esther is ambitious, she wants to write, she wants to exist on her own terms, and none of that registers as a real counterargument to the world around her. The expectation moves forward regardless.
I think this is what makes Dodo function as more than just a background character. She is the physical proof of what conformity looks like, and Plath puts her right outside Esther's window so she cannot be ignored. Just like how the dodo bird was held up by scientists as a subject of study rather than a living thing with its own existence, Dodo Conway is treated by the culture around her as a model, an example, something to be observed and replicated. Esther sees this very clearly. Quite literally RIGHT in front of her. Well, her window. The same life that fits Dodo perfectly would erase Esther entirely, and the world she lives in sees no difference between them worth acknowledging.
Hey Lynn, really good post! I love how you highlighted the importance of Dodo Conway in this book even though she is only mentioned a couple of times in total. I agree with you that she acts as THE "perfect or ideal" middle aged woman during the 1950s. It makes the comparison between Esther's thoughts and the traditional values clear. I think it also is helpful because it provides an insightful view on how she does not want to reach that stage in her life where her purpose is to provide for the man of the house. Good job on this post, I really liked it!
ReplyDeleteDear Lynn, this was such a cool blog! Before reading it, I never really noticed how Dodo Conway was such a deliberate character on Plath's part - she just seemed like this embodiment of eternal fertility that is inhuman to Esther, like other characters in the book. However, your reading that her presence is more deliberate makes sense, because Esther is someone who doesn't really conform to these traditionally feminine stereotypes.
ReplyDeleteI love the connection you made between Dodo Conway and the dodo bird. I didn't think about that at first, but it makes a lot of sense, especially because the dodo is flightless and unable to go anywhere. I can see how this metaphor works through the way she is depcited, as a woman who seems trapped in the role society expects from her. Dodo constantly pregant, taking care of children, devoting her life fully to her husband does make her this "flightless bird" who can't spread her wings or choose something different. Dodo represents what Esther doesn't want to be. Even though Dodo seems content, Esther sees that life as something that would limit her future, and the proximity of her being so close to her house does serve as a constant reminder. Great connection, Lynn!
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ReplyDeleteHey Lynn! I really enjoyed this post because it made me rethink a character I barely paid attention to while reading. Your connection between Dodo Conway and the dodo bird was really amusing and honestly something I never considered before. I thought your counterpoint about Dodo not being miserable was crucial as she seems happy with her lifestyle, which emphasizes Esther’s reaction even more. Overall this was a really interesting blogpost and it gave a lot more meaning to a character that only appears briefly in the book!
ReplyDeleteWhen I read your astute description of Dodo Conway--and why she represents such a nightmare to Esther--I think of Esther's line about marriage making a woman "a numb slave in a totalitarian state." As you note, Dodo seems blissful in her role as uber-mother, smiling beatifically with untold numbers of children swarming around her and at least one more about to arrive. Like the woman on the delivery table during her hospital tour, Esther sees social convention as a form of brainwashing, and Dodo, the symbolically flightless bird who has become a figurative set of eggs walking around town as if her entire being were defined by fertility, is the most prominent victim. And in Esther's paranoid mind, Dodo is walking back and forth in front of her home in order to torment her, to get her to crack and join the cult. It's such a good illustration of how the bucolic suburban setting becomes a waking nightmare for Esther.
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