Essay, Research Paper

Throughout centuries there have been 1000000s and 1000000s of people overlooked and shunned for grounds that are non concrete. Yet, these same individuals that were overlooked centuries ago because of grounds such as the coloring material of their hair, eyes, tegument, or sex, are still overlooked in today & # 8217 ; s society. Womans have been at the custodies of & # 8220 ; oppressors & # 8221 ; since the beginning of documented clip. What is chilling, is non so much that they are being oppressed, but the individuals that are their oppressors. The oppressors are non from a different planet, or a different society, or a different town ; the oppressors are the adult females & # 8217 ; s ain brothers and male parents and doctors- they are work forces they know and trust! The plants of Sylvia Plath and Margaret Lawrence have exposed the dictatorships that exist in adult females & # 8217 ; s lives today. Through their words, these two writer & # 8217 ; s uncover society & # 8217 ; s failure to acknowledge adult females as persons by sorting them in footings of category, age and gender. Throughout their novels, The Bell Jar and A Jest of God severally, they have created an ambiance for the reader to settle into, and see, if they have non seen already, the ruin of the medical profession and its intervention of adult females. Clearly the medical profession categorizes the female adversaries in The Bell Jar and in A Jest of God, as being females that have no serious jobs in their lives. In the novel The Bell Jar, Esther & # 8217 ; s experience with her male head-shrinker clearly represents this stereotyping. Dr. Gordon begins his first interview by inquiring the suicidal Esther to measure her job, & # 8221 ; Suppose you try and state me what you think is incorrect. What did I believe was incorrect? That made it sound as if nil was truly incorrect. I merely thought it was incorrect & # 8220 ; . ( Plath 137 ) Dr. Gordon evidently believes Esther & # 8217 ; s job to be merely a affair of her faulty perceptual experience and shows no concern for concrete factors taking to her depression. He does non carry on the interview in a proper medical manner, showing the, & # 8221 ; aggregation of informations, appraisal, diagnosing and program & # 8221 ; ( Schultz 76 ) Alternatively, he spends most of the interview reminiscing about the misss he had met at a WAC station during the war. His attitude towards adult females is blatantly superficial, & # 8220 ; & # 8230 ; My, they were a pretty clump of misss & # 8221 ; ( Plath 138 ) . Obviously his hypocritical attitude towards adult females has non changed. After reminiscing about the WAC station, Dr. Gordon dismisses Esther by stating, & # 8220 ; See you following hebdomad, so & # 8221 ; ( Plath 138 ) . He fails to handle Esther as a patient meriting regard, holding existent concerns, frights and demands. Alternatively he has categorized her as one of the & # 8220 ; pretty girls & # 8221 ; ( Plath 138 ) who could non perchance hold any significant ideas to necessitate curative guidance, and about instantly sends her for electric daze therapy. Shock therapy is for those individuals with, & # 8221 ; major temper upsets with marked physical impairment and hazard of self-destruction, terrible passion and some signifiers of schizophrenic disorder that have non responded to medication. & # 8221 ; ( Rawlins, Williams, Beck, 268 ) Esther has been given no medicine to react excessively, hence Dr. Gordon is taking Esther to degree of intervention that she should non be at. This class of action can farther danger the province of Esther & # 8217 ; s head. Unfortunately Dr.Gordon overlooked this item. In the same manner as Dr. Gordon fails to handle Esther with regard, Dr. Raven in A Jest of God does non react adequately to Rachel & # 8217 ; s concerns, as a consequence of pigeonholing her to the common impression about & # 8221 ; old amahs & # 8221 ; ( Lawrence 219 ) . This is apparent when Rachel tells him that she missed her period. He responds by stating, & # 8221 ; at least we know there & # 8217 ; s no inquiry of one thing, anyhow, with a reasonable miss like yourself. That at least can be ruled out, eh? Can & # 8217 ; Ts say the same for them all, I & # 8217 ; m afraid & # 8221 ; ( Lawrence 218 ) . Dr. Raven, presuming there is no possibility of Rachel being pregnant, immediately puts his patient at hazard for being misdiagnosed and limits the boundaries of the patient-doctor relationship. Therefore, in both novels the chief characters are sentenced to restricting their frights to themselves. In both novels, the medical establishments demonstrate behaviour which suggests they view adult females as being inferior to work forces. In The Bell Jar when Esther goes with Buddy Willard to the infirmary to see the birth of a babe, a 3rd twelvemonth medical pupil says to Esther, & # 8221 ; You oughtn & # 8217 ; t see this, you & # 8217 ; ll ne’er want to hold a babe if you do. They oughtn & # 8217 ; t allow adult females watch. It & # 8217 ; ll be the terminal of the human race & # 8221 ; ( Plath 71 ) This medical pupil is connoting that adult females could non manage sing the birth of a babe even though most adult females are capable of giving birth. In other words, adult females are mentally weaker than work forces and are thought to be incapable of managing such a sight- even though throughout the centuries mid-wives have successfully been presenting babes and the human race still continues to turn and be. Furthermore, the caput presenting Doctor says to Mrs. Tomilillo, & # 8221 ; push down, Mrs. Tomilillo, push down, that & # 8217 ; s a good miss, & # 8230 ; & # 8221 ; ( Plath 72 ) . Mentioning to Mrs. Tomilillo as a good miss signifies the physician & # 8217 ; s sponsoring attitude towards adult females. This same attitude is allotted to Rachel, during her stay in the infirmary while she is holding an operation completed. In A Jest of God, R

achel narrates to the reader her feelings after her operation, ” They said I was a CO-operative patient, to lie so still. How did they cognize? They thought I was worried about holding cancer.” ( Lawrence 223 ) Rachel carried her fright of being pregnant through the full continuance of her stay in the infirmary without any physician recognizing her true concern. Rachel’s deficiency of self-pride, due to her lower status to work forces, leads her to non oppugn Dr. Raven’s diagnosing, or even seek a 2nd sentiment prior to the operation. Alternatively she allows the physicians to execute surgery when she thinks possibly she may be pregnant, therefore non holding the suspected tumour at all. All these ideas and frights that Rachel brings Forth, portray the attitudes that exist within society. Though all Rachel’s ideas are a work of Margaret Lawrence’s head, they still do be world. The taking women’s rightist, Betty Friedan quotes one women’s depression and the doctor’s response to it in her prized book, The Feminine Mystique ; ” ‘A tired feeling…I get so angry with the kids it scares me. I feel like shouting without reason.’ ( A Cleveland physician called it ‘the housewife’s syndrome’ ) .” The physician in this instance is non taking the women’s job earnestly, for he merely brushing it off as, “the housewife’s syndrome” , hence, taking away the possibility that it could be a existent job, that needs a existent cause of action. Therefore, accordingly one time once more, a adult females is placed in danger due to a deficiency of earnestness on a doctor’s portion.

The medical profession & # 8217 ; s failure to listen to female patients in The Bell Jar and in A Jest of God is another factor that demonstrates adult females are non being treated as persons meriting regard. In A Jest of God when Rachel gets the bravery to state Dr. Raven that she thinks that she may be pregnant, he interrupts her address, presuming that he already knows what she is about to state, & # 8221 ; Look, before you examine me, I wanted to say- It & # 8217 ; s all right, Rachel. What is it? Don & # 8217 ; t be nervous, my beloved. This is nil ( Lawrence 219 ) . When he reminds Rachel that she has had an internal scrutiny before she remarks, & # 8221 ; I don & # 8217 ; t mind- it isn & # 8217 ; t that & # 8221 ; ; yet, alternatively of inquiring Rachel what her frights are, Dr. Raven merely reminds her to & # 8220 ; merely loosen up & # 8221 ; , accordingly disregarding the present anxiousness of his patient and therefore waiving possibly what could be valuable information ( Lawrence 219 ) . This neglect for Rachel is seen once more by the medical profession during her post-operative clip in the infirmary. During the forenoon rounds the sawbones remarks to her, & # 8221 ; You are out of danger & # 8220 ; . She responds by stating, & # 8221 ; How could I be-I Don & # 8217 ; t experience dead yet & # 8221 ; and besides observing to herself, & # 8221 ; And he looked at me for the merest flick of an blink of an eye, merely wonder, and so he passed on to another bed. & # 8221 ; ( Lawrence 225 ) The sawbones, as with Dr. Raven, fails one time once more to give credibleness to Rachel because she is a female. Similarly, in The Bell Jar the medical profession is depicted as non listening to Esther during one of her corsets in the infirmary. On one juncture, the medical pupils inquire Esther how she is experiencing this forenoon. Esther responds, & # 8221 ; I feel icky & # 8221 ; & # 8230 ; & # 8221 ; I can & # 8217 ; t sleep & # 8221 ; ( Plath 216 ) She narrates to the reader, & # 8221 ; They interrupted me & # 8230 ; The people in the group had turned from me and were murmuring in low voices to each other. Finally, the grey adult male stepped out and said Thank-you, Miss Greenwood & # 8221 ; ( Plath 217 ) Esther feels that she is non being listened to by the physicians. The importance of being heard is really of import to Esther and this is noted when Dr. Nolan, her new female physician visits her in the infirmary. Doctor Nolan asks Esther if she smokes and Esther answers, & # 8221 ; No & # 8221 ; ( Plath 213 ) . Esther thinks to herself if she smokes possibly Dr. Nolan will remain longer. ( Plath 213 ) The demand for person to remain longer is grounds that Esther still feels the demand to be heard irrespective of the figure of physicians she has already visited. Therefore, the male physicians encountered by Rachel and Esther all exhibit narcissistic attitude of high quality ; while Dr. Nolan, a female exhibits a personality that is antiphonal to the demands of Esther. Unlike the male physicians, Dr. Nolan Judgess Esther & # 8217 ; s job as a existent job, and non as a female job which needs to be practiced much more if adult females are traveling to have the aid they need. The mistake with the medical profession is that it does listen to the concerns of females. With the growing of adult females in the work force today, hopefully this will be altering. Though both novels, The Bell Jar and A Jest of God were written in the 1960 & # 8217 ; s, this does non intend that they do non use to the lives of adult females today. Womans are still being categorized by their gender, their age and their position within society. The cogent evidence lies in the context of the & # 8221 ; fantastic small drug, fluoxetine & # 8221 ; . The drug itself is non black, but instead it is the of usage of the drug by the medical industry. Women now, alternatively of being giving daze intervention, are handed a drug. There is no mediate. Womans are still non being listened excessively ; their concerns are still non being heard. When the twenty-four hours eventually comes when both genders are equal, with their differences aside, so all, both male and female can fall in in the fetes, for so, we will be a human race, united.