Joan, Mrs. Tomolillo, and Philomena Guinea

I was flipping through The Bell Jar, skimming scenes and trying to get my brain to cooperate and come up with an idea for a blog post, when I came across the scene where Esther watched a woman give birth. The woman's name is mentioned maybe two or three times in the entire scene - Mrs. Tomolillo. But that kind of sounds familiar, doesn't it? I did a bit more flipping, and realized that Mrs. Tomolillo is also the name of the woman who had shared a room with Esther in the asylum, and who Esther thought had been imitating her mother. She had apparently been sent to the asylum due to her mother-in-law, saying "My tongue stuck out of my head, I couldn't stop it" (176).

This isn't the only time a seemingly throwaway character from earlier in the book later shows up after Esther's suicide attempt, either in an asylum with her or being revealed to have spent time in an asylum before. There's the obvious one, Joan, who is mentioned for all of a half a page earlier in the book as a kind of "rival" for Buddy's affections, and who later has a rather large presence in Esther's life while she's in her last mental hospital. Joan had  There's also the famous novelist Philomena Guinea, who is mentioned for about a page as having given Esther a scholarship after Esther had reached out to her. Later, Philomena Guinea is the one to get Esther out of the first mental hospital and pay for her stay in the one with Dr. Nolan. She's mentioned as having "interested herself in [Esther's] case and that at one time, at the peak of her career, she had been in an asylum as well" (184-185). 

All of these women had, at some point, ended up in a mental asylum, with what seems like a range of severity and "causes". We don't know much about Philomena Guinea's case, but I'd assume it might be something more similar in severity to Esther and Joan's cases than Mrs. Tomolillo. Either way, it kind of goes to show just how present and wide reaching these mental health issues can be, and how it can happen to anyone, like how Esther says the bell jar hangs over everyone, just waiting to descend. 

What's more, Joan, Mrs. Tomolillo, and Philomena Guinea all can be seen as representing possible versions of Esther, or possible versions that society is trying to make of her into. Joan is who Esther was right before the bell jar - a hard-working, ambitious college student. Mrs. Tomolillo is the mother, the traditional view of femininity and a woman's role, and who Esther kind of puts herself in the shoes of for a bit, contemplating what she'd be like if she were the one giving birth.  Philomena Guinea is the successful career woman, famous for her writing (albeit with novels, rather than poetry). All three are show routes of life that Esther has already travelled or might someday travel, and all three of them had ended up "under the bell jar" at some point (although it feels kind of awkward and presumptuous to apply this word to Mrs. Tomolillo, since her mental issues seem vastly different from Esther's, but the idea of these issues being able to descend or strike at any moment is kind of what I'm getting at).

I'm not 100% certain where I'm going with this post, it was just something I found very strange and interesting. I don't think Plath just randomly decided to include these characters when she did and how she did, especially in the case of Mrs. Tomolillo, and it's something I want to think on more. Of course, this could just be a massive reach and not really mean anything, but it was kind of nagging at me so I decided to write about it :)