Fear is the main reason why we can’t do what we want. It stops us from achieving what we want, good or bad. Fear of getting laughed at, fear of pain, fear of getting hurt, fear of anything and everything. It is the root of discouragement. In the reading “Components of Gender,” Laura Frank’s explains that very well, “the fear is the worst before the fact” (Frank 51). She describes that almost everything we are afraid of, we get over it after we make the attempt and know how it feels. We’re only afraid of something until it happens. And then the “pit in your stomach” (Frank 51) gets smaller and smaller and then gone. Nothing lasts forever and nothing hurts forever, “Now I know that even broken bones don’t hurt forever” (Frank 51). I agree to that because once we feel what scares us, it doesn’t scare us anymore, the fear is just an illusion in our heads. She doesn’t want to play the gender games, meaning she doesn’t want to do what society expects of her but rather do the things that she’s fears. People are afraid to be laughed at and to get hurt, that’s why they act in the gender role. They do what society expects them to do instead of what they actually want to do. For example; a gay person wouldn’t want to be laughed at, that’s why they would not be open about it rather hide it and act normal within the society. Not now days but if we look back a couple of years, there was no freedom for them to be open about it.

Esther goes back and forth in playing the gender role. After she got back from New York, she became suicidal. She tried several different ways to kill herself, cutting herself with a blade in a bath tub, drowning, hanging herself, and finally taking pills, “then, one after the other, I lugged the heavy, dust covered logs across the hole mouth” (Plath 169). She took the pills and ended up in the hospital and then asylum. It’s affected her mother, she was upset and almost cried. A woman is not suppose to give up even if she feels depressed and confused, but Esther did and that shows how she didn’t fit into her gender role. Her trying to commit the suicide made her seem crazy. It affected herself negatively and everyone around her.

In the “Components of Gender,” Laura Franks speaks on her view of what exactly makes you who you are. She obviously does not agree with the way society defines gender roles or how those roles form a person. She speaks of 5 components of gender which are gender assignment, gender roles, gender identity, gender expression, and gender attribution. Each having their own definitions of what specifically describes a persons gender. Laura Franks is someone who has “refused to play gender games,” in other words she doesn’t follow up with the rules society has set up for what makes a male a male and a female a female. Like a game there are rules you must follow and if you don’t follow them you lose, she basically feels like society is playing the same game with gender. If your a male you have to be masculine and be the head of the household, and if your a female you have to be feminine and love being a housewife. Some people fear if they break societies expectations they would be looked at as the opposite of their gender or seem different from everyone else, like they don’t belong. Laura feels its time to break these rules and when you do your still who you are no matter society says.

With Esther in The Bell Jar she doesn’t but does seems to experience fear or discomfort  when she isn’t following the role that is expected of her by society. In the scene in chapter 11 where it says, “I was still wearing Betsy’s white blouse and dirndl skirt, I hadn’t wash them in my three weeks at home. I hadn’t wash my hair for three weeks either” (Plath 67) Esther isn’t performing proper femininity. Esther thought it would be silly to wash her clothes and her hair when she would have to just do it again the next day. Her mother thought she should have done so because as society would believe its dirty for a female to not wash her clothes, being that its one of the jobs they believe females should have which is cleaning and washing. I would say wearing Betsy clothes instead of her own was her choosing to perform gender roles properly because she maybe feared her own clothes wasn’t as fancy, or less feminine than what others would expect a female to wear to a special occasion.

As I was reading “Components of Gender” I admired her braveness in fighting against her fears. I thought that she what she meant by refusing to play gender games was refusing to act the way society expects her to act according to her gender. This has to do a lot with fear because it meant not fitting in and being judged by everybody around her. As she explained in her passage “I didn’t know how I would survive humiliation”(Franks,51), “I didn’t know how to face my friends again”(Franks51), I interpreted these quotes as if she was trying to say that she fears that she would be rejected and pushed away by everybody and just not being accepted. There are times that Esther has feared not being able to perform the expectations by society, but I don’t recall reading a part where she would act like what society expects her to. One example would be when she wants to hang out more with Betsy because she was very feminine and therefore she was respected. She ended up hanging out with Doreen, someone who doesn’t show pureness and respect to herself the way other “normal” women do.
A scene in which Esther doesn’t properly perform gender role is when she doesn’t keep correct hygiene. She says “ It seemed silly to wash one day when I would only have to wash again the next.”(Plath,128). In those times, and even now, a women is expected to keep herself clean and neat even if it means doing it every single day. Esther didn’t care what every body else thought, she didn’t even care about her odor. I feel like she doesn’t really care what society think of her because she feels that she won’t be able to succeed as a female in the future.

According to Laura Franks’ gender role is the qualities, mannerism, duties and cultural expectations to a specific gender. I believe she means what society’s expectations of what a woman or man should be. Those expectations vary from generations to generations and culture to culture. In the 1960’s when The Bell Jar is written, a woman’s duties are clearly defined. A woman has been expected to be married and has children; she also is expected to be a housewife, awhile the man is supposed to be the provider. Laura refuses to play gender games means that she refuses to do what society expect her as a woman  to do like getting married, have children and become a housewife  which in part is society’s definition of what a woman should be. She decides to be her own person and she mentions that the first time it was frightening because going against everything society tells you to be and how you are raised create fear, fear of the unknown. Naturally, when someone does something the first time, that person is afraid, but over time it becomes natural to the person. Laura learns to defy society’s expectations without fear. Laura could have been cast out because she did not conform to what is expected of her and she surely is aware of what is expected because she talked about the 5 components of gender. In The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Esther defies society’s expectations and definition of what makes a woman over and over. On chapter 11 on page 133, Esther is talking to a sailor alone, back then a proper woman would not be going out without chaperone and all throughout the books, there are many examples that she goes out all the time on her own.  She also lies to the sailor about who she was. I cannot imagine that a proper woman would be telling lies about her life. I do not get the feeling that Esther even gets afraid of doing the opposite of what is expected of a woman in the book. She constantly breaks society’s roles of a woman. Esther does not what society is expecting a woman to be. Matter of fact, she thinks it would be “11 years of straight A’s” wasted to become a housewife.

When Laura Franks says that she refuses to play gender games she means that there’s a difference in being female and male and what the expectations are for being one. This has to do with fear because she states in her article Components of Gender, “It’s safe having an identity- it’s secure. It’s safe having a gender. But there’s a price for that safety and security within some hard shell ” (Franks, 55). When one identifies themselves a gender and their identity they’re trapped within the standards of that gender identity and gender role. Laura Franks is try to make a point that we shouldn’t just live up to those standards but be willing to find new ways of experiencing the world and living out of the regular norms of being a specific gender. In the book The Bell Jar in Chapter 11, Esther goes against the gender role of being a female when she says that she hasn’t washed the clothes she came home from New York in three weeks and she also didn’t wash her hair either for those three weeks (Plath, 127). Her explanation for her behavior was that it was silly to her to wash one day when she would only have to wash again the next (Plath, 128). Readers would react to this by being grossed out since she isn’t really caring about her hygiene. Females are expected to be on top of their hygiene so for Esther to go against that norm of being a female, its very surprising.

Hello all my name is Mario hall. As far as preferred pronouns they would be he and they. I’m current.y living in east Flatbush and I have lived around this area for most of my life. Though I was born here most of my family is Jamaican. My major is computer engineering technology. I see myself as some one who is really big on technology and I enjoy learning new technological things. After I get my diploma I would like to get some different certifications and use them to become an it guy or a computer technician. One interesting thing about me is I once had a one on one game with deron Williams at tillary park.

The female character I’m going to go with from The Bell Jar is Doreen. Doreen is societies idea of the perfect woman, shes blonde, blue eyed, perfect slim body, and just plain girly but as an adult. I see Doreen as one of those girls you would have wanted to be in high school, the popular girl. She’s not the boring type who just wants to sit around and do nothing, she wants to be out there, enjoying life. Her looks are her top priority, she has to look good in everything she puts on, you have to be able to notice her. I believe her primary job is to make sure she looks good, making sure to keep up with all the rules there are for being a woman. Such as not eating too much, wearing lots of make-up, wearing tight dresses and etc. Doreen is definitely someone who values her reputation and is mostly interested in looking good, and enjoying life with whatever man that’s looking to do the same.

Esther is very envious of Doreen as she says in the text, “I guess one of my troubles was Doreen.” (Plath 4) Esther sees Doreen and wishes that could be her, the beautiful one, the one that gets all the handsome guys like Lenny, just the perfect woman that she is. At the same time Esther is very annoyed with Doreen, being around Doreen makes it hard for her to be herself. When they are at the bar with Lenny and his so called friend Frankie, and shes orders a vodka straight up while Doreen order a “old-fashioned”, the waiter gives her a very odd look because it isn’t a girly drink like Doreen’s. I feel as if she has to pretend to be someone else when shes with Doreen just to fit in. If Doreen was a true friend to Esther she wouldn’t make it so hard for her and then basically throw it in her face, and that’s why they eventually being to drift apart.

In my opinion I don’t feel that Doreen represents a positive role model for women.She makes it seem like woman must be perfect and must have all the feminine qualities society sets out for them. A woman shouldn’t have to work hard to be beautiful and limit the things they want to do,or be someone other than who they are to fit in with society. Esther doesn’t dress to impress like Doreen she wears what makes her comfortable, what she feels she looks beautiful in. Like when they were going out Esther wore a dress that wasn’t even as expensive as I’m pretty sure Doreen’s own was as she wore a “white lace dress” (Plath 6) that hugged her body and showed off her curves.”This dress was cut so queerly I couldn’t wear any sort of a bra under it, but that didn’t matter much as I was skinny as boy, and I liked feeling almost naked on the hot summer nights.” (Plath 6).Most females like Doreen wouldn’t dare not wear a bra because then her boobs wont pop out the way she would want. Doreen just does too much.