I started adding up all the things I couldn't do [...] I felt dreadfully inadequate [...] The one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and prizes, and that era was coming to an end.

From the beginning of the book, perhaps the greatest threat facing our Esther Greenwood is her impending future. Esther was an intelligent student with a passion for writing and the literary arts like many students today going into college. Looking into the future, Esther does not see any clear path for herself. She does well school and in winning scholarships, but has not acquired the necessary skills to succeed in the career path she desires like being fluent in multiple languages. Today many college students face similar dilemmas after graduating, realizing that their major does not have all that many job opportunities.

There are two sides to the argument about whether a liberal arts type major is really worth it. Studies have shown that many of the majors that produce the highest unemployment rates are related to the liberal arts like anthropology, film and music. These majors also have some of the lowest starting and median salaries. Many would argue even if those are the subjects you are really passionate about, you should still try to major in something more technical or with a higher salary. Because of this pressure though many students have been avoiding these majors. Now less and less students are majoring in these topics. The world today is much more centered on technology than it used to be, and many jobs require several years of special training and mathematical knowledge. It would only make logical sense for more students to go for the engineering degree.

This process has been happening ever since the Victorian period and the start of the industrial world, and many are against it. Hallman Bryant wrote in his article that there is a difference between knowledge and training. Universities are about learning about the world and pursuing topics you have great interest in. College should not just be something you have to go through to get a job, but somewhere you want to be. Many others also agree with him that society needs liberal arts students. The ideas and philosophies of these students have helped shape the culture of the western world for years, and it would be a great lose to loose them. There are many ways to put a "useless" degree to work, especially if you have some technical skills to go with it. Although there are pros and cons with going for a liberal arts degree, most people would agree that if you pursue something you don't love just for money, you will regret it later.

                    

With each flash a great jolt drubbed me till I thought my bones would break and the sap fly out of me like a split plant.
I wondered what terrible thing it was that I had done. 

In  Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, one of the main themes discussed is the mistreatment of the mentally ill throughout the mid twentieth century. Esther must involuntarily go under Electroconvulsive Therapy for treatment for her serious depression for an extended period of time. Rather than improving her condition, this "treatment" drives her to contemplate suicide. A treatment that was supposed to help her, Esther viewed as a punishment.

The use of electric shock and also Insulin shock therapies started in the 1930's by Ugo Cerletti and Lucio Bini who eventually received Nobel Prizes for their discovery. The use of chemicals like Insulin were eventually replaced by electric current, and today Electroconvulsive Therapy is still used. Because of the lack of antidepressant drugs at the time it was used much more widely than it is today . In the earlier years of its existence, no anesthesia or muscle relaxers were used, plus the amount of current was much higher than used today. The use of electricity to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders like Schizophrenia has been one of the most controversial psychiatric treatments over the past decades and is still debated today though now it can only be administered  with the consent of the patient.

Electroconvulsive Therapy or ECT for short involves a brief amount of electric current being administered to the brain to start a temporary seizure. After the prescribed number of doses the patient is considered to be healed, but often with many adverse side effects. Most commonly known of  these effects is memory loss and confusion. Even advocates of the treatment do acknowledge that there is some permanent memory loss from during the time period from a few days to a few weeks before the treatment. Although among many there has been successful healing with this technique, there are also a considerable number of patients who have found this processes terrifying and distressing. And while the practice of ECT continues to grow safer and more efficient, my overwhelmingly negative impression of it for reading The Bell Jar still has a strong influence over me. The mixed reactions I have read about this treatment continue to bewilder me, so in a future installment I will go into more depth to see if I can finally make up my mind over the issue.