NOT A MADWOMAN - A neuroqueer reading of Syliva Plath’s The Bell Jar

Abstract

Women and those assigned at birth as being women have only recently been recognized as having an autism diagnosis. Not until about 2010 was there a breakthrough, acknowledging that women with normal or high intelligence could have autism. The diagnosis was previously regarded as only encompassing men. Instead, women were classified as having diagnoses like depression, eating disorders, borderline, or bipolarity. Women being denied the correct diagnosis because of gender makes this a question of both feminism and intersectionality, as a minority in both a patriarchal and a neurotypical society. The aim of the study is to search for any traits of autism in Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar. In a neuroqueer close reading the analysis shows signs of autistic traits in the novel’s protagonist Esther as well as traces of an autistic writing style by the author.