Esther's Growth

I think that Esther's definitely grown since the beginning of the book, considering she used to always have her favorite bathtime purification ritual, that allowed her to detox from the evils of the world, and then being able to completely forget about them. It's never healthy at all to just pretend like things never happened, because then you can never learn from them. It's because of this that I see some real growth in Esther towards the end of the book when she kind of totally rejects her mom's thinking about her finally being allowed a chance at leaving the asylum. Her mom tells her that they can finally just put it behind them and never think about it again. But Esther needs those experiences for later on in her life, when the Bell Jar looms over her head again, should that happen. She needs to know that she's felt that way before, and how she felt, and what she did to finally raise it back up again. Because if she forgets about it, or just tries shut it out completely, that will make things so much harder if she starts getting those thoughts again. It'll be the same experience except like starting all over again, instead of having an upper hand, because she won't be thinking about the last time. That's why I'm so glad that she acknowledges those memories as a part of her, because even though she's worried about the Bell Jar enclosing around her again, she has those past memories to rely on.