the fig tree
I revisit The Bell Jar’s fig tree passage and how it’s taken root in my life. On Sylvia Plath, ripe fruit, and the fear of an unlived life.
There was a fig tree on my old street, and consequently, memories of my childhood are littered with the fruit. I love the dry taste, the angry color of their red flesh, and the distinct, sweet smell that wafts out once they’re left for too long. As much as I’d like to keep these recollections pristine and preserved, they’re muddied by my inability to decouple my relationship with figs to my relationship with Sylvia Plath. I first read The Bell Jar the summer before my junior year of high school, and felt it deeply—as 15 year old girls do. The popular fig tree quote resonated, which embarrasses me slightly, since of course the greatest transgression one can make in this day and age is agreeing with popular sentiment and not discovering brilliance all on your own1sometimes popular things are popular for a reason, and perhaps I shouldn’t feel as bad as I do for swimming amongst the masses. what does this say about me?.
Sylvia writes of her life in the shape of a fig tree, branching out before her, each fig containing a different future. I understood her here. She writes of seeing herself too, sitting in the crotch of this tree, starving to death, unable to make up her mind which of the figs to choose. I understood her here as well. She writes of wanting each and every one, but being frozen in fear, as choosing one meant losing all the rest. I understood her here, again. And, she writes of the figs wrinkling and blackening, falling at her feet, each future dying as she sits, paralyzed by choice. I understood her here especially. I have my own tree, my own figs, and I am just as still.
I know I’ll never be all the people I want to be, but more than that, I’m afraid I won’t experience all I want to in life. I can’t think of my future without feeling a chill settle over me anymore. The idea that my life will end without having been lived is terrifying, and it grips me in the in-between moments, the ordinary decisions, the pause before sleep. Sometimes I fight it. Other times, much like the anger of and sickly sweetness of overripe figs, it overwhelms me. It feels as though my life is starting to sour.
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
— Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (1963)
- sometimes popular things are popular for a reason, and perhaps I shouldn’t feel as bad as I do for swimming amongst the masses. what does this say about me? ↩