_‘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…
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.’_ The Bell Jar by Plath
Sylvia Plath’s ‘The Bell Jar’ follows the life of Esther Greenwood, a young woman who successfully wins a scholarship to work as a writer at a women’s magazine in New York. However, due to a drop in her mental health, she is forced to start again, and with starting again, Esther is left with an overwhelming decision to choose how she now wants to live, instead of just trying to survive. While the ‘The Bell Jar’ resonated with many from the moment it was published in 1963, the book has received an immense amount of attention through social media in the last few years; people all around the world are finding comfort in the way Sylvia Plath beautifully encapsulates the fear of the future through a specific tree in chapter seven. However, how should we interpret the fig tree? Does it loom over us, overcrowded with possibilities, to incite fear. Or should we view the abundance of ‘big fat purple figs’ as an invitation for adventure, excitement, and freedom?
For me, even though I am only sixteen, I cannot help but feel as if I have fallen into a cycle of constantly needing to know who I want to be. My own personal fig tree has grown to a point in which I cannot even see the figs which sit at the top. I am almost certain that if I were to come face to face with the tree, it would scream at me for the unbearable weight I am forcing it to hold. Each day, another possible career, country, and lifestyle lingers at the forefront of my mind and I cannot resist thinking every time ‘maybe this is the future I want!’. However, this has only led me to be overcome with possibilities which I am unable to narrow down. From this perspective, the tree is daunting and each fig glares at me while I remain underneath, similarly to Esther Greenwood, ‘unable to decide’. Furthermore, I am aware that my experience is not singular but rather universal. From childhood, you are instantly met with the question ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’, and to some this sounds simple, a one sentence answer stating just one career you desire. However, I believe that people have failed to see the complexity in this question, ultimately sending us as a society spiralling into a mindset of indecisiveness and a desire for perfection where we are always making the ‘right choice’.
But does making the right choice mean you can only have one fig?
Recently, I have realised that so many of us feel pressured to find the ‘right’ fig because we assume that there is only one, and if we do not pick it fast enough, the same thing that happened to Esther Greenwood’s tree will happen to us, that we will be forced to painfully watch as each fig begins to ‘wrinkle and go black’ and plop to the ground at our feet. But why do we think this? Why do we think that despite everyone being granted their own unique tree, we are obliged to only pick one of the figs that have grown for us? Moreover, by taking this alternative perspective, I have found myself believing more and more that my fig tree, tall and heavy, is meant not for me to stare at in fear but is rather waiting for me to indulge.
Ironically, despite the social media outbreak this metaphor caused, I believe the majority of us glanced over the true, deeper meaning of this tree because we were so paralysed by the weight of it all. A fig tree successfully stands and displays each and every purple fig with pride, but just because each fig appears ripe, it does not mean every individual fig will be filled with the sweetness we originally hoped for. But wouldn’t you rather taste them, figure out which ones are bitter and which are sweet, instead of never tasting them at all because you were too worried that they were not all perfect?
Throughout our life, we are constantly changing and evolving, and dreams that we once had at five no longer resonate with us when we are fifteen; desires we have now may no longer intrigue us once we are twenty, that can be scary but it is also freeing, we have the opportunity to taste so many figs, and with having the courage to taste we have the chance to experience so many different ways of life. The fig tree, bold, intimidating, and ominous will continue to loom over us but not to contain our dreams and increase our fears, but rather as a push for to start picking them all, realising that each fig has been grown for you, that there is a reason it is on your tree. It is not about being right. It is not about analysing every fig and trying to find the one with no imperfections. It is about having the bravery to pick as many as you possibly can.
So, in summary, the ‘perfect’ fig will not fall into your hands, however, you may taste a pretty good one once you have the nerve to start tasting them all.