The Bell Jar Transformation Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #10

But I wasn't getting married. There ought, I thought, to be a ritual for being born twice – patched, retreaded, and approved for the road, I was trying to think of an appropriate one when Doctor Nolan appeared from nowhere and touched me on the shoulder. (20.96)

Here, Esther continues to reject marriage as the defining event in a young woman's road to maturity. She picks her own rite – the rite of being reborn, significantly not through suicide, as she attempted in the depths of her depression, but through the therapy she underwent at the institution.