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Dr. Gordon is Esther’s first psychiatrist. Esther recalls that she “hated him the minute [she] walked in through the door” because he seemed conceited and unsympathetic. She did not trust his immaculate office, his “artificial” good looks, or his picture-perfect family whose portrait was displayed on his desk. Esther’s hatred for Dr. Gordon is heightened when he forces her to undergo painful and traumatic electroshock therapy treatments. The Bell Jar takes a critical view of the medical profession, and psychiatric medicine in particular. For example, Esther wonders what “terrible thing” she had done to deserve her current fate after experiencing electroshock therapy under Dr. Gordon’s “care.” Dr. Gordon is the face of the inhumane psychiatric medical field in The Bell Jar. He acts as a sort of synecdoche, a literary technique in which a smaller part of something is made to represent the whole. As such, Dr. Gordon serves as a representative of all the 1950s doctors who turned to perilous and painful “treatments” in order to “cure” suffering people.
His barbaric “treatments” aside, Dr. Gordon is also characterized as a bad doctor because he does not appear to listen to or respect his patients. For example, he does not seem to hear Esther when she claims that she can no longer read, sleep, or write. The most incriminating instance of this occurs when, after her shock treatment, he asks her for the second time where she goes to college and repeats his inane comment about the pretty girls stationed there during the war. The repetition of his initial question and subsequent anecdote suggest he has not been paying attention to Esther during their sessions.
Dr. Gordon is a cruel, irresponsible doctor who does not attempt to understand Esther’s suffering and his actions increase rather than diminish her pain. As a result, Dr. Gordon might be interpreted as Dr. Nolan’s foil. A foil is a literary technique in which two characters are contrasted in order to highlight their key characteristics. In the case of Dr. Gordon and Dr. Nolan, Dr. Gordon’s dismissive, violent, and ineffective handling of Esther highlights Dr. Nolan’s merits. Dr. Nolan, unlike Dr. Gordon, genuinely listens to Esther and gains her trust. For example, she bans Esther from receiving visitors when she realizes how much the visits upset her and is sympathetic and understanding when Esther says that she hates her mother. Plath juxtaposes Esther’s two doctors to suggest medical professionals have the capacity to inflict both harm and aid.
