Joan's role in The Bell Jar

As we discussed briefly in class, Joan has a very interesting role in The Bell Jar.  In many ways she mirrors Esther as a character, she comes from a similar background, dates Buddy Willard, falls into depression, attempts suicide, and is admitted to a mental hospital.  However, there is one huge difference: near the end of the novel Joan attempts to take her own life again, and is successful.  I do not know if Joan is an alternate name for a real person in Silvia Plath's life or an invention for this novel, but Joan's purpose as a character is to fill a role that could not be filled by Esther.

A novel largely about depression and suicide would not be complete without examining the aftermath and tragedy of successful suicide.  Since Esther is the narrator and could not narrate past her own death and since Esther is modeled after Plath who had mostly recovered at the time of writing this novel, it would make no sense for Esther to commit suicide in this book.  Instead, we see Esther attend Joan's funeral.  I think that this funeral scene is crucial to the conclusion of the novel.

        At the altar the coffin loomed in its snow pallor of flowers—the black shadow of something that wasn't there. The faces in the pews around me were waxen with candlelight, and pine boughs, left over from Christmas, sent up a sepulchral incense in the cold air. . . .
        Then, behind the coffin and the flowers and the face of the minister and the faces of the mourners, I saw the rolling lawns of our town cemetery, knee-deep in snow now, with the tombstones rising out of it like smokeless chimneys.
        There would be a black, six-foot-deep gap hacked in the hard ground. That shadow would marry this shadow, and the peculiar, yellowish soil of our locality seal the wound in the whiteness, and yet another snowfall erase the traces of newness in Joan's grave.
        I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart.
        I am, I am, I am.

I think that in in this moment Esther comes to terms with the finality of death.   She sees the coffin containing her friend's body and the graveyard where it will be buried.  Her reaction when she faces the fact of her friend's suicide is to listen to her own heartbeat, the sound of her life.  I think that the line "I am, I am, I am" perfectly captures what Esther is listening for and hearing, the reassurance that she is still alive.