In bankruptcy seven of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar (1963), protagonist Esther Greenwood imagines her lifestyles branching out sooner than her like a inexperienced fig-tree. Every person fig at the branches represents a special “wonderful future” – a circle of relatives, a a hit profession, romance, commute, repute, and so on.
Prime-achieving Esther has innumerable figs she will be able to choose between, but she envisages herself “starving to death” within the criminal of the tree as a result of she will be able to’t make up her thoughts on which of the figs she will have to make a selection.
Her indecision stems from the data that opting for one glorious long term manner shedding out at the different, similarly interesting alternatives. She needs to enjoy they all, however is aware of she can’t, and, finally, spends see you later deciding that each and every unmarried fig rots and falls to the bottom, useless.
Via short of to do the whole thing, Esther misses her likelihood to do the rest in any respect. This can be a metaphor about wasted possible, fears of opting for the fallacious pathway, and feeling rushed into making selections sooner than you in point of fact know what you need. There’s little marvel that it appeals to youngsters.
The “fig tree analogy”, as it’s recognized on-line, is liked by means of gen Z and has change into a TikTok staple during the last 3 years. It used to be first mentioned at the platform as a part of the 2023 “Roman Empire” meme, with feminine customers mentioning it for instance of one thing they repeatedly take into accounts.
It then reached a brand new top in early 2024 because of the “my fig tree” pattern, during which customers (once more, predominantly younger ladies) wrote long term hopes and goals onto a inventory symbol of a fig department in movies that includes accompanying audio of the passage being learn aloud.
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This pattern used to be, in essence, some way for other folks to proportion their dream jobs – with profession pathways as various as “surgeon” and “influencer” every now and then showing on a unmarried department. Nevertheless it additionally allowed younger customers to precise their anxieties about making plans for the longer term.
In a single video, “I can’t help but wonder if I’m going to be truly happy in [my chosen career] forever” is written beside a fantastically illustrated fig tree. I have in mind feeling this manner myself once I learn The Bell Jar for the primary time in the course of college packages and large lifestyles alternatives.
When you find yourself younger, it could possibly really feel like you have got just one selection and will by no means remake it, which is why Plath’s phrases spoke to me then and appear to be talking to loads now.
However why precisely is that this metaphor resonating so strongly with gen Z?
The ladies who’re collaborating within the “my fig tree” pattern aren’t matter to the similar binary number of marriage or profession that Esther confronted. It’s now imaginable to have a whole lot of fanatics after which a husband and circle of relatives, and neither disqualifies you from additionally being a “brilliant professor” or “amazing editor” or the rest you want to be.
In The Bell Jar, Plath treats this stuff as distinct as a result of they might in point of fact have felt that method in Esther’s time of enforced purity and nuclear households. She used to be, finally, writing pre-second-wave feminism.
So why, in our fourth-wave feminist international, do ladies nonetheless really feel their choices are so slim? It may well be as a result of ladies employees are disproportionately prone to being displaced by means of AI, or as a result of different TikTok sensations just like the “trad wife” are selling to younger ladies the very purity tradition that Plath rallied in opposition to.
Most likely, for this technology, it in point of fact turns out pressing to take hold of cling of 1 fig sooner than all are misplaced.
On the other hand, because the “fig tree analogy” is going increasingly more viral, it’s prone to being got rid of from its unique context. The indicators of this are already visual on TikTok, because the passage has within the final month been used to soundtrack #romanticisinglife content material and advertise fig-themed homeware at a lawn centre.
It used to be additionally referenced in a up to date episode of truth courting display Love Island, the place it used to be incorrectly named the “fig theory” and now not attributed to Plath.
All of this means that the passage has now reached an target market of people that have now not learn The Bell Jar and spot the analogy extra as some generic lifestyles knowledge than a literary instrument. Certainly, TikTok movies by means of self-styled philosophers encouraging watchers to select any or each and every fig off the tree as a substitute of being paralysed by means of indecision like Esther are gaining traction.
Whilst those might end up useful to Zoomers not sure about their long term pathway, I believe that the dialog round this metaphor is an increasing number of overlooking the truth that Esther is not able to make a choice a fig as a result of she is depressed.
The actual that means of the fig tree analogy
The Bell Jar could also be a singular about coming of age as a lady, but it surely’s additionally, at its core, the tale of a lady having a breakdown. Within the pages previous the “fig tree analogy”, Esther calls herself “dreadfully inadequate” and claims that “I was only purely happy until I was nine years old”.
So, within the context of the unconventional, the metaphor may also be learn as a made of depressive pondering. It’s not intended to be a common fact.
As a substitute, it represents the subjective ideas of a narrator who feels herself a failure, regardless of her considerable alternatives, as a result of she is mentally sick. Turning Plath’s prose right into a idea or philosophy or meme minimises its darker sides, specifically as the preferred TikTok audio that accompanies “fig tree analogy” movies incessantly cuts off sooner than the figs fall, because of the app’s choice for brief content material.
Some customers might smartly have participated within the “my fig tree” pattern with out even realising that the citation ends with Esther shedding the whole thing.
Most likely it will have to be regarding such a lot of younger other folks relate to a narrator who turns into so beaten by means of her conflicting ambitions that she makes an attempt to kill herself. I surely marvel how Plath would really feel about her phrases now being handled as emblematic of a collective feminine enjoy. If not anything else, I’m positive she can be upset at how little has modified in 60 years.
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