Doctor Nolan

Doctor Nolan is the psychiatrist assigned to Esther Greenwood after Esther enters the hospital, and a pivotal figure in her changing relationship with psychiatric treatment. A woman doctor whom Esther did not expect to encounter, she becomes a source of personal trust as well as medical authority. Her importance is tested by the contrast between Esther’s traumatic first electroshock under Doctor Gordon and the later treatment Doctor Nolan arranges: this time, Esther is accompanied, prepared, and given a clear account of what will happen.

Identity and Introduction

When Esther enrolls in the hospital’s main building, Doctor Nolan introduces herself as the doctor assigned to her. Esther is surprised to have a woman psychiatrist. She sees Doctor Nolan’s appearance as combining Myrna Loy with her mother: a white blouse, a full skirt gathered with a broad leather belt, and stylish crescent-shaped spectacles. The comparison gives the physician an immediately recognizable presence, but Esther’s first impression does not yet guarantee the closeness that will develop between them.

Esther is taken to Caplan, the gloomy brick building where she will live, and a stream of unfamiliar men come to see her before Doctor Nolan does. When Doctor Nolan finally visits, she sits in an armchair beside Esther’s bed and asks whether she may smoke. Esther likes the smell and hopes that this small, ordinary exchange will keep the doctor there longer. She expects that, once Doctor Nolan leaves, she will fall back into her old blankness. Their first conversation therefore begins with a fragile prospect: Esther wants the doctor’s presence, but has not yet learned whether she can trust what the doctor does with what she says.

Recognizing the Earlier Trauma

Doctor Nolan asks Esther about Doctor Gordon, and Esther answers that she did not like what he did to her. Asked to explain, she describes the machine, its blue flashes, the jolting, and the noise. Doctor Nolan goes very still as she listens, then tells Esther that the treatment was a mistake and was not supposed to be like that. Her reaction gives Esther’s experience a clinical acknowledgment rather than dismissing it as an unavoidable part of care.

The earlier procedure, as Esther remembers it, makes the distinction consequential. At Doctor Gordon’s house, she follows him upstairs without being able to ask what the shock treatment will be like. In a bare room, the nurse removes Esther’s watch and hairpins while Doctor Gordon fits metal plates on either side of her head, straps them into place, and gives her a wire to bite. After a short silence, the machine seems to seize and shake her amid shrill noise and blue flashes; she fears that her bones will break. She comes to sitting in a wicker chair with tomato juice, her watch replaced upside down and her hairpins positioned strangely. Doctor Nolan’s recognition does not erase that memory, but establishes that Esther’s fear has grounds in a treatment that was not carried out as it should have been.

Trust, Fear, and Repair

Later, Esther believes Doctor Nolan has broken a promise. She has trusted her and understood that she would be warned ahead of time if she ever needed another shock treatment. When a nurse begins to tell Esther that her tray will arrive later that morning, Esther leaves the corridor rather than wait in her room, where she thinks the staff will come to get her. She hides beneath a blanket in an alcove, away from Joan, Loubelle, DeeDee, and Mrs. Savage. The prospect of treatment frightens her, but she identifies the deeper injury as the apparent treachery of someone to whom she had entrusted everything.

Doctor Nolan comes to her, puts an arm around her, and holds her like a mother. Esther protests that the doctor said she would tell her; Doctor Nolan answers that she has come specially early to do so and will take Esther over herself. She promises to remain throughout the procedure, be there when Esther wakes, and bring her back. Esther insists that Doctor Nolan promise she will stay; Doctor Nolan does. This exchange makes trust concrete rather than merely affectionate: Esther’s willingness to go depends on specific assurances about warning, accompaniment, and what will happen afterward.

Doctor Nolan wipes Esther’s face with a white handkerchief and helps her up, linking her arm through Esther’s like an old friend. Esther lets the blanket fall as they set off. They pass Joan, who comes out of her room and then ducks back to wait until they have gone by. At the end of the hall, Doctor Nolan unlocks a door and leads Esther down into the hospital’s basement passages, a network of corridors connecting its buildings. Esther clings to her arm while Doctor Nolan gives her occasional reassuring squeezes. When they reach the green door marked “Electrotherapy,” Esther hesitates, then says, “Let's get it over with,” and enters.

Treatment and Medical Authority

Inside, Miss Huey helps Esther lie on her back. Esther asks her to talk. Miss Huey speaks in a low, soothing voice while smoothing salve onto Esther’s temples and fitting small electric buttons on either side of her head. She tells Esther she will be all right and will feel nothing, instructs her to bite down, and places something on her tongue; panic makes Esther bite, and she loses consciousness. The scene’s brief, practical details distinguish this procedure from Esther’s earlier experience: she is not left to face the equipment without explanation or reassurance, and Doctor Nolan has promised to accompany her and be there when she wakes.

Walking back to Belsize through the crunch of brown leaves, Doctor Nolan asks whether the treatment was as she had said it would be. Esther answers yes. Doctor Nolan then explains the routine that lies ahead: shock treatments three times a week, on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Esther draws a long breath and asks how long the course will last. The schedule makes clear that the successful treatment is not a single resolution but the beginning of repeated care; explanation offers a measure of certainty without removing the uncertainty Esther still voices.

Character and Narrative Role

Doctor Nolan occupies both institutional and intimate positions. She is the physician who asks Esther about her previous treatment, identifies what went wrong, and sets out a continuing regimen. At the same time, the narrative measures her authority through small acts of attention: sitting beside the bed, listening without interrupting, coming early to explain, wiping Esther’s face, linking arms with her, and keeping close through the hospital’s underground passages. These gestures do not make her authority disappear; they show how, for Esther, its effects depend on whether it is exercised with candor and care.

The contrast with Doctor Gordon defines the stakes of Doctor Nolan’s role. Esther’s first electroshock is narrated as bodily shock and bewilderment, followed by altered watch and hairpins; the later procedure is preceded by an explanation, a requested promise, a companion’s presence, and a predictable schedule. Doctor Nolan cannot make treatment free of fear, and Esther still hesitates at the electrotherapy door and panics as the procedure begins. What changes is the relation in which she undergoes it. By acknowledging the earlier harm and honoring the assurances Esther needs, Doctor Nolan becomes a crucial figure in the possibility that medical care might be endured without reproducing the same breach of trust.