Driven Into Depression
The central issue of every story is conflict. Conflict is what makes literature interesting. There are six types of conflict throughout literature. Some conflicts are external and some are internal. The foundation for external conflict is “Man versus Man”. This type of conflict involves one character against another character, and can be caused for many different reasons including religious, moral, and social differences. Sylvia Plath uses “Man versus Man” conflict many times throughout her novel, The Bell Jar, as the main character falls into depression as a result of the characters around her. Esther Greenwood from the novel, The Bell Jar, becomes depressed and develops a mental illness because of her mother’s incompetence to acknowledge what is wrong with her daughter, her ex boyfriend's hypocritical ways of life, and her Doctor’s carelessness when it came to treatments.
Esther’s mother’s incompetence to acknowledge what was wrong with her daughter played a major role in Esther developing depression. Esther had just received her first shock treatment at Doctor Gordon’s private hospital. It was an awful experience for Esther. The machine had been loud and there were blue flashes that jolted her. Doctor Gordon told Esther’s mother that after a few more treatments that Esther should be much better, however Esther never wanted to undergo these treatments again.
“I’m through with that Doctor Gordon,”I said, after we had left Dodo and her black station wagon behind the pines. “You can call him up and tell him I’m not coming next week.”
My mother smiled. “I knew my baby wasn’t like that.”
I looked at her. “Like what?”
“Like those awful people. Those awful dead people at that hospital.” she paused. “I knew you...
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...he remembered what he had done to her, and she was too scared. She did not want to have to endure the pain of anymore shock treatments, and she lost respect for doctors. Instead of trusting her doctors, Esther feared them.
Sylvia Plath uses the external conflict “Man versus Man” throughout her novel to represent the events the main character endures as she falls into depression as a result of the ways that the rest of the characters treated her. Esther became depressed because her mother was in denial about what was happening, her ex-boyfriend was a hypocritical liar, and her Doctor was inadequately trained to work the medical machinery. Conflict is what makes the reader become engaged and engrossed in a book, and this is exactly what Sylvia Plath did.
Works Cited
Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. New York: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006. Print.
...ave begged for her son and grandchildren life instead of trying save her life. The type of literary element shown here is conflict. The type of conflict that is shown is man versus man because the grandmother is constantly trying to convince someone in doing something else. It also shows conflict because the grandmother was begging for her life, but at the end that did not work because she ended up getting killed either way.
When Esther is finally through with Dr. Gordon’s shock treatments, she expresses her frustration with her mother, who brushes it aside and tells Esther that she wasn’t like “Those awful dead people at that hospital (145-146). Her mother doesn’t understand the scene Esther saw, with the stories of people and their first shock treatments. She does not realize the vitality of Esther’s conditions. When Esther considers converting to Catholicism, believing that her conversion will take away her suicide attempts, her mother laughs it off. Esther also notes that her mother did not care to mourn for her dead husband. Her mother believed that her husband would’ve lived a miserable life and would’ve wanted to die instead. Although Esther was firm in her stance against her mother, she could have acted so hostile against her mother because of what she was going through. Her mother could have wanted to help her, but her way was possibly different than that of
The struggle of man versus man occurs throughout the whole story. The book starts out that Lauren is in her community behind a huge protective wall. The wall is there to protect her and her community from the rest of the world. When people start jumping over the fence to steal things from their community, guards are setup to prevent things from being stolen. This is a struggle between many versus man because the people that jump over the wall will do anything to get what they need, and this means they will kill for it. Outside the wall, people are killing one another and robbing them just to stay alive. It is a fight for survival and the strongest survive. The s...
Sylvia Plath wrote the semi autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, in which the main character, Esther, struggles with depression as she attempts to make herself known as a writer in the 1950’s. She is getting the opportunity to apprentice under a well-known fashion magazine editor, but still cannot find true happiness. She crumbles under her depression due to feeling that she doesn’t fit in, and eventually ends up being put into a mental hospital undergoing electroshock therapy. Still, she describes the depth of her depression as “Wherever I sat - on the deck of a ship or at a street a cafe in Paris or Bangkok - I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air” (Plath 178). The pressure to assimilate to society’s standards from her mother, friends, and romantic interests, almost pushes her over the edge and causes her to attempt suicide multiple times throughout her life. Buddy Willard, Esther’s boyfriend at a time, asks her to marry him repeatedly in which she declines. Her mother tries to get her to marry and makes her go to therapy eventually, which leads to the mental hospital. Esther resents the way of settling down and making a family, as well as going out and partying all night. She just wants to work to become a journalist or publisher. Though, part of her longs for these other lives that she imagines livings, if she were a different person or if different things happened in her life. That’s how Elly Higgenbottom came about. Elly is Esther when Esther doesn’t want to be herself to new people. Esther’s story portrays the role of women in society in the 1950’s through Esther’s family and friends pushing her to conform to the gender roles of the time.
Sylvia Plath’s novel, “The Bell Jar”, tells a story of a young woman’s descent into mental illness. Esther Greenwood, a 19 year old girl, struggles to find meaning within her life as she sees a distorted version of the world. In Plath’s novel, different elements and themes of symbolism are used to explain the mental downfall of the book’s main character and narrator such as cutting her off from others, forcing her to delve further into her own mind, and casting an air of negativity around her. Plath uses images of rotting fig trees and veils of mist to convey the desperation she feels when confronted with issues of her future. Esther Greenwood feels that she is trapped under a bell jar, which distorts her view of the world around her.
I believe the conflict in the story is an internal one. I think it is the conflict between the old woman's will power and Mother Nature. She encounters many obstacles that would influence most people to give up but she has motivation to get her task done. These encounters include a bush catching onto her dress, a scarecrow frightening her and discouragement from a white man. She also had to climb hills, cross streams and crawl under barbed wire fences which is certainly not considered an easy task for an elderly woman.. If I was forced to deal with these obstacles I know that I would most likely have turned around but her will power was too strong to let Mother Nature win.
We see clearly a man against nature conflict as the background. The story starts with Bobinot and his son at a store probably doing groceries, follow by a really bad storm approaching. They both want to go back home, but it is impossible, so the best solution is wait until the storm stops, so they can continue their journey. As foreground is the conflict man against himself, but in this case herself. I am referring to the feminine character that first, is fighting with the fear and uncertainly of not knowing where her husband and son are. On the other hand, this
For starters, man vs self is a very common conflict that appears in my book. Shane, who was diagnosed with a disease at a young age, faces some challenges in his life. At first, he struggled with his disability and struggled to meet new people. However, Shane took action and decided that he could do so much more in life. Shane would overcome his challenges and would allow himself to do greater things. Another book that has a man vs self conflict is Catching Fire, the second book of The Hunger Game series, by Suzanne Collins. The protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, struggles with internal conflicts with her role in the rebellion and her own guilt (enotes).
... scolded me, but kept begging me, with a sorrowful face to tell her what she had done was wrong” (226).The reason Esther is in this situation is because of her mom. Esther depression has reached its climax. The result of an unhappy relationship according to Freud has impacted Esther.
The fact that Esther couldn't really accept her father's death contributed to career problems: she had no idea of what to do with her life, she `thought that if my father hadn't died he would have taught me....`
Esther Greenwood struggles with perfectionism and society lead to a downward spiral and suicide attempt. Her inability to choose a path for her life and her social interactions with those around her makes her feel trapped inside herself. Esther feels that she has been rejected from both social and intellectual worlds, causing her world to totally change. Her lack of identity produces the irony found in The Bell Jar and it is only when she learns to stand outside of the world of the bell jar, does she truly begin to see her innerself. Jay Cee’s comments about her inatequacy and her rejection from writing school have a detramental impact on Esther’s self-esteem that she feels she cannot overcome. She feels she is not good enough or perfect enough to achieve the happiness she desires.
Conflict is described by James H. Pickering as, "The struggle or encounter within the plot of two opposing forces that serves to create reader interest and suspense" (1169). This is found all throughout this story. (1169) Macomber faces both internal and external conflict. The author displays conflict between Macomber and his wife: He was very wealthy, and would be much wealthier, and he knew she would not leave him ever now. That was one of the few things that he really knew… His wife had been a great beauty and she was still a great beauty in Africa, but she was not a great enough beauty any more at home to be able to leave him and better herself and she knew it and he knew it. She had missed the chance to leave him and he knew it. If he had been better with women she would probably have started to worry about him getting another new, beautiful wife; but she knew too much about him to worry about him either.
...he must learn to love and trust others. Dr. Nolan assures Esther that the shock treatments she will give her will be safe and admistered properly. Esther ends things with Buddy and becomes his friend. She even loses her virginity to a man she hardly knows. Esther has thrown away all her cares and does not do what she is expected to do by society but instead does what she is comfortable with. Sadly, Esther’s hospital friend, Joan, commits suicide and leaves Esther shattered and scarred. However, Esther continues to get better when she learns to start trusting Dr. Nolan and Buddy. She ultimately begins to trust her self as well. After learning to disregard the expectation of everyone else and to set her own goals, Esther heals exponentially. In the end, Esther enters a conference room where she will be told if she may return home now that she has come of her bell jar.
Through the diction in which she utilized in order to shed light upon the complications of trying to transform and grow in a restrictive society, she used pervasive imagery, allusions, metaphors, symbolism, and other literary devices to further her theme and idea of the novel. Plath created Esther in her image to show how one was forced by society to define themselves by the culturally entrenched stereotypes and expectations of women. In doing so, it detailed the hazardous effects of culturally committing to the conventional model of women. But, it also outlined the transformation of Esther Greenwood from a society-abiding woman to someone who dared to question the conventional model of women. Through the precise detailing of her struggles and complications, Plath was able to utilize several effective literary to enhance the theme of women who undergo the struggle of growth and transition within a restrictive