Living in a Bell Jar: The Confinement of the Female Voice in Plath’s “The Bell Jar” written by Ashley Kress tells of the reflection of gender roles in The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Kress talks about how feminist criticism talks about how it challenges the patriarchy in culture and literature. She talks about how The Bell Jar was a window to for Plath to show women that they can break away from the 1950’s type patriarchy just like Esther Greenwood. Two of Kress’ main topics is that how The Bell Jar is written to help women fight the patriarchy and to say that patriarchy wasn’t responsible for Esther’s downfall, but it was Esther’s illness. Kress states that “Plath uses Esther’s illness as the reason for her instability: not men, society, or …show more content…
All The Bell Jar was trying to say was that society is wrong and needs to change it’s ways. We know that The Bell Jar was basically an autobiography to Plath’s life, so Esther Greenwood was very similar to Plath. Esther just like Plath dreamt about being a writer, when most women at that time were told they can only be secretaries. This is one of the first times we see them go against what society says. Esther the opposite to the normal girl in the 50’s, she didn’t want to get married and have kids, she wanted to have more choices in life. Kress says that Esther felt no control in her life and that was because she was confined to her choices by society. Esther aimed to live her life they way she wanted it, whether it went against the norm or not, but she was held back by her illness. It is hoped that the book lead girls to think more highly of themselves, and to not think of themselves like Esther did. “What I always thought I had in mind was getting some big scholarship to graduate school or a grant to study all over Europe, and then I thought I'd be a professor and write books of poems or write books of poems and be an editor of some sort.” (Plath 26-27) Esther had always wanted to teach and write, but the way society’s norms controlled and overtook her mental stability, Esther didn’t know what she wanted
...es these primitive standards, she becomes melancholy because she does not attune into the gender roles of women, which particularly focus on marriage, maternity, and domesticity. Like other nineteen year old women, Esther has many goals and ambitions in her life. Nevertheless, Esther is disparaged by society’s blunt roles created for women. Although she experiences a tremendous psychological journey, she is able to liberate herself from society’s suffocating constraints. Esther is an excellent inspiration for women who are also currently battling with society’s degrading stereotypes. She is a persistent woman who perseveres to accomplish more than being a stay at home mother. Thus, Esther is a voice for women who are trying to abolish the airless conformism that is prevalent in 1950’s society.
...g either one.” (Plath 120). Society has come a long way from there, though a margin still contain these views, more and more people are forming feminist ideals. The only if is that if Esther were here today our world would suit her much more comfortably.
In the novel, Esther Greenwood, the main character, is a young woman, from a small town, who wins a writing competition, and is sent to New York for a month to work for a magazine. Esther struggles throughout the story to discover who she truly is. She is very pessimistic about life and has many insecurities about how people perceive her. Esther is never genuinely happy about anything that goes on through the course of the novel. When she first arrives at her hotel in New York, the first thing she thinks people will assume about her is, “Look what can happen in this country, they’d say. A girl lives in some out-of-the-way town for nineteen years, so poor she can’t afford a
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.
Like most young adults, Esther, a nineteen-year old college student, also struggles with choosing her career after college due to the suppressed social conditions for women and her lack of confidence about herself. In the chapter seven, she adds up things she is not good at. Plath employs symbolism to demonstrate what Esther is not confident about. She cannot cook unlike her grandmother and mother. As cooking represents domestic work and women were supposed to do housework especially at this time, she expresses her uncertainty about being a good wife and mother. Also, she does not know shorthand, which signifies a practical job. Esther mentions that her mother has kept telling her that she needs to learn shorthand to get a job despite having a bachelor’s degree in English as women had difficulty in succeeding as professionals in their careers during the time. As a widow raising two children, her mother has to deal with family finances. Therefore, her mother emphasizes a practical standpoint in terms of ca...
Literature is the superlative resource when one is attempting to comprehend or fathom how society has transformed over the centuries. Many written works—whether fictional or nonfictional—express the views of gender roles and societies’ expectations. Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar is an exemplary novel that explores these issues. Ester Greenwood was portrayed the superficial and oppressive values of the mid-twentieth century American society through her experiences of gender inequalities and social conformities. Plath’s own life was correspondingly mirrored in this novel; which in turn left the reader aware of the issues in her time period.
On the eve of her freedom from the asylum, Esther laments, “I had hoped, at my departure, I would feel sure and knowledgeable about everything that lay ahead- after all, I had been ‘analyzed.’ Instead, all I could see were question marks” (243). The novel is left open-ended, with a slightly optimistic tone but no details to help the reader fully understand the final step of her healing process. Esther desired to be free of social conventions and double standards, but consistently imposed them upon herself and on the people around her. Her evolution in understanding never reaches a satisfying conclusion, and the reader is also left with nothing but question marks.
Although Plath’s narcism is portrayed through Esther’s behavior, it is seen to increase as the pressures of society force Esther to make a decision on how to pursue her life causing more focus on her own opinions than others.
The events in New York introduce us to the beginning of Esther’s psychological transformation. The story first inaugurates with the executions of the Rosenbergs, where the Rosenbergs were electrocuted to death. They were believed to be supporting communism. The executions of the Rosenbergs deeply affected Esther’s mental state because of the way that they were executed. She believed that electrocution was unconstitutional and should have not been applied to them. According to Esther in chapter one, “I knew something was wrong with me that summer, because all I could think about was the Rosenbergs and how stupid I’d been to buy those uncomfortable, expensive clothes”(Plath 2). This quote emphasizes how Esther is becoming unable to control her mind mainly because of the events surrounding her. Based on Freud’s theory, a person’s mind is composed of both unconscious and conscious thoughts. When these thoughts interact they create a state of repression, where the person becomes unaware of conflicting problems that they be having. According to Rashmi Nemade author of “Psychology of Depression- Psychodynamic Theories Esther”, repress...
In Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, gender roles are presented as barriers that stop female characters from reaching their full potential and from being in control of their own lives. The novel relates to the Feminist Phase of Second Wave Feminism which is focused on the oppression of women and the roles of women within a society.
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....`
The Bell Jar has many strengths, including the strong feminism portrays. Being a women in the 1950s-1960s was not an easy task, as Esther points out several times. Esther continues to go against the mainstream, telling her mother and friends several times that she refuses to marry and does not want to have children. Plath’s portrayal of Esther’s mental illness is great as well, and there was difficulty in getting The Bell Jar published in the first place due to the stigma of mental illness. However, with as many strengths, there are weaknesses.
...which were dead in mothers’ belly, were placed in the bottle. To Esther, this image always linked to abnormal growth, suffocation and death: “The air of the bell jar wadded round me and I couldn’t sir” (p.178). The latter part in the novel, Esther experienced a serious of symbolic events, and she began all over again and was ready to new life. However, what waited for her was still the contradiction that the society put on women, and the value of women could not be totally reflected as before. It could be predicted that in such society-value was distorted like the bell jar, Esther would be probable to fall into the “crisis of roles” and lost the courage for living again. The novel did not describe Esther’s “new born”, anyhow, the “new born” of the author-Sylvia Plath did not last for a long time.
In the presence of the other girls and among the hustle and bustle of the busy cities in New York, Esther felt like an outsider. Her symbolic analogy is important because it gives readers a first look into her emotions, which would soon develop into something much more complicated. Later on, she mentions a conversation with her mother, whom Esther said had decided to “forgive” her. Her mother also said to forget everything that happened, like it was a bad dream. With this, Esther recollects everything that took place within the past few months—all the incidents and mishaps she had been a part of—and realized that it was not easy to forget her experiences like one would with a bad dream.
At the end of the novel, Esther finally see’s a light at the end of the tunnel. She finally realizes that there is hope for her to become healthy again. Once Esther realizes that she will not always feel as bad as she does, she also comes to the conclusion that all the negativity and questioning in her life have made her into the person she has become. Esther finally realizes what her true identity is and she is okay with who she has become.