Women As Patriarchal Oppression In Esther's Symbols

1330 Words3 Pages

ii. Characters
Apart from the use of symbols, the use of characterization also depicts the social convention and expectation on women as patriarchal oppression.
Esther’s mother and Mrs. Willard embody the social convention from the perspective of women, presenting an “ideal” image of women. They represent the social view that women should possess subordination to husband. Mrs. Willard once says “What a man is is an arrow into the future, and what a woman is is the place the arrow shoots off from.” Though once being a private school teacher, she dedicates herself to the role of pragmatic housewife uncomplainingly by giving up her profession in order to provide the “best place for arrows to shoot off”. Similar to Mrs. Willard, Mrs. Greenwood …show more content…

Jay Cee, a magazine editor, though seemingly to have broken through the social boundary with her occupation, yet ironically, she works in the Ladies’ Day, a magazine publisher which enforces the idea of women submission . Philomena Guinea, a wealthy novelist, though seemingly to be successful with her profession, her books are forbidden in library of Esther’s school. This shows that under patriarchy, any of their attempts of rebellion is only an illusion and patriarchal oppression is inescapable with social …show more content…

The bell jar is a bell-shaped glass used to cover chemical equipment, especially to prevent gas from escaping . From the story, Esther suffers from a diminishing state of mind and disintegrated identity, which she describes herself as trapped in a bell jar, suffocating and muffling , and being disconnected and locked– “Whenever I sat, I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.” The bell jar symbolizes social convention and expectation, which traps and confines woman into domesticity and patriarchal control. They suffocate, being isolated in the jar and there is no way out of the beautiful yet deadening glass jar. They have no alternatives but to conform to the social convention with pressure from the

Show More
Related

  • Internal And External Conflict In The Leaving By Budge Wilson

    427 Words  | 1 Pages

    Moreover, the mother faces the turning point of the whole journey when she courageously confronts her husband and finally voices out her opinion against being treated as more of a thing rather than a person. She reminds him that “[her] name… is Elizabeth” and should not be referred to as a mere “woman”, but being outrageous as he was, he yells at her to “shut [her] mouth” as she was trying to explain, and “[get his] supper”. Through the mother’s confrontation with her husband, the readers learn the importance of having the courage of speaking out what we believe is right despite of the outcome, instead of merely submitting in silence. Ultimately, numerous positive changes occurred once resolution to both the mother's external and internal conflict are addressed. Not only does “[the husband] often speaks to [the] mother as though she were more of a person and less of a thing”, but the mother also decides to “[teach] her two grandsons how to wash dishes and make

    Read More

  • The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath: Tangled in Society's Expectations

    1617 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...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.

    Read More

  • Differing Opinions of Bleak House

    1892 Words  | 4 Pages

    The character of Esther is widely criticized for her perfection as a character, both receiving positive acclaims and negative feedback. Esther’s reserved, quiet character illustrates the role of women during the Victorian period and what little impact on society women played. Critics of Bleak House generally praise the narration and Dickens’s use of Esther’s character, which gives direction to the novel.

    Read More

  • A Comparison of Joan Gilling and Esther Greenwoods in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar

    1217 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the end of the novel, Esther at last, comes to terms with reality. She has got to stop living her life according to what others expect of her. She needs to start living her life for “her”. After Joan commits suicide, Esther believes that unless she turns her life around, she will also commit suicide. Esther saw so much of herself in Joan, that when Joan ended her life she was frightened that she would follow in her footsteps, due to the fact that she had throughout the entire novel. Once Joan was gone, Esther was truly free. The part of Joan that was reflected in Esther vanished. The “bell jar” that had been suffocating her was finally lifted.

    Read More

  • Symbolism Within the Bell Jar Novel

    1662 Words  | 4 Pages

    While in pursuit of a career in writing or poetry in New York City, she is diagnosed with severe, manic depression, which marks the beginning of the descent of the bell jar. After her internship ends, she attempts to commit suicide multiple times. The bell jar already begins to control her, symbolizing a tyrant in her mind. She feels horrified of what she is slowly turning ...

    Read More

  • Symbolism In Esther Before Ahasuerus

    897 Words  | 2 Pages

    Esther before Ahasuerus,1628-1630 is a painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, belonging to the period of the Italian Baroque. It is a large, two dimensional oil painting that displays a story of four figures. In a court, there is a man assumed to be Ahasuerus is rising out of his chair and appears to be stepping forward towards this woman, Esther, who appears to be fainting, and there are two women beside her who are holding her, preventing her from falling. Gentileschi uses a diagonal composition, space, light, texture, and color to depict a story of a man that is a part of a higher hierarchy who is confronting a woman that is in distress and creates a subject of agony.

    Read More

  • Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood

    1363 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ation of men and women to the reader; we accept the cliché’s and gender-roles as the collective standard.

    Read More

  • The Feminine Ideal in The Bell Jar

    1397 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath explores a number of themes, particularly regarding the gender roles, and subsequently, the mental health care system for women. Her 19-year-old protagonist, Esther Greenwood, is the vessel through which Plath poses many probing questions about these topics to the reader. In the 1950s when the novel was set, women were held to a high standard: to be attractive but pure, intelligent but submissive, and to generally accept the notion of bettering oneself only in order to make life more comfortable for the significant male in her life. Esther not only deals with the typical problems faced by women in her time, but she has to experience those things through the lens of mental illness though it is up for debate whether or not it was those same issues that caused her “madness” in the first place. In particular, Esther finds herself both struggling against and succumbing to the 1950s feminine ideal- a conflict made evident in her judgments of other women, her relationships with Buddy Willard, and her tenuous goals for the future.

    Read More

  • The Bell Jar Rhetorical Analysis

    750 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Bell Jar itself connotes a sense of entrapment and suffocation. Being trapped in the bell jar means that esther remains detached from the outside world as it enables Esther to isolate herself from other people in her life. Plath uses the metaphorical bell jar to describe her pain, using the imagery to symbolise Esther’s powerlessness and powerlessness of all women who are made of false ideas - by society. ADD QUOTE-

    Read More

  • Repression In Dracula

    763 Words  | 2 Pages

    contradicting roles the women play are used as ambiguous symbol for how women should act,

    Read More

  • Theme Of Depression In The Bell Jar

    1229 Words  | 3 Pages

    Life is full of endless amounts of beautiful encounters for every character in the novel The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, except for Esther. She suffers from a severe and complex mental illness that impacts her life greatly. Although it is clear that Esther suffers strongly from depression in the novel, Sylvia Plath chooses to tell her life abstractly through countless symbols and ironies to prove that Esther depression completely consumes her. Everything that Esther sees is through a lens of depression, which scews her outlook on life.

    Read More

  • Objectification of Women in The House of Mirth

    2117 Words  | 5 Pages

    Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth is an affront to the false social values of fashionable New York society.  The heroine is Lily Bart, a woman who is destroyed by the very society that produces her.  Lily is well-born but poor.  The story traces the decline of Lily as she moves through a series of living residences, from houses to hotel lodgings.  Lily lives in a New York society where appearances are all.  Women have a decorative function in such an environment, and even her name, Lily, suggests she is a flower of femininity, i.e. an object of decoration as well as of desirability to the male element.  We see this is very true once Lily's bloom fades, as it were, a time when she is cast aside by her peers no longer being useful as something to admire on the surface.  The theme of the novel in this aspect is that identity based on mere appearance is not enough to sustain the human soul physically or metaphysically.  Once she is no longer able to keep the "eye" of her peers, Lily finds herself with no identity and dies.  This analysis will discuss the theme of the objectification of women in a male dominated society inherent throughout the novel.

    Read More

  • Symbolism In The Catcher In The Rye And The Bell Jar

    1289 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Plath’s The Bell Jar, imagery is used to show the contrast between Esther’s internal self and the external society. The bell jar, that slowly descending over her, is a symbol for the growing isolation Esther feels as her depression worsens throughout the novel and also the alienation she receives as a result of a societal stigma associated with mental illnesses such as depression. Within the first half of the novel, there are many dark images, such as the dead babies in

    Read More

  • The Evolution of the Role of Women in British and American Literature

    1818 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Girls wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots because it is okay to be a boy; for a girl it is like promotion. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, according to you, because secretly you believe that being a girl is degrading” (McEwan 55-56). Throughout the history of literature women have been viewed as inferior to men, but as time has progressed the idealistic views of how women perceive themselves has changed. In earlier literature women took the role of being the “housewife” or the household caretaker for the family while the men provided for the family. Women were hardly mentioned in the workforce and always held a spot under their husband’s wing. Women were viewed as a calm and caring character in many stories, poems, and novels in the early time period of literature. During the early time period of literature, women who opposed the common role were often times put to shame or viewed as rebels. As literature progresses through the decades and centuries, very little, but noticeable change begins to appear in perspective to the common role of women. Women were more often seen as a main character in a story setting as the literary period advanced. Around the nineteenth century women were beginning to break away from the social norms of society. Society had created a subservient role for women, which did not allow women to stand up for what they believe in. As the role of women in literature evolves, so does their views on the workforce environment and their own independence. Throughout the history of the world, British, and American literature, women have evolved to become more independent, self-reliant, and have learned to emphasize their self-worth.

    Read More

  • A Synopsis Of 'The Color Purple' By Alice Walker

    891 Words  | 2 Pages

    The writer in The Bell Jar tries to prove that the woman is able to face the whole society and does what she wants. The woman has an ability to prove to the world her strength to achieve her desires. She does not accept the life which the society forced her to live in, but she thinks to make a better one. Although she faced many difficulties but she overcomes

    Read More

More about Women As Patriarchal Oppression In Esther's Symbols

Open Document