Throughout the span of the book, Esther Greenwood slowly descends into madness. The first sign is her uncertainty with her future. Though she dreams of going to graduate school or traveling to Europe, Esther realizes that she doesn’t know what she wants to do; a discovery as shocking as meeting “some nondescript person” who “introduces himself as your real father” (Plath 32). Later when she’s at the UN, she realizes that she will lose all of her abilities once she leaves college, as she believes that the only skills she has is winning scholarships. She compares her current place in life as that of a fig tree, wanting all life paths given to her yet not taking any of them. Later, Esther goes to a country club where she has a rough encounter with Marco, a Peruvian man who attempts to rape her. Regardless of this instance, she continues to wear his blood afterwards viewing it “like a relic of a …show more content…
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
‘An individual’s interaction with others and the world around them can enrich or limit their
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)
In the novel, The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath the protagonist is named Esther Greenwood. Through the book Esther wonders if she should marry and live a conventional domestic life, or attempt to satisfy her ambition. Esther is from Massachusetts who goes to New York as a college student who is working for a month to be a guest editor for a magazine. She and the other eleven girls are pampered all the time. She has two friends who worry her, Betsey is very perky, but Doreen is very rebellious. Esther once goes on a date with a man named Marco who tries to rape her, but doesn’t succeed. This is something that can have an emotional, psychological, physical, personal, and social effect on someone and their day to day living. After having all of this happen to her with Marco and her two friends she says “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 magazine, and the...
Esther losing her virginity leads to her being “half black with blood” (p.219), a symbol of blood to indicate a new her: “I felt a part of a great tradition” (p.219). Furthermore, blood symbolism is used when Marco, “a woman-hater” (p.102), attempts to rape Esther and when she resists, leaves her “with two strokes stained on my cheeks” (p.105). Plath uses the symbol to represent major defining milestones in Esther’s life, similarly to other situations, such as the suicide attempts. The blood symbolism also represents the violence that can attach itself to sex in a society where women are seen as lower, especially for younger women. In these situations, Esther believes she is reaching “a new condition in peace” (p.219), but often she is putting herself in dangerous situations. This is too similar to Holden, who hires a prostitute to lose his virginity as he has “never got around it yet” (p.83). Her young and nervous demeanour begins to make him feel “more depressed than sexy” (p.86), and this leads to a violent standoff between him and Sunny’s pimp. Both authors use characterisation and Plath uses symbolism to make a point about the confused mindset adolescents have; both males and females believe that it should change their identity drastically, however, the transition for each has a different purpose. The authors are attempting to convince the reader that adolescents are often misinformed about sex and this leads to the idolisation of losing their virginity; a negative belief that often leads to mistakes and hurt. Idolising this concept leads them to adopting it as a part of their
Esther's fundamental problem with female relationships is best exemplified in her conflict with mothering and mentoring figures. These women defy her desire to be independent and free. Rich describes the tendency toward matrophobia, the fear of becoming one's mother. She explains that "the mother stands for the victim in ourselves, the unfree woman" (236). This fear of becoming like the mother/...
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
Her mother serves as the first of her teachers in conveying this message. For example, Mrs. Greenwood wants her daughter to learn shorthand because it will get her a living until she can marry, because it can even get her a husband. She consistently emphasizes the importance of Esther staying “pure”, so she can get the best of possible husbands. So early on Esther realizes that, for most women, marriage and family comprise the main substance of their lives.
Esther was a woman of principle who displayed great hope in a highly patriarchal period. Despite being a woman in a time where women were marginalized, she was able rise to a position of power and save her people from annihilation. She did this through the use of her beauty, her wits and her courage, attributes that at that time were greatly valued in a woman. As a female her story has much to offer to women of any faith, but particularly to a Jewish Women. Though her historical circumstances were very different
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.
The book of Esther tells the faithfulness of one woman and her uncle. It is only one of two books that contain the heroism and bravery of a woman heroine. The story of Esther accomplishes two profound things, the first: “To demonstrate God’s providential care of his people, even those outside the land of Israel, and 2) to commend the observance of the feast of Purim by relating how it originated” (Breneman 289).Unlike the rest of the Bible the story of Esther does not directly state or talk about God, but instead shows God’s plans for all of our lives and how in all frightening moments of life, He remains faithful to those who trust and have faith in Him. “In spite of the omission of any name for deity, there is no other book in all the bible where God is more evident, working behind the scenes, than in this book” (Willmington 200). In order to understand who Esther was as a woman and her significance in the history of the Jews, we must first examine the circumstances and other individuals that impacted the events leading up to and after Esther became queen.
It is obvious that Esther is at a crossroads and feels torn by life. She best describes her feelings with the following passage: "I saw myself in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each a...
... 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.
Many people come from a haunted past, leaving indefinite scars in their memory. This causes permanent numbness in their hearts and leaves them with nothing but isolation from the their loved ones. These damaged memories can later flood the individual causing him/her to create an enemy within themselves. The internal scars within a person stay hidden; however, certain circumstances may draw out he/she hidden past and shows him/her to the world. In “Lady Lazarus” and “Tulips,” Sylvia Plath creates a theme of darkness through imagery of death and sorrow that reveals the sadness she feels due to her haunted past.
She claims that she has `always wanted to learn German` although `the very sight of those dense, black, barbed-wire letters made my mind shut like a clam`. Esther associates the language with her `German-speaking father`, who `cane from some manic-depressive hamlet in the black heart of Prussia'. I think that Esther`s stunt in progress is directly linked to the death of her father, and the little that she knows about him, and that a major factor contributing to her eventual suicide attempt is the fact that she used to be the best and no longer can be.
The beginning of the novel introduces the reader to Esther O'Malley Robertson as the last of a family of extreme women. She is sitting in her home, remembering a story that her grandmother told her a long time ago. Esther is the first character that the reader is introduced to, but we do not really understand who she is until the end of the story. Esther's main struggle is dealing with her home on Loughbreeze Beach being torn down, and trying to figure out the mysteries of her family's past.