Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar

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The Bell Jar is an autobiographical account of major events in Plath’s life. The book is a purgative expression of Plath’s solitary existence. It is the journey of Esther (fictional name of Plath) who had hard time in gathering courage to live life on her own terms. She had to fight against the ingrained beliefs, norms and expectations that society had woven into her. All through her life, Esther struggled to resolve the dichotomy between her real self and the ideal self that she was expected to perform. Esther is the product of expectations of her society. Her inability to mould herself in accordance with the stereotypical expectations from a woman and the societal pressure to not to be her real self, strangled her sense of self and identity …show more content…

They were made to believe that they would lose their femininity if they move outside the realm of feminine model of passivity. Even brilliant women gave up their education and careers as they did not possess the audacity to be outrageous. It had drastic effects on their emotional, physical and mental health. Having education and employment on the one hand and family and home on the other, the generation of 1950s suffocated in the roles that could not …show more content…

By losing her father at the age of nine, she turned into a lopsided personality, lacking balance in life and relationships. Esther could not relate to the androgenic model because of lack of father figure and could not adapt to the feminine model either, which became the prime cause of her split self. According to psychological model explained in The Second Sex, “[H]er drama is epitomised in the conflict between her ‘viriloid’ and ‘feminine’ tendencies” (43). Beauvoircriticises the psychological theories of Freud and Adler regarding gender. She rejects psychologists for their ignorance of scope of choice for women.Plath’s fluctuation between her wish to be like her father and her inability to detach herself from her mother’s influence coincides with the psychological model which Beauvoir is sceptic about. Esther expresses her disappointment at the lack of a masculine role model in her life after the death of her father. It indicates her idealisation of her father and her repulsion of her mother, as Freud proposes in his theories. Thus, Beauvoir’s criticism of psychological model does not coincide with the incidents and experiences depicted in The Bell

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