The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
One is often enticed to read a novel because of the way in which the characters are viewed and the way in which characters view their surroundings. In the novel The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Esther Greenwood is a character whose "heightened and highly emotional response to events, actions and sentiments" (Assignment sheet) intrigue the reader. One of her character traits is extreme paranoia that is shown in different situations throughout the novel. As a result of this, she allows herself to be easily let down, as she believes that all events that are unsatisfactory are directed towards her. Finally, it is clear that she attempts to escape this notion by imagining an idyllic yet impossible life that she envisions in remote circumstances. It is clear that Plath's creation is a Novel of Sensibility as her writing not only possesses all of the qualities associated with this genre, it also effectively takes the reader into the story with the protagonist.
One who suffers from paranoia often makes conclusions about situations without any real knowledge or understanding. Esther is a person who believes that she will be discovered and mistreated if any knowledge that she deems potentially harmful is realized about her. On one visit to her psychiatrist, she shows him the pieces of a letter that she wrote to a friend. However, after consideration, she realizes that that might not be the best idea. "I picked up every scrap of my letter to Doreen so Doctor Gordon couldn't piece them together and see I was planning to run away." (Plath 143). Despite the improbability of the situation, she finds herself suspicious of the actions of those around. Esther looks at things in a way that differs from the ...
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...her readers how human emotions are all related to life experience. The reason for the exaggeration is that without readers would not be able to comprehend their own actions and thoughts as clearly. Esther Greenwood exhibits a profound paranoia about the intentions of others. This leads her to expect the worst from others, and when the worst is what she receives she feels doubly betrayed, first of all by herself for expecting it and then by the one who wreaked such havoc upon her mind. She, like many members of the human race, searches for answers in impossible ideals, because that which is impossible to reach may never be destroyed. This novel is clearly an example of a Novel of Sensibility because it is based on emotions and their connection to "events, actions and sentiments" (Assignment sheet).
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The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The relationship between the reader and the central character is directly affected by the style of the narration, and is fundamental in understanding the author's intentions. "The Bell Jar" is written in the first person, providing the reader with intimate access to Esther's every feeling, using past tense and speaking in a reflective, conversational tone. Although "Quicksand" ... ... middle of paper ... ... oo can be said of "Quicksand", although the effect on the reader is perhaps not as definitive, as the character is arguably less rounded, less developed and less realistic as she we do not delve as deeply into her psyche as we do that of Esther Greenwood's.
The listing plath uses builds detail but also creates a long rambling effect, the repetition of the connective “and” emphasises the endless opportunities that are available to Esther. While many women would dive at the opportunities that are available, esther’s response to the dilemma of choosing is negative. She feels burdened with the dilemma and feels “dreadfully inadequate” therefore due to esther’s negative perception of self makes esther belief that she is unqualified to make a decision. But why does esther feel this way? What is the cause of the hesitation? - is it because of her mental illness?
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
Sylvia Plaths poem, Sow, depicts a beast of mythic proportions through various images, comparisons, and specific word choices. By presenting the sow from both the point of view of its owner, neighbor, and of the speaker, Plath paints a vivid picture of farmyard decadence that the reader can relate to.
The Bell Jar is an autobiography of a female sophomore. The girl-Esther, who is 19 years old, came from suburban area of Boston. As she had talent writing skills, she was invited to New York to serve as guest editor in a national fashion magazine office. In her one-month stay in New York, on one hand, Esther was cautious and conscientious to learn from an able and efficient female editor-Jay Cee, and she dreamt to follow Jay Cee’s successful step. On the other hand, she met various men and women in her colorful social life. These experiences reminded her of her life in women’s university, especially her relationship with her boyfriend- Buddy Willard. As the recollection often interweaved with reality, they brought Esther perplexity, discouragement and lost. Esther could not even more figure out the significance of reality as well as the goal of her own life. When her life in New York came to an end, Esther came back her hometown to spend the summer vacation with her mother. However, a new incident hard hit Esther- she was rejected by the writing course that she was given high expectation by professors in her university. The conservative atmosphere in the town made Esther feel days wear on like years. Esther denied completely that all achievements she got in past 19 years, and she even felt doubtful and terrified toward the future. Facing such heavy pressure, she was broken down totally. Since she was lost at that time, she tried to put an end to her life. After she was saved, she received psychological consultation in a psychiatric hospital. In this period, she rethought and relocated her position, and she rebuilt confidence step by step. At the end of the novel, Esther waited to leave hospital and she looked forward to starting a...
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.
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.
In her search for identity, Esther often compares herself to others. One sign of depression is the feeling the need to compare yourself to others. Throughout the story, Esther questions other’s morals and characteristics and tries to apply them to herself. One example of this is at the beginning of the novel. She wonders if she is more like her friend Betsy, or her friend, Doreen. She describes Betsy as a good girl, and Doreen as more of the bad girl type. Although Betsy is a cheerful and optimistic person, Esther concludes that she can relate more to Betsy. She cannot understand why though, because she feels as if she is not a happy, nor optimistic person.
Women in the 1950s were typically stay-at-home moms with the task of cooking, cleaning, and tending to the children. Men were the sole providers of the family, and held superiority and masculinity over the women. Men were portrayed as more intelligent and rational than women, forcing a society that viewed women as subordinate. These rigid gender roles are what caused Esther Greenwood to challenge her expectations, thus causing her mental breakdown. To cope with her own thoughts and fears, Esther sought to find liberation by freeing herself from her oppressor: her mother. Mrs. Greenwood constantly pressured Esther into pursuing shorthand so that she would “have a practical skill as well as a college degree” (Author Sylvia Plath 40). Esther interpreted her mother’s comment as obtaining no other significance than submission to men. This amplifies Esther’s resentment towards her mother, and is a factor that contributes to her insanity. Along with challenging the strict gender roles of the 1950s, Esther was worried that she would never find a man to marry. She could not understand how to handle a relationship with a man, and felt pressured by society to start thinking of a future with a husband. Esther could not accept that kind of commitment in her life, and began to detach herself from relationships until she was solely dependent on
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. At the conclusion of The Bell Jar, the audience realizes that she was pushed to completely conform to society.
People tend to write off mental illness as a choice, a voluntary mood as opposed to a medical condition; in the 1950s, this was even more common, as there were no methods to prove that depression was caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. Plath shows this in a haunting manner when Esther’s mother says, “I knew you’d decide to be all right again” (Plath 146). It is made painfully obvious that mental health is not simply a choice, as Esther drives home in the rest of the passage, her suicidal tendencies worsening. Additionally, many people behave as though Esther is insane, and treat her as a spectacle to be observed rather than a victim of a damaging disease. Not only were societal attitudes toward mental illness deficient in sympathy and understanding, the treatment of depression is shown to be alarmingly inhumane in the post World War Two era. Dr. Gordon exemplifies the improper treatment of depression, by acting extremely uninterested and unprofessional during his sessions with Esther, only to decide after a few visits that she requires electroshock therapy. His failure to understand Esther’s struggle leads him to administer this therapy, and his incompetence is compounded as he performs the procedure incorrectly and leaves Esther with more emotional scars than she had before they met. Plath’s perspective highlights the damaging attitudes of the
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 scewed her outlook on life. An irony that is carried throughout the entire novel is the fact that Esther works in a prestigious fashion world, yet she sees everything gruesomely and cynically.
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...
...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.