Annotated Bibliography The Bell Jar

Plath uses Esther’s point of view to reveal the internal struggle felt by many women, including herself, due to the restraints of contemporary society. She holds herself to impossible

In Sylvia Plath's novel The Bell Jar, Esther Greenwood seems incapable of healthy relationships with other women. She is trapped in a patriarchal society with rigid expectations of womanhood. The cost of transgressing social norms is isolation, institutionalization and a lost identity as woman. The struggle for an individual identity under this regime is enough to drive a person to the verge of suicide. Given the oppressive system under which she must operate, Esther Greenwood's problems with women stem from her conflict between individuality and conformity.

Sylvia Plath was a troubled writer to say the least, not only did she endure the loss of her father a young age but she later on “attempted suicide at her home and was hospitalized, where she underwent psychiatric treatment” for her depression (Dunn). Writing primarily as a poet, she only ever wrote a single novel, The Bell Jar. This fictional autobiography “[chronicles] the circumstances of her mental collapse and subsequent suicide attempt” but from the viewpoint of the fictional protagonist, Esther Greenwood, who suffers the same loss and challenges as Plath (Allen 890). Due to the novel’s strong resemblance to Plath’s own history it was published under the pseudonym “Victoria Lucas”. In The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath expresses the

Even more importantly, it challenges the belief that women are dependent on men. Therefore, regardless of a woman’s talents and desires, they are deemed to be wives, mothers or small-scale jobs such as a secretary. Plath furthered such a notion by using literary methods such as inner monologue and the characterization of male characters. Esther felt as though society had forced women into depending on men when she narrated, “What a man wants is a mate and what a woman wants is infinite security” (Plath 46). Esther was bothered by the fact that society expected her to sacrifice her dreams in order to cater to the needs of her future husband—Buddy. Thus, Plath purposely creates the male characters to be hypocrites and morally weak to mock the assumption that men are superior to women through the character of Buddy. For instance, Esther narrates, “What I couldn’t stand was Buddy pretending…he was so pure, when all the time he’d been having an affair with that tarty waitress and must have felt like laughing in my face” (Plath 71). This shows how Plath made Buddy the male chauvinism in the novel to portray the hypocoristic ways of men. Thus, Buddy does not even feel remotely guilty for what he did even through it was immorally weak. Plath tries to show how restrictive society actually is by developing themes surrounding sexism that underline how Buddy’s sense of superiority is built on moral hypocoristic.

People's lives are shaped through their success and failure in their personal relationships with each other. The author Sylvia Plath demonstrates this in the novel, The Bell Jar. This is the direct result of the loss of support from a loved one, the lack of support and encouragement, and lack of self confidence and insecurity in Esther's life in the The Bell Jar. It was shaped through her success and failures in her personal relationships between others and herself.

The suicide of Sylvia Plath is still felt today as she died due to the expectations society set on her as a woman in living in the mid 1900s. In her autobiography, Plath creates a character by the name of Esther Greenwood that gets thrown into the loop of life predestined for her by society and feels these expectations pile upon her. Her inability to cope leading up to her suicide attempt turns into a wake up call. The pressures society in the 1950s put on Esther affect her perception of society and cause a decline in her mental health. In the novel, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Esther feels the pressure of society, turns away from the influence of the people closest to her, and struggles with her mental health.

The themes in The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath, are portrayed through Esther’s unique characteristics. Sylvia’s life experiences and personality contribute to these themes: growth through pain, the emptiness of conventional expectations, and the restricted role of women during the 1950’s. Esther must battle through several obstacles in order to move on with her life. She also feels like she does not fit in with society. Women’s role in society during this time also contributes to Esther’s qualities. In order to understand the themes of the novel, one must learn who Sylvia Plath is.

Depression is a serious topic throughout the world, especially in America. Depression can result in someone feeling completely alone. There is no direct cause for depression in adolescents, but it can be brought on by the maturing process, stress from failure in some sort, a traumatic or disturbing event such as death, or even a break up. Sure, everyone has an off day here and there, where they feel like they shouldn’t even bother getting out bed in the morning, but to feel this way day in and day out is something most don’t experience. The Bell Jar is a very accurate and helpful tool to see what deep depression is like for someone, their thought process, and the actions they feel obligated to take when they

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.

While it is sad, it is interesting to see how depression can slowly break down an individual to someone who feels nothing but apathy. For people who struggle with the illness, no happy thoughts can changed how they perceive the life and the world around them. It’s not as easy as getting a massage or thinking happy thoughts to change their mood and take away all that sadness, emptiness, and all that negative self-talk. The “Bell Jar” is a contemplation of the despairing life of Esther Greenwood and her descent into darkness. She personifies the actual mental struggle and the tumultuous life of the author, Sylvia Plath who, at a very young age suffered from clinical depression.

The Bell Jar, Written by the Author Sylvia Plath takes place in 1940’s and 1950’s, and brings up the topic of male oppression and the absence of feminism, and the toll it can take on women, specifically the main character Esther. The novel also embarks upon the topic of mental illness, and electrical shock therapy, during this era, and how it affected the character of Esther. What is interesting is that the novel had numerous parallels to the life of its author, which she portrayed through the character of Esther. Like Plath, Esther lost her father at a young age, they both were intelligent where they worked at an internship at a women’s magazine in New York, both were effected by a mail dominated society, and also both suffered from mental

The Bell Jar is a novel written in, 1963 written by Sylvia Plath. It is a story about a girl who under goes many traumatic life events that had the destiny to make or break her. The things she used to enjoy in life are no longer bringing joy to her life. She can’t find anything that gives her the will to go on. The Bell Jar is a story that will take reader on a journey with a girl who lets the gender roles of 1950s get the best of her. She lets people tell her what she can and cannot do and loses what it means to become your own person. The Bell Jar teaches the audience about the expectations, opportunities or restrictions on American Women in the 1950’s. As gender roles have become more diverse between a man and a woman, it is still more

In the 1963 Autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is narrated by Esther Greenwood who questions her self-identity and sexual behavior. The theme of the novel is explored more in depth when Esther realizes she feels constrained of being a woman that is expected to be a household wife. The theme is shown how the expectations of the 1950s American society forms into sanity and madness . Straight into the first chapter, Plath detaches Esther from society with her clinical diction seen when Esther describes New York to be “fake” as she constantly felt like a “numb trolleybus” when all her life consisted of was hotels and parties. Plath's hyperbole, “I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel,moving dully

Sylvia Plath’s emotional turmoil began at a fairly early age; from the time of her father’s death, to her inability to form a meaningful relationship. Sylvia Plath was born the eldest child of Otto and Aurelia Schoeber Plath on October 27, 1932. When Plath was eight-years-old her father, a professor of Entomology and German at Boston University, died. “...I adored and despised him, and I probably wished many times that he were dead. When he obliged me and died, I imagined that I had killed him” (Steiner 45). Plath’s work was heavily influenced on the passing of her father, the grief that consumed the pages of The Bell Jar and many of Plath’s other works was the pent-up heartache that Plath felt for the loss of her father. Plath felt that her “...guilty love...may have caused the loss” and was deeply burdened by it (Ramazani 5). She wrote many different kinds of works; including but not all, The Bell Jar, The Colossus and Other Poems, and Ariel. The Bell Jar was

Perhaps the most famous work of Sylvia Plath’s is The Bell Jar -- a book that follows the mental deterioration of a nineteen-year-old girl named Esther through the narration of Esther herself. Although Sylvia Plath hated life in general and committed suicide at the age of 32 after her husband left her, the myriad autobiographical elements, metaphors, and motifs that appear throughout her works produce a beautifully vivid representation of people, the world, and life itself (“Sylvia Plath”).