Cultural Views Of Women In The Bell Jar By Sylvia Plath

Plath’s novel gives a unique account the hypocrisy women faced in terms of their sexual experience. Through the eyes of the main character, Ester Greenwood, the novel focuses on the struggle between what women were beginning to gain and the antiquated notions of female purity and innocence. Ultimately, The Bell Jar critiques the gendered double standard women faced regarding sex in the mid-twenty-first century in its exploration of purity, equality, and freedom.

How would one feel if they had to drop all of their dreams and goals in order to look good for the neighbors? How would one feel if all they were used for was to conceive their spouses child? Those instances don’t sound too good, well a woman's role in the 1950’s was just that. In the dark novel written by Sylvia Plath, Esther Greenwood is constantly battling an inner conflict of listening to society which leads her to battling depression. Plath shows the women’s roles and the challenges of how women must sacrifice their dreams to become wives and mothers through Esther’s accountings.

Sylvia Plath is known as a profound writer, depicted by her lasting works of literature and her suicide which put her poems and novel of debilitating depression into a new perspective. In her poem “Lady Lazarus,” written in 1962, her mental illness is portrayed in a means to convey to her readers the everyday struggle of depression, and how it affects her view of her world, herself, and even those who attempt to tackle her battle with her. This poem, among other poetry pieces and her novel The Bell Jar, identify her multiple suicide attempts, and how the art of dying is something she has become a master of. Plath’s “Lady Lazarus,” about her trap of depression and suicide attempts, is effective and thought provoking because of her allusions to WWII Nazi Germany and the feelings of oppression and Nazism that the recurring images evoke.

During 1963, Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique. This book influenced an enormous amount of women all over the country and became motivation for women to strive for change. The book explains that women, particularly in the middle class, were not content with the role of a housewive, which was pressured and assumed by society. Betty Friedan was also a devoted member of NOW and her novel became a bestseller and absolutely changed the women’s rights movement. (Sink, 1).

Many women have experienced discrimination due to their gender. Society views women as inferior beings that cannot achieve greatness. Furthermore, women have acquired a set of rules and expectations to meet within their role in society. In the 1850 romance novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts the beauty and strength of women. Despite society’s strict views of gender roles, women can convert society’s oppression into freedom due to the qualities they possess, which surpass society’s assumed capabilities of them.

The 1950’s were a time when the world was dealing with the after-math of World War II. People of this era were coming to terms about how their lives had been changed forever. When the men went away to fight in the war, the women at home had no choice but to modify their lifestyles. These women, who mostly consisted of housewives, had to go to work outside the home. This caused this these once dependant women, who relied on their husbands for their sole source of income, gained a sense of independence. Many women felt they had a bigger purpose when they worked to achieve a goal instead of just working at home for their husbands. When the men came back from war their home life had transformed. They saw how the women in their lives had become self-sufficient. The men felt apprehensive and threatened by these newly empowered women. The still male-dominated society felt threatened, and new social concepts came into place to keep women in their place, so the men could still thrive. These social concepts were very gender specific; women had much less freedom than men. What was seen as socially acceptable for men was not for women. In Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar, she employs imagistic motifs to argue that society governs how men and women must conform to strict gender roles inflicted on them by society in order for a person to be viewed as successful and attractive.

In the book The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan brings attention to what she calls the feminine mystique, or “the problem that has no name”. Through the use of anecdotal narratives, her own personal experiences as a journalist, editor, mother, and the interviews of many women from different backgrounds in order to unveil the truth about the women of the 1950’s. The problem which sparked the second wave of feminism in the United States is one that focuses on the inequality between men and women and the undervaluing of women in both the social and private spheres. The women of the time gave up pursuing their passions, such as getting an education or careers in science or business in order to fit the image of the stereotypical stay-at-home mom whose main goal in life is to raise her children while providing a safe and comforting home for her husband. The Feminine Mystique, as she called it, was the idea of widespread unhappiness of women, despite the preconceived notion that women were happiest when they have a family. Throughout her work, she dives into many of the problems associated with the feminine mystique and builds a powerful concept of what would eventually be labeled feminism.

The role of women as homemakers in industrial society was challenged in 1963, when US feminist Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique, giving momentum to the women's movement and influencing other activists, such as Gloria Steinem and Angela Davis, to help influence and educate many of a younger generation of women. This book primarily focused on white women, and how they are perceived and depicted in the mainstream media, when their possibilities are limited and potential wasted. In addition, the 1970 pamphlet Women and Their Bodies, soon expanded into the 1971 book Our Bodies, Ourselves, was particularly influential in adding to and bringing about the new feminist consciousness. “Narrative had been practiced by maverick writers, such as Joan

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan was published February 19, 1963, a book that some have said single-handedly started the feminist movement of the 1960’s through the 1980’s. The book’s core message was that women were letting society take away their identity and in the process, were becoming more and more unhappy with their lives, even as they lived out the “ideal” life. As Friedan said, “Our culture does not permit women to accept or gratify their basic need to grow and fulfill their potentialities as human beings, a need which is not solely defined by their sexual role.” (pg. 133) The Feminine Mystique, while well-written and correct in many situations, not all people felt that is was always correct.

In 1920, the Ratification of the 19th Amendment granted suffrage for women. Societal roles were restrained for men and women, which women were stereotyped as housewives. However, things have started to change rapidly in the late 40s to early 50s, the conservative movement affirmed that women were capable of acquiring same jobs as men. Statistics have shown that marrital rate and education for women are negatively correlated. Betty Friedan projected their voices by publishing The Feminine Mystique, allowing women to be self-aware. Without sense of existence or happiness, women suffered from the emptiness and dare not to think about what instigated their passion for equality. Friedan’s initial intent of writing her book liberated women from

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

According to the data from the Center for American Progress and Elle Magazine, “Nearly 30 percent of women report experiencing discrimination in the workplace.” However, this report is only based on the environment in employment settings. Women experience and visually see gender roles and inequity against females in everyday surroundings, and they are often accepted and practiced without difficulty. Similarly, in the novel, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Esther experiences different societal expectations throughout her life in hometown and New York, which helps her realize that she does not fit into either of the society; moreover, she grows weary as she loses her identity and passion, in search for who she is.

The works of Sylvia Plath have always been at least slightly controversial; most of them have themes of feminism, suicide, or depression. Plath was born in 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts, and by the age of twelve she was reported to have had an IQ of about 160 (Kelly). Growing up in an age in which women were expected to be nothing more than conservative housemaids, Plath stood defiant against the views of society, choosing to expose any misogynistic prejudices or hateful prospects against mental illness through her writings (Allen).

Throughout the story “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath, Esther’s mental health deteriorates overtime due to various factors in her social environment such as double standards. The novel begins with Esther’s internship at the Ladies’ Day magazine in New York City. Despite living the life every girl wishes to live, Esther is dejected and feels disengaged with the environment around her; thus resulting in the beginning of an identity crisis. Through the events of the story, gender double roles in the areas of education, careers, virginity and marriage affect Esther’s life significantly and it consequently leading to Esther’s confusion with her identity within the society. During the 50s, women were seen to be inferior to and dependent on men as

Sylvia Plath uses many literary devices to convey her purpose in The Bell Jar such as symbolism. The Bell Jar itself is used as symbolic representation of the emotional state Esther is in. The glass jar distorts her image of the world as she feels trapped under the glass. It represents mental illness; a confining jar that descends over her mind and doesn’t allow her to live and think freely. Symbols of life and death pervade The Bell Jar. Esther experiences psychological distress which is a major motif in the novel. The death of Esther’s father and the relationship with her mother is a possible reason for her illness. Sylvia Plath expresses the difficulties Esther faces and parallels her struggle with depression and illustrates it using various symbols such as a fig tree, mirrors, beating heart and a bell jar throughout the novel.