Examples Of Identity In The Bell Jar

Throughout The Bell Jar and The Color Purple both women are subjected to societal constructs that dictate the course of their lives. Although Celie and Ester come from different experiences and upbringings, they both endure the restricted freedoms, frustration, cruelty and violence that have been thrust upon women throughout history. In The Bell Jar Esther uses the fig tree story as a metaphor for her life. The fig tree and the figs upon it represent the opportunities and paths Esther's life could take. She shows her frustration by comparing her life to the fig tree saying “...

Esther admires Jaycee and the fact that she “had brains…” (p. 5). However just as soon as she starts to realise this she is able to find faults in Jaycee and her “pug-ugly look…” (p. 5). Esther is very conflicted, she feels distant from the ideal women as she cannot do any of the things that she should be able to do but when she is given another option she distances herself from this and clings to old fashioned values (Smith, 2010). She both can’t do and doesn’t want to do what is traditional yet she doesn’t want to do what is new. Esther is stuck in the middle in a time where middle ground wasn’t an option. This lack of middle ground is emphasised in (Smith, 2010) which illustrates that society, as represented by the magazines at the time, often depicted women as “good” or “bad” there was no room for a wider realm of

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.

That's why, when people read the Bell Jar we sympathize with Esther. Perloff explains a few of Esther's various reasons for putting on different masks, "For Doreen, Esther wears the mask of a tough cookie, wiling to be picked up by strangers on downtown street corners. For Betsy from the Middle West, she is the fun girl who likes fur shows. For Constantin, the simultaneous interpreter at the UN, she is a no-nonsense type, preparing for a career as war correspondent". This really opened my eyes and clarified Esther's constant change in personality.

The Bell Jar, a coming of age, semi-autobiographical novel, by Sylvia Plath follows the life of a troubled young girl named Esther Greenwood, her slow descent into mental illness and then her subsequent recovery. The second half of the book details Esther's mental breakdown, her incarceration and stumbling recovery whilst the first half uncovers the protagonists, narrators day to day struggles which go on to contribute to her eventual breakdown . Throughout the novel, the reader comes to understand that Esther feels there are few choices; in character a woman must be either the virgin or the whore, both of which are demonstrated by Esther's friends, Betsy and Doreen. This presents one of the key internal conflicts the protagonist, Esther battles.

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.

Esther refuses to allow society to control her life. Esther has a completely different approach to life than the rest of her peers do. The average woman during this time is supposed to be happy and full of joy. Esther, on the other hand, attempts to repress her natural gloom, cynicism, and dark humor. This eventually becomes too hard for her and causes her emotions to go crazy. She begins to have ideas

When Esther first arrives in New York, she doesn't have the same reaction that most of the other girls around her have. She enforces this reaction when she says “I guess I should have been excited the way most of the other girls were, but I couldn't get myself to react.” From a psychological perspective we could tell that something is deeply wrong with her. She is isolating herself from others. According to Saul McLeod, the author of the article called “Psycho dynamic Approach” states that “our behaviors and feelings as adults are powerfully affected by the unconscious thoughts” . This means that unconscious are a product of behaviors and feelings. She is unable to think in a rational way because of her inability to control the balance between her conscious and unconscious thoughts.

In The Bell Jar, Esther finds it extremely difficult to put her thoughts into words. She loses friends as she is unable to communicate with them. She lacks relationships due to her silent behaviour. “The silence depresses me. It isn’t the silence of silence. It’s my own silence,” (Plath 18) she says. Although at first Esther feels upset by the lack of connections she has, she loses motivation to even try and explain herself to others. Unlike Mr. Chance in The Cloud Chamber, and Deborah in I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Esther’s mental state does not improve, and she is unable to resolve lost connections. Esther’s mother tells her, “the cure for thinking too much about yourself is helping somebody who is worse off than you” (Plath 161). However, in her case, she’s so disconnected from the people who were once a big part of her life, that she doesn’t know who to reach out to. She doesn’t see herself being capable of maintaining stable and happy relationships with others when she can’t even maintain her own happiness.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is a book about a young woman who is facing life the unexpected way. Esther is trying to place the puzzle pieces in order but it isn't quite working. There is a different view of humanity in this book and it gives chills to read what she went through. Esther goes through struggles that show her true colors within throughout the book. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath dips into the idea for the search of social identity, the idea of “melting pot”, and what the American Dream really means to oneself.

Sylvia Plath, the author of The Bell Jar, writes in a very simple and ordinary but exceptionally unique way. She put her whole young genuine heart and soul into this semi-autobiography. Her first person point of view allows the reader to really engage with the characters thoughts, specifically Esther Greenwood and her perspective on everything. In The Bell Jar, Esther Greenwood encounters the coming of many things, including age and mental illness. While the coming of age is normal for the majority of society, the coming of mental illness is abnormal. With that being said, many may classify Esther Greenwood as abnormal and deviant but in all reality,

In some moments, she even has to give up her personal sentiments or belief for her family and the destiny of the whole Israelites. Even though Esther is a book about the victory of a woman, men are still the prevailing figures, for the major story is composed by the conflicts

Essential and effective rhetorical strategies, used repetitively throughout by Plath, was simile and metaphor. With the use of these strategies, the reader was able to sincerely understand the complexity and obscurity of Esther’s mindset. For example, Plath creates a very straightforward statement in the form of a simile to capture Esther’s emotions in that exact moment in time “I felt like a hole in the ground”. This certain sentence was meant to express Esther’s feelings, which during this point of the book, was as if she literally did not exist, as if she was inferior to her surroundings, the largest of holes. Gradually as a reader continues on, it’s apparent Plath constructs similes to match with Esther’s negative feelings, especially on her

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.

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.