Figurative Language In The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar is rich with an array of motifs, all which serve to sustain the novel’s primary themes. A motif particularly prevalent within the first half of the novel involves food, specifically Esther Greenwood’s relationship with food. This peculiar relationship corroborates the book’s themes of Esther’s continuous rebirthing rituals, and of her extreme dissatisfaction. The interrelation with food functions in two distinct manners: literally and figuratively. This analysis will concentrate on the figurative role of food in The Bell Jar, and how it denotes Esther’s overall state.

During The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath used similes to highlight Esther's characteristic of a wallflower during her trip to New York. After Frankie, one of Lenny's friend abandones Esther, he is forced to take her and Doreen to his apartment. Lenny obviously wanting privacy with Doreen he asks her to go but Doreen defends Esther and says she will only go with the do any of her friend. From there on, Esther feels unwanted and ignored while she spends time at Lenny's place. Plath describes Esther's abandonment while Lenny and Doreen dance, “I felt myself shrinking to a small black dot against all those red and white rugs and that pine paneling. I felt like a hole in the ground” (Plath 16). Esther feels left out while her best friend and a stranger dance. The simile expresses how she felt invisible and ignored. The author tries to relate to the reader who once in their life may have felt outcastes or left out. Esther has a tendency to feel terrible about herself. From the beginning of the story, she explains how she feels different and not in the right place. The author wrote, “The city had faded my tan, though. I looked yellow as a Chinaman. Ordinarily, I would have been nervous a about my dress and my odd color, but being with Doreen made me forget my

This feeling originates from the fact that she is unable to conform to one of the ways in which to pursue her life. All throughout the novel Esther battles the pressure put on her and women generally by society to bear children and focus on family life with her wish to dedicate herself to her writing hence going in a more academic direction. This oppression by society feeds her feelings of alienation: “...it wouldn't have made one scrap of difference to me, because wherever I sat - on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok - I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.” (Plath The Bell Jar) Plath uses the symbol of the bell jar in order to illustrate Esther’s personal prison. Esther is held captive beneath the bell jar. She is trapped beneath it and unable to escape just like she is trapped beneath the expectations of society. The bell jar is Esther’s own metaphor used to illustrate what she’s feeling in her day-to-day life, and the descent into mental illness. Regardless of what she’s doing or where she is, she sits alienated “under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.” Although her personal prison, the bell jar, is transparent, allowing her to view the world around her, the image she’s met with is distorted. This subsequently leads to

The title is appropriate because it is named after a very important symbol throughout the book: the bell jar. The title reflects what the end of the book represents which works for a title. The author uses it as a title as foreshadowing and it foreshadows what the future or end of the book will be about. According to Esther Greenwood, the bell jar was a type of restriction or mental obstacle which would descend upon every time she encountered a problem or felt angry. The bell jar was one of the main motifs and symbols which makes the title of the book appropriate. In the words of Esther, whenever the bell jar encapsulated her, she felt as if she couldn’t breath due to it being closed. She thought that she couldn’t breath because there was no air circulation suffocating her until she would ultimately “pop.” An example of this is when Esther is going through her suicidal phase. She had these thoughts because she couldn’t think because the bell jar descended upon her causing her to not think straight. However, after she went to the multiple asylums, she felt much better. Esther thought of it as the bell jar above her waiting until she goes mad once again. As the story goes on, the reader gets ideas of what is controlling Esther’s own mind and the title just reflects what the root cause of her problems are. That makes the bell jar a good title for the

One of the major symbols Esther’s story is the namesake of the novel -- the bell jar. As a real life object, a bell jar is a scientific tool often used to create a vacuum by removing air from within the jar. Along with being used for scientific purposes, it can also be used for decorative purposes to act as a display case. As a symbol in the book, on the other hand, Plath uses the bell jar as a danger to Esther’s sanity; it threatens to send her into a hellish mental state. All throughout the novel, it is looming over Esther’s mind, threatening to trap her inside of hell and disconnect her from everything she knows and loves. At one point in the novel, the bell jar

The title Girl, Interrupted “Interrupted at her music: as my life had been, interrupted in the music of being seventeen... What life could recover from that?” refers to the painting as she sees it as a distillation of her own experience. Just like the girl in the painting was interrupted so was Susanna and for two years she was unable to live the life that she wanted to. The Bell Jar is a metaphor used by Sylvia Plath to show that Esther is trapped inside her own head and is unable to escape the doubtful and insecure thoughts she has. It is also used as a metaphor for society as people are unable to escape from the expectation which society puts upon them.

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.

Have you ever heard of the term “doppelgănger”? If not, it means “double” in German. To say that the character, Joan Gilling, is Esther Greenwoods “double” in the novel “The Bell Jar”, by Sylvia Plath, would be an understatement. Esther and Joan are one in the same. Joan and Esther endure many of the same obstacles throughout the novel. Joan’s actions to these struggles ultimately make Esther come to terms with reality. Either change her ways, and move on with her life, or end up like Joan, dead.

It is elephant’s tusks as well; this is a very effective image because she compares herself to an elephant so the baby is like her tusks. And “fine timbers” is like the baby’s structure because it is very fragile. In the fifth line the mood changes yet again to negative because the narrator starts talking abut herself more. When she says “this loaf’s big with its yeasty rising” the reader gets an image of her stomach growing bigger and bigger without stopping like yeast in a loaf of bread.

The Bell Jar highlights the concept of detachment through the main character, Esther, who feels a disconnection from herself. As she struggles to recognize herself and find a path for her future, she slowly descends into madness. Sylvia Plath in The Bell Jar creates the motifs of mirrors and magazines to convey the idea that individuals often have difficulty accepting themselves. Quite often, magazines glamorize real life and make reality distant from fact. This is especially true throughout The Bell Jar, starting as early as page 2 where the main character explains a

While many believed that “Bell Jar” in this novel symbolizes the

It is evident that she is painfully aware of her approaching melancholic depression as evidenced by her opening statement, “I knew something was wrong with me that summer” and later, "I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo" (Plath, 1971). Throughout the novel, Esther holds the wits and self-awareness to know something is or has been stewing within, while simultaneously having a skewed perception of the world around her. Feelings of helplessness and entrapment are illustrated by the metaphor Esther has created “The bell jar” that suggests she has lost control of herself. Esther describes the bell jar as a symbolic meaning of the lenses in which she see’s life through; a trapped space where she lives in “her own sour air”, separated from the world

The novel The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is an example of one of the many

In comparison to Capote’s idea of a bird cage symbolizing a fear of being held captive, Plath uses a fairly different object to also symbolize how someone can feel imprisoned in his or her own body. Throughout The Bell Jar Plath

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.