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Loss Of Innocence In The Bell Jar

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“I felt surprisingly at peace. The bell jar hung, suspended, a few feet above my head. I was open to the circulating air” (Plath) Esther Greenwood is a character that goes through a journey of mental illness. Towards the end of the book in chapter eighteen, Esther is still in the psychiatric hospital, and she was just woken with her doctor, Dr. Nolan by her side. Dr. Nolan then led Esther outside to get some air. The theme of innocence in Esther’s life is what keeps her young and full of life, and when she is no longer innocent it leads her to be open to new things that she hasn’t previously seen. From the beginning of The Bell Jar, Esther uses a positive and inviting tone to welcome us into her world. Throughout this specific passage, the …show more content…

She speaks about how she has been stuck in the bell jar for a long time and now that she is finally starting to feel better, the world is starting to become clearer. A second source of evidence for Esther’s newly found freedom is, “his fantasy of idealistic childhood and his role as a protector of innocence” from The Catcher and the Rye (Salinger). This relates and backs up Esther’s feeling of being stuck in a bell jar, because the bell jar for Esther was the protector of her innocence. As Holden protected the children’s innocence by catching them before they fell off the cliff (the cliff representing the children’s innocence), the bell jar protects Esther by not letting her think freely or let others into her mind. The bell jar to Esther means the figurative concaving walls around her. Esther feels as if she is in her own space and can’t escape as well as no one being able to get in. Esther uses quite a depressed and dark tone in this section of the passage to entice the readers into knowing how she once was, to how she is …show more content…

This relates back to innocence, because Esther is just now finding this out, compared to others who find this out early in their life. She states that she was open to the circulating air, which to Esther means that the ideas and words have built up inside of her and they can now move freely about her mind and life. A second piece of evidence is the quote “He is no longer speaking only for himself” from the article, He’s no phony: How fighting in World War II changed J.D. Salinger and The Catcher in the Rye’s Holden Caulfield. This source backs up Esther’s feeling of freedom, in the context of her being able to speak beyond herself. Esther is beginning to realize that she has been unknowing and that it is just the beginning of her finding out the world around her. Esther’s way of showing her innocence, isn’t specifically by showing us that she was pure and hadn’t been touched by the world, but by telling us that she is new to all components of the adult

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