Mental Illness In The Bell Jar

Mental illness and madness is a theme often explored in literature and the range of texts exploring these is tremendously varied. Various factors can threaten a character's sanity, ranging from traumatic events which trigger a decline to pressure from more vast, impersonal sources. Generally speaking, writers have tried to show that most threats to sanity comprise a combination of long-term and short-term factors - the burning of the library in Mervyn Peake's novel 'Titus Groan' precipitated Lord Sepulchrave's descent into madness, but a longer term problem can be discerned in the weight of tradition which caused him to worry 'that with him the line of Groan should

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

Sylvia Plath wrote a captivating novel following a young girl through her battle with mental illness. In her novel, Plath illustrated the extent of prejudice which society exhibited towards people with metal illness in the 1950's. Like Plath, Susanna Kaysen wrote about the effect of mental illness on the patient's lives. Kaysen also revealed how in the 1950's and 1960's, the unwillingness of society to come to terms with the prevalence of mental illness affected the girls diagnosed. Thus Plath and Kaysen brought to light the issues surrounding mental illness and society's negative views towards those who suffer from psychological issues.

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.

Depression is a serious, but common mental illness the negatively affects the way a person acts, feels, and thinks. Depression can cause sadness, or a lose of interest in something they enjoyed doing before. It can also cause a person 's ability to work, and affect a person physically and emotionally. Some people describe depression feels as though they are standing under a floor of glass, screaming, and banging to try to get the attention of the outside world, but they go about their lives without you. The problem is no one knows you’re trapped, or can even hear you. There are many times throughout the novel, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, that Esther Greenwood feel similar to this. The protagonist, Esther, is a nineteen year old

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.

This is what society saw as their ‘mental illness,’ but the real suffering they experienced is reflected the same way their mentalities are. Esther’s breakdown, for example, is “precipitated by the discovery of an inner deathliness concealed under the glossy surface of New York and her own compulsive drive to achievement” (Harris). The process of this is lengthy, whereas with Sylvia it seems to happen all at once, which is the only difference between them. Plath’s discovery of her inner deathliness being concealed under a perfect New York life happened in May of 1953, where she wrote “New York: Pain, parties, work… Carol vomiting outside the door all over the floor- and interviews for TV shows, and competition, and beautiful models…” (Hughes 87). She began to realize how her high expectations had ruined her trip, and how her mental illness was feeding off of the life she was living, which, like Esther, causes her to go back home in July more depressed than when she left.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is a realistic fiction novel that tell the story of a young women’s spiral towards insanity and her strive towards social acceptance. Plath writes of Esther Greenwood, a very talented and successful scholar, who receives the chance to intern for a magazine in New York City. This internship is when the audience is given their first glance into Esther’s lack of feelings and empathy towards her own well being. The novel remotely mirrors the renowned author’s experiences with hospitalization, clinical depression, years of electroshock therapy and its last effects. The author’s personal connection to the topic gives the book such a sense of realism, that the reader feels as though they are living through the experience.

After researching the end of the book, the recognition of connections of all kinds became obvious, the electrocution of the Rosenbergs and the shock treatment at the end of the book have a metaphorical if not a realistic kinship. In the end the Rosenbergs just meant death to Sylvia Plath. “I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like, being burned alive, all along your nerves.” The Bell Jar seems to be a realistic account of her own suicide attempt while she attended Smith University. Her use of sound, sensation—and her poetic ordering of material all connect to the sensational details of her personal life - or more specifically her death. The dark twist, as strange as it is, is the primary reason why readers find it so fascinating. Plath’s actual biography provides a clear conclusion to the ambiguous ending of The Bell Jar, where Esther enters her exit interview at the psychiatric institution at which she has spent months recovering. Thats the temptation at least, to simply place Plath’s life into the novel. However, it isn’t certain that just because Plath ended her own life that the fictional character in The Bell Jar, was intended to mimic that same

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 book that I chose to read for my project is called The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. The story follows a woman named Esther Greenwood through her downward spiral of mental illness, and describes her experiences as someone who does not fit the societal expectations placed upon her. She grew up earning A’s in school, and was regarded as a good student. However, as she entered college, her grades and mental health took a turn for the worse. Working an internship in New York for a magazine company, Esther was living a life that many would envy. She was surrounded by friends, entertainment, romantic interests, and the career that she had hoped for. However, none of the things that were supposed to bring her happiness succeeded in doing so.

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.