Self Deprivation In Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar

As Plath’s novel demonstrates, people often fall victim to their environments. In her article “The Separative Self in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar” Diane S. Bonds explains how The Bell Jar offers a brilliant evocation of "the oppressive atmosphere of the 1950s and the soul-destroying effect this atmosphere could have on ambitious, high-minded young women like Plath" (Bonds). Bonds psychologically analyzes Esther’s thoughts and actions to understand her mental decline. She makes the claim that “Esther is haunted by images suggesting the self-mutilations of marriage and motherhood” (Bonds). She proves her assertion with the evidence that Esther sees the world as a series of dismembered body parts. Esther cites the “goggle-eyed headlines” (1) staring up at her while walking through New York. She details her friend Doreen’s physical characteristics: “[she] had bright white hair standing out in cotton candy fluff round her head and blue eyes like transparent agate marbles, hard and polished and just about indestructible” (4). When she returns home to Massachusetts, she describes her neighbor, Dodo Conway: “Not five feet tall, with a grotesque, protruding stomach” (116). In all of these instances, Esther describes human beings through highlighting their body parts; however, she largely compares those parts to inanimate objects. She uses the word eyes to describe a headline, which is lifeless.

The Bell Jar critiques the distinctly define roles of men and women, of 1950s America, through the first person account of Esther Greenwood. Esther poses the issue that women are at the mercy of men. Men are encouraged to go out and fulfill their ambitions while women support them from home. Esther does not want to accept this.”This seemed a dreary and wasted life for a girl with fifteen years of straight A’s, but i knew that’s what marriage was like,...” (Plath 84). She has excelled in every subject all of her life only to be whittled down into a simple housewife. On the first day of her arrival back home Esther sees Dodo Conway pushing a baby carriage along with several young children following behind her. Dodo has six children and is already pregnant with another. The problem for Esther is that every woman has a predetermined role made by men, leaving her with no role model. The successful career women that she does know do not have attractive lifestyles. Her mother, Ms. Greenwood, only encourages Esther to conform. Esther is trying to build an identity for herself regardless of societal expectations with no support and no one to guide her. When meeting people she gives herself a false identity such as when she in Doreen meet Lenny, she says her name is Elly Higginbottom. Esther’s inability to decide who she wants to be leaves her ungrounded, which is partly responsible for her confusion, depression, and eventual disintegration.

In light of the semi-autobiographical novel known as The Bell Jar, written by Sylvia Plath, there are apparent literary devices in which emphasize the novel thematically. Historically, the novel was published during the heart of the burgeoning feminist movement in the United States of America around 1971. Thus, it rendered Plath to become an icon of the feminist movement due to publication of such a novel that detailed the coming of age story from a woman’s perspective who struggled with external and internal complications in which thwarted her ability to grow and transform as a woman in the restrictive society of America in the 1950s. The story is loosely based upon Plath’s personal experiences disguised under a woman known as Esther Greenwood,

"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn 't know what I was doing in New York" (1; ch. 1), the opening line of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, effectively sets the tone for both the life of Plath and the remainder of the novel. Plath 's depression and cynical outlook on life fueled the creation of many of her poems and novels, and particularly The Bell Jar in its autobiographical fictional genre. In this way, Sylvia Plath is able to more clearly display the disillusionment of the Modernist era in The Bell Jar as she showcases the harshly conforming expectations placed on women in the 1950s and their negative consequences on the psyches of these women.

Sylvia Plath reflects upon her life in her novel, The Bell Jar. Esther, the main character, is oppressed by societal standards of the 1950’s.  Women live unfulfilled lives due to societal standards. The subjection of women keeps them self-imprisoned, lacking individual success. Plath begins to demonstrate this by showing Esther’s college and young adult life in New York City.

Esther Greenwood is the main character in Sylvia Plath’s, The Bell Jar. Esther is an extremely talented woman who goes through a complex life in the 1950s. The baseline and plot of the story is linear. Its structure is the progress of the narrator as she moves forward in time; this includes flashbacks and memories in the story. At a young age she loses her father and in result there is no insurance left for her and her mother.

This quotation gives readers a vivid understanding of the result of societal's views on creating the 'typical American household;' babies were arriving seemingly out of thin air as a result of the Baby Boom and the call to marry and create a family. Esther consciously recognizes this expectation of women, and vehemently disregards such call from society. With Greenwood's observation, readers witness another instance in which Plath utilizes the motif of typical American family life in order to establish the theme of Women and Femininity. Throughout the novel, Sylvia Plath implements a recurring motif--whether implied or explicit--of the push towards the typical 1950s American family. Through this recurring motif, Plath is able to bolster the theme of the novel as well as establish a certain 'rebellious' quality to Esther Greenwood, a woman striving for individuality in a world full or

Mental illness is one of the most sought-after themes that has often been explored and represented in literature over a remarkably wide variety of writings. The various factors that threaten a character’s sanity can range from all those traumatic occurrences and events, or a combination of a number of long and short-term factors that may trigger the character’s decline into pressure, from several vast and impersonal sources. Also, very rarely does this threatened character succeed or emerge from the suffering undefeated and empowered, if not engulfed by it. Esther Greenwood is portrayed as one such character in Sylvia Plath’s widely renowned autobiographical novel ‘The Bell Jar’. The novel is a searing portrayal of a woman’s descent into desolation and depression. Depression as we understand it, is a chronic illness characterized by feelings of sadness and loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities, which may lead to several emotional and physical problems and nonetheless, require a long term treatment when it comes to recovery. (Major Depressive Disorder; MDD, APA, DSM-5). The Bell Jar is viewed as a piece of literature that aims to humanize the people suffering from a mental illness, rather than stigmatize them. It brings out the real facade of depression and the oppressing hopelessness and loss of identity that comes along with it. Corrosive feelings of worthlessness, self-loathing along with suicidal ideas and overall impaired functioning is an indication of major

What is in the spring of your life if the spring of a life refers to your first twenty years in your life? The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel by Silvia Plath, describes Esther Greenwood’s harsh spring of her life. Narrating in the first person, Esther tells her experience of a mental breakdown in a descriptive language, helping the readers visualize what she sees and feel her emotions. The novel takes place in New York City and Boston during the early 1950s when women’s roles were limited to domesticity. The repression of women’s roles in the American society during the 1950s and other influences such as her lack of confidence, her hesitance, her mother, and her feminist point of view seem to affect her mental breakdown.

After Esther Greenwood receives an internship at a magazine in New York City she begins to open her eyes to the reality many American live in, specifically relative to gender roles. For many women, the expression of love or passion is obsolete, and many are expected to remain pure until marriage rather than peruse a lifestyle of their choice. As well, they are expected to satisfy their fathers or husbands needs by stereotypically “getting up at seven, cooking them eggs and bacon and toast and coffee [and making the bed, and then when] he came home after a lively, fascinating day [they’d] expect a big dinner, and [woman would] spend the evening washing up even more dirty plates until [they] fell into bed, utterly exhausted. ”(Plath 60) On the other hand, it's considered natural for men to have sexual desires and

The role of women in 1950s society is repeated throughout the novel: That Women are inferior and dependent upon men. Esther’s boyfriend, Buddy, always quoted his mother saying, “A man is an arrow into the future and what a woman is is the place the arrow shoots off from” (Plath, 72). Esther didn’t want to be a “place the arrow shoots off from”; she wanted “change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions herself” (Plath, 83). Esther wanted to be her own arrow -- after college, she wanted to be a poet professionally. But that was impossible because a woman’s role was to become a wife and mother. Or, if nothing else, she became a secretary. Esther’s mother always urged her to learn shorthand because no one would be interested in a plain English major. If she learned shorthand, everyone would want her and she’d transcribe letters for all the up and coming young men. However, “the trouble was, she hated the idea of serving men in any way” (Plath, 76); Esther wanted to be her own person.

Sylvia Plath suggests that in certain cases there are gaps in what people expect of a person and what that person actually experiences; add that with depression and the expectations of women in the 1950s, and there will be certain distortions in individual thoughts. Esther, the narrator of the The Bell Jar, contradicts every aspect of what is expected of a women in this time period. Society and the way it works seems to drive Esther mad, possibly claiming what is expected of certain groups can ,perhaps, plunge an individual into madness. Esther herself is not a typical young female adult who conforms to society's view of women, in fact her very own neurotic behavior exploits the set values of people in this time period.

Today in the year of 2015 feminism is still an important, ever relevant movement that promotes the worth of women in a mostly male dominated society. The struggle of women was even more so in the 1950s, the timeframe in which the protagonist of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath resides. Esther Greenwood, while being clever enough to thrive in society is chained by her womanhood.

In The Bell Jar By Sylvia Plath Esther Greenwood realizes that what society in the 1950’s has in store for women is not what she wants for herself. Esther is trapped on whether to follow society's rules for women or do what she wants to do. Esther could also be considered a feminist in her time by how she disagrees about the role society gives to women and because she does not do as society says. Esther not only finds herself to be different from society but also from all other people whom she interacts with during her trip to New York.

The Bell Jar, written by Sylvia Plath, is a fictionalized memoir centered around main character, Esther Greenwood. Esther is a young woman from Boston who is extremely intelligent and funds her education through several scholarships. As she continuously draws nearer to the end of her education, Esther begins to realize the constraints put on women in the society she was born into. Women of this time were expected to get married and have children while also giving up their aspirations of a career to become a housewife. Esther, an avid writer at heart, wants to have a career in writing rather than raising a family. Through Esther Greenwood’s societal revelations, Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar demonstrates an urge to break free of pattern of