Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar

Gender roles have been a hotly debated topic in the most recent years, especially the role of women in society. Women have had set expectations that they are believed to conform to, which is shown in many pieces of film and literature. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald describes the life of a man in the upper class in the 1920’s, as well as women in the 1920’s. The movie The Princess Bride, written by William Goldman, visually explains the treatment and expectations of women, and especially focuses on the “damsel in distress” stereotype.. Roxane Gay’s “Bad Feminist” explains the stereotypes against women and ways women can come together and fight these constraints. Based on these sources, societal expectations take away from each individual’s identity, forcing women to conform to society's standards. In order to fight against these expectations, women have banded together and formed movements against these standards.

Living without control of your life and being powerless is especially difficult for anyone to cope with. In the novel The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath, a unique individual is struggling to find her way in life as she is living as a powerless individual. The lack of control, guidance, and power, leads to her downfall battling with reality. Plath gives the perspective of a young woman’s madness as a reaction of the social pressure that the 1950’s attributed.

Throughout history, women have been expected to fit into a rigid gender stereotype. Women in the early 1900s would be expected to care for children, be able to do household duties and obey everything their husbands instructed. Those women that did not fit the stereotype were looked down upon by members of society and were often alienated. Edna, the protagonist of the novel, had to battle her inner conflict of not wanting to conform to society's standards throughout the novel. Over, and over again, she was reminded of the fact that she was different and that society did not approve of her way of thinking. In the novel The Awakening, by Kate Chopin, the author uses the characters and their actions in society to express the oppression and expectations society had towards women.

The next requirement for being a “true woman” was submissiveness. According to society men were superior to women by “God’s appointment.” If they acted otherwise they “tampered with the order of the Universe” (Welter 105). A “true woman” would not question this idea because she already understands her place. Grace Greenwood explained to the women of the Nineteenth Century, “True feminine genius is ever timid, doubtful, and clingingly dependant; a perpetual childhood.” Even in the case of an abusive husband, women were sometimes told to stay quiet

Today's world of women would have only been a dream for women in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Magazines, newspapers and literature works played a key role in knowledge today about the lives of women throughout history. In Barbara Welters “The Cult of True Womanhood,” she discusses the role of women in the mid-nineteenth century. The four virtues of women, piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity were emphasized. Women were expected to get married at a young age, care for their husband, children, and home while remaining obedient to her spouse. Essentially women were property of their husband whom of which objectified them. Emily Dickinson's Poem “My Life had stood a Loaded Gun” can be analyzed in many ways, one of which

Society today has unreal expectations for women such as to always look good, have manners, for them to not sleep around and much more. With all this expectations from women you cannot have all of them follow the social norms. Women having all this pressure from society, I do not believe one could blame them for breaking free from society’s shackles and becoming their own person. In Kim Addonizio’s poem, What Do Women Want? She lets her readers know exactly what women want, by describing a red dress.

In the 1963 novel, The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath depicts the mental breakdown of a young woman, Esther Greenwood, as a result of the pressures of her environment. Esther grows depressed throughout the novel and goes “crazy” due the many conflicting choices she is faced with. In Esther’s 1950s society, she is expected to marry and have children. Yet, she is confronted with her many wants that conflict with this picture of ideal femininity. As Jay Cee says, Esther “wants to be everything” (83), and this is precisely where her dilemma lies. Essentially, Esther’s breakdown can be attributed to her fear of making a choice. This fear is communicated when Esther states “I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked” (62). Esther is torn between the want for many different futures. The “branches” suggest that her choices are mutually exclusive, and she is only able to take one path. All the figs are “fat purple,” communicating that all the options are equally fruitful, desirable, and attractive, making Esther’s decision extremely difficult. She describes an array of paths including motherhood and careers, none of which she is able chose from. She states she, “wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant loosing all the rest” (63). Unable to make a decision she “starves to death” (63), and allows the futures to “die.” She says, “the figs began to

Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar (1963) focuses on Esther Greenwood’s quest to freedom of oppression. Esther lives in a world where women are objectified and placed under a figurative bell jar. Buddy Willard as well as other men in the novel place Esther in this bell jar by projecting their negative views of woman onto her. The bell jar is symbolic throughout the whole novel because it is responsible for much of the trouble that Esther experienced. It caused her pain, questioned if she could really live up to her potential, and reduced her as a woman. Since she lives under this bell jar Esther’s growth as a person is stunted because she allows Buddy and the negative experiences in her life to rob her of what it is to be a woman, however she is reborn when she embraces her essence, and uses those negative experiences as stepping-stones that lead to a newfound confidence.

Throughout history, society often places women inferior to men, causing women to be predisposed to obeying their husband without a second thought. However, when a woman begins to question the idea of loyalty and obedience, her eyes are often opened to the mold that she is encased in and becomes determined to break through and develop her self-potential. In Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, the main female character is put through a revelation that changes her life forever.

Women roles have drastically changed since the late 18th and early 19th century. During this time, women did not have the freedom to voice their opinions and be themselves. Today women don’t even have to worry about the rules and limitations like the women had to in this era. Edna in “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin and Nora in “A Doll House” by Henrik Ibsen were analogous protagonists. The trials they faced were also very similar. Edna and Nora were both faced with the fact that they face a repressive husband whom they both find and exit strategy for. For Nora this involved abandoning her family and running away, while Edna takes the option that Nora could not do-committing suicide. These distinct texts both show how women were forced to

Ignoring women's will becomes an easy routine. Women are taught; they should be compliant of their men. The male dominance is an all-accepted fact in such a community. Women forget their personality, and their journey in life and they just stick with being a toy for men’s satisfaction. Analyzing Hawthorne and Ibsen texts, we should consider the era in which the authors were living in it.

Sylvia Plath’s writing chronicled a wide variety of subjects; from a descent into mental illness in The Bell Jar to doomed hospitals in the titular short story Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams. She was married to Ted Hughes and had two children with him before he left her and she committed suicide in 1963. Her works shared some common elements that were based on experiences from her own life. Discussions of depression, sexuality, and feminism were prevalent in her writing and were directly inspired by her own experiences both during and post-college. Her characters illustrate how she viewed her life during the 1950s, exploring details such as how women were not allowed to pursue a multitude of careers and were seen as inferior to men. Sylvia

Compare and Contrast: “The Bell Jar” and “Daddy” Literature and art, in general, can convey very strong, powerful feelings and provide emotional relief for the artist. Although Sylvia Plath likely meant for her works to be interpreted as simple fiction they are littered with autobiographical details. The characters are not meant to be herself, still, what she writes about the mental condition and feelings of the narrators are proven to be her personal thoughts, evidenced by the events of her life, namely her depression and suicide. Through her poems, in this case her poem titled “Daddy”, and her only novel, “The Bell Jar”, we can have a vivid, personal retelling of the issues she faced throughout her life such as the loss of her father, feelings of

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.

Although the subjection of women arose the same way as slavery and other forms of oppression, it differs from the fact that it does not occur by the rule of force but rather, by voluntary acceptance (Mill, 1995, pg.16). As mentioned earlier, women were “conditioned” to believe that it was their duty to be obedient to men; that it was natural to live their lives for them. In a way, a woman’s obedience to man