The Bell Jar : Beyond The Title

The Bell Jar, a coming of age, semi-autobiographical novel, by Sylvia Plath follows the life of a troubled young girl named Esther Greenwood, her slow descent into mental illness and then her subsequent recovery. The second half of the book details Esther's mental breakdown, her incarceration and stumbling recovery whilst the first half uncovers the protagonists, narrators day to day struggles which go on to contribute to her eventual breakdown . Throughout the novel, the reader comes to understand that Esther feels there are few choices; in character a woman must be either the virgin or the whore, both of which are demonstrated by Esther's friends, Betsy and Doreen. This presents one of the key internal conflicts the protagonist, Esther battles.

The Bell Jar is a roman à clef, which is defined as a true story with changed names. That being said, many of the events included in this book are believed to be events that really happened to the author, Sylvia Plath. A large part of these events revolve around a major theme, which is being trapped within mental illness. Esther, the main character that is based off of Plath’s personal journey through mental illness, suffers from one and even tries to commit suicide multiple times. She is very unhappy with her life along with the treatments that psychiatrists have her undergo. Many dated psychiatric treatments did not help patients, and could have even caused them more harm due to lack of research and knowledge about effects of the treatments. Esther is a great example of a patient that could have had a different life if she had received different care.

In The Bell Jar, Esther finds it extremely difficult to put her thoughts into words. She loses friends as she is unable to communicate with them. She lacks relationships due to her silent behaviour. “The silence depresses me. It isn’t the silence of silence. It’s my own silence,” (Plath 18) she says. Although at first Esther feels upset by the lack of connections she has, she loses motivation to even try and explain herself to others. Unlike Mr. Chance in The Cloud Chamber, and Deborah in I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Esther’s mental state does not improve, and she is unable to resolve lost connections. Esther’s mother tells her, “the cure for thinking too much about yourself is helping somebody who is worse off than you” (Plath 161). However, in her case, she’s so disconnected from the people who were once a big part of her life, that she doesn’t know who to reach out to. She doesn’t see herself being capable of maintaining stable and happy relationships with others when she can’t even maintain her own happiness.

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

At first glance, the term “bell jar” does not particularly stand out except as the title of the novel. However, upon further scrutiny and thorough reading, readers can deduce that this term actually has a negative connotation throughout the novel due to the fact that Esther, the main character, literally feels confined inside a bell jar with no way to get out. Written by Sylvia Plath, the novel The Bell Jar focuses on how restrictions of society suffocate Esther to the point where she is unable to handle the stress anymore. Plath uses symbols in her novel such as the bell jar, fig tree, mirror, and numerous newspaper headlines in order to emphasize Esther’s inner struggles coping with the restrictions of society, and also how she finds connections

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.

The 1950’s were a time when the world was dealing with the after-math of World War II. People of this era were coming to terms about how their lives had been changed forever. When the men went away to fight in the war, the women at home had no choice but to modify their lifestyles. These women, who mostly consisted of housewives, had to go to work outside the home. This caused this these once dependant women, who relied on their husbands for their sole source of income, gained a sense of independence. Many women felt they had a bigger purpose when they worked to achieve a goal instead of just working at home for their husbands. When the men came back from war their home life had transformed. They saw how the women in their lives had become self-sufficient. The men felt apprehensive and threatened by these newly empowered women. The still male-dominated society felt threatened, and new social concepts came into place to keep women in their place, so the men could still thrive. These social concepts were very gender specific; women had much less freedom than men. What was seen as socially acceptable for men was not for women. In Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar, she employs imagistic motifs to argue that society governs how men and women must conform to strict gender roles inflicted on them by society in order for a person to be viewed as successful and attractive.

One main theme in The Bell Jar is growth through pain. Esther experiences many painful events that deeply affected her life. For example, Esther stated,” I felt happier than I had been since I was nine and running along the hot white beaches with my father the summer before he died” (p.74). Esther’s inability to move past her father’s death added to her increasing mental illness. Esther had trouble growing up and dealing with normal events that everyone experiences. She takes an entirely different path and decides that she will not act the way society wants. Instead of finding a new meaning in life, she decides to committee suicide instead. Luckily, she is able to fight through these urges, and recover. Her time in the mental hospital was difficult, but she was able to move past her mad thoughts, and start a new life. Esther’s refusal to follow society’s path seems heroic, but her ability to recovery after all her pain was an incredibly dignified act.

Because the method was not implemented correctly, Esther is awake the whole time, feeling the electricity course through her. As her condition worsens, she is placed in a privately funded asylum. She once again undergoes electroshock therapy, but this time it is done correctly, lifting the bell jar off of her. She states that it hangs a few feet above her head. Being under the bell jar is a terrifying experience for Esther. It renders her useless of her greatest skill, writing. It makes her hate essentially everyone and everything that had once meant something to her. It turns her into a hollow shell. She makes an attempt to seem normal and portray the talented girl she has always been, up until then. “How did I know that someday – at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere – the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn’t descend again” (Plath 241)? Even though

In the beginning of "The Bell Jar" it explains that although this girl named Esther shows great promise and is very ambitious, she also shows great doubt in her abilities to achieve her goals. The doubt she feels in her abilities isn't made much better, as cultural pressure and popular belief of what character for all women must be takes its toll on her. After her boss scolds her for not knowing what she wants to do, Esther goes on a few dates. The last date she goes on ends with her date trying to rape her while she's drunk. Fortunately for her, she was able to get away from the assailant and walk quite a way to her home.

Protagonist: Esther Greenwood. A young college girl, that is going through some hard times. She doesn't know what she wants to do with her life, which is what is giving her those sad feelings. She suffers from depression and is very suicidal throughout the entire story. She is trying to overcome mental illness.

One is often enticed to read a novel because of the way in which the characters are viewed and the way in which characters view their surroundings. In the novel The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Esther Greenwood is a character whose "heightened and highly emotional response to events, actions and sentiments" (Assignment sheet) intrigue the reader. One of her character traits is extreme paranoia that is shown in different situations throughout the novel. As a result of this, she allows herself to be easily let down, as she believes that all events that are unsatisfactory are directed towards her. Finally, it is clear that she attempts to escape this notion by imagining an idyllic yet impossible life that she

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

To Esther, the world seems quite unfriendly, and the novel documents her desperate search for identity and reassurance. Nevertheless, Esther is intrigued by the world around her, and at the start of the book she is seen with a wondrous outlook on life that is reflected in the metaphors throughout the novel (Coyle). In the first half of the book, Esther is fascinated by the medical practices of her boyfriend, Buddy, as well as by current events in the newspapers and the thought of her own future family. As the story progresses, however, Esther becomes indifferent about life, and she develops bitterness toward everything that appears to prevent her from achieving things she wants (Huf). As Esther’s mental state worsens, the metaphors and similes presented to the reader begin to have negative connotations

Esther Greenwood, the protagonist of The Bell Jar by Silvia Plath, is cast under the spell of her own depression and the story of being released from the spell follows the structure of one of the 7 plot types Christopher Booker created. These 7 plot archetypes include the Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, and lastly the archetype of Rebirth. The novel The Bell Jar is classified as the Rebirth plot, in accordance with the 5 stages that make up said archetype: The Falling Stage, Recession Stage, Imprisonment Stage, Nightmare Stage, and The Rebirth Stage. Readers follow Esther as she pulls herself through the stages, through the falling, the rising, and the falling once more, until she reaches