The Bell Jar By Sylvia Plath

Throughout The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath explores a number of themes, particularly regarding the gender roles, and subsequently, the mental health care system for women. Her 19-year-old protagonist, Esther Greenwood, is the vessel through which Plath poses many probing questions about these topics to the reader. In the 1950s when the novel was set, women were held to a high standard: to be attractive but pure, intelligent but submissive, and to generally accept the notion of bettering oneself only in order to make life more comfortable for the significant male in her life. Esther not only deals with the typical problems faced by women in her time, but she has to experience those things through the lens of mental illness though it is up for

As one of the most renowned and well-known literary critics in the world of composition, Harold Bloom has self-importantly granted himself the privilege of specifying the reasons as to why we read. From human connection to self-actualization to the acquirement of knowledge, he adheres passionately and unquestionably that “the strongest, most authentic motive for deep reading…is the search for a difficult pleasure.” Bloom, as an experienced critic, fully recognizes the task of judging a book for its merit.

In the Bell Jar, Esther Greenwood struggles to find an identity within a male dominated society. From her mother’s expectations to her career’s expectation, Esther is unable to to distinguish the correct societal and personal ways to achieving her desired result. She is lost. Her continual journey down into the most repressive times of her life reveals past experiences that ultimately changed her path to becoming someone new.

Sylvia Plath is known as a profound writer, depicted by her lasting works of literature and her suicide which put her poems and novel of debilitating depression into a new perspective. In her poem “Lady Lazarus,” written in 1962, her mental illness is portrayed in a means to convey to her readers the everyday struggle of depression, and how it affects her view of her world, herself, and even those who attempt to tackle her battle with her. This poem, among other poetry pieces and her novel The Bell Jar, identify her multiple suicide attempts, and how the art of dying is something she has become a master of. Plath’s “Lady Lazarus,” about her trap of depression and suicide attempts, is effective and thought provoking because of her allusions to WWII Nazi Germany and the feelings of oppression and Nazism that the recurring images evoke.

Everyone deserves the freedom to be who they are without prejudice, without repugnance, and without the fear of not being accepted. In the book The Bell Jar, the author, Sylvia Plath took the reader into the mind of a suicidal woman named Esther Greenwood. The novel was set in the 1950s, a time period in which an ordinary woman is only seen as the person that stays at home as a mother and wife. Howbeit, Esther did not want to become one of the cliched women. In lieu she wanted to be an independent writer that did not get pressured into marriage. The Bell Jar opens the readers up to the ideas of what stereotypes and expectations can do to a person’s self-esteem along with their mental condition. That being said, the theme of The Bell Jar is, the pressure to follow certain stereotypes can lead to a corrupt mental state.

Suicide was a major problem among many generations of teens that grew up in brutal societies. In the 1950s, suicide was not widely mentioned, and many people suffered without any treatments. In the novel The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath, Esther tried to kill herself multiple times. Her life was planned by the society, and she was pressured into fitting in with others. Esther’s mental problems took over her life, and caused her to lose out on her teen years. She was a successful college student, who won scholarships, and was working at a fashion magazine. However, she went through many events that caused her to accept suicide as a way of running away from her problems. In the novel The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath, Esther’s mental illness began to have an effect on her when she interfered with Buddy, Marco, and Dr. Gordon.

19.Q: How does Esther react when served two kinds of beans in the same meal?

Esther evidently feels as if she is constantly being judged and tested, although in fact she is not. Her magnified sense of distrust is illustrated repeatedly throughout the course of the book, at once involving the reader and developing her own characteristic response to unique situations. Finally, one who views occurrences which can only be categorized as coincidental as being planned often experiences a suspicious response. When she finds out that an acquaintance from high school is at the same hospital, her first reaction is wariness: "It occurred to me that Joan, hearing where I was, had engaged the room at the asylum on pretence, simply as a joke." (Plath 207). Although the reader is incredulous of the protagonist's manner of thought, it is also possible to feel a connection to the situation. Such a

When Esther first arrives in New York, she doesn't have the same reaction that most of the other girls around her have. She enforces this reaction when she says “I guess I should have been excited the way most of the other girls were, but I couldn't get myself to react.” From a psychological perspective we could tell that something is deeply wrong with her. She is isolating herself from others. According to Saul McLeod, the author of the article called “Psycho dynamic Approach” states that “our behaviors and feelings as adults are powerfully affected by the unconscious thoughts” . This means that unconscious are a product of behaviors and feelings. She is unable to think in a rational way because of her inability to control the balance between her conscious and unconscious thoughts.

Esther’s mother and society’s expectation as a woman, which is to be a good wife and a mother, suffocate and demoralize Esther’s dream as a professional writer. Esther’s mother wants her to “...learn shorthand after college, so I’d have a practical skill as well as a college degree” (Plath 40). Her mother believes that Esther cannot further advance her education as a writer and simply wants her to be a secretary since professional career for women was uncommon and discouraged because it disturbs the role as a married woman. These pressures often obliged her to fall into the societal expectations, to give up her higher education, and to marry somebody. However, she knew that the marriage and the babies were not for her, “because cook and clean and wash were just about

and she ends up at the psychiatric ward. At the psychiatric ward, Esther ponders about her current status and how she got there, she says, “What was there about us, in Belsize, so different from the girls playing bridge and studying in the college to which I would return? Those girls, too, sat under bell jars of a sort” (Plath 237-238). In this comment, Plath’s voice is more directly heard, as she makes the generalization that all women live under a bell jar, in the sense that social conventions do not allow for individual expression and reduce women to have a supporting role (specifically toward men) rather

Of the two readings we were given to select from for our Midterm Assignment, I chose to conduct my initial psychosocial and diagnostic assessment on the character, Esther, from the semi-autobiographical novel “The Bell Jar”, by Sylvia Plath. The protagonist in the novel is a 19-year-old girl from the suburbs of Boston growing up in the 1950’s who has accepted a summer internship working at a prominent magazine in New York City. It is made clear from the beginning of the novel that Esther’s move has resulted in a possible adjustment disorder as she narrates her feelings of sadness, misplacement, and disconnectedness from reality.

The Bell Jar is a novel written in, 1963 written by Sylvia Plath. It is a story about a girl who under goes many traumatic life events that had the destiny to make or break her. The things she used to enjoy in life are no longer bringing joy to her life. She can’t find anything that gives her the will to go on. The Bell Jar is a story that will take reader on a journey with a girl who lets the gender roles of 1950s get the best of her. She lets people tell her what she can and cannot do and loses what it means to become your own person. The Bell Jar teaches the audience about the expectations, opportunities or restrictions on American Women in the 1950’s. As gender roles have become more diverse between a man and a woman, it is still more

Perhaps the most famous work of Sylvia Plath’s is The Bell Jar -- a book that follows the mental deterioration of a nineteen-year-old girl named Esther through the narration of Esther herself. Although Sylvia Plath hated life in general and committed suicide at the age of 32 after her husband left her, the myriad autobiographical elements, metaphors, and motifs that appear throughout her works produce a beautifully vivid representation of people, the world, and life itself (“Sylvia Plath”).

Throughout the story “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath, Esther’s mental health deteriorates overtime due to various factors in her social environment such as double standards. The novel begins with Esther’s internship at the Ladies’ Day magazine in New York City. Despite living the life every girl wishes to live, Esther is dejected and feels disengaged with the environment around her; thus resulting in the beginning of an identity crisis. Through the events of the story, gender double roles in the areas of education, careers, virginity and marriage affect Esther’s life significantly and it consequently leading to Esther’s confusion with her identity within the society. During the 50s, women were seen to be inferior to and dependent on men as