The Bell Jar : Literary Analysis

She was like a motivator she wanted the readers to understand that instances in her life, for example, making the tortillas or leaving home at an early age was never an excuse for her. She wanted people to follow in her footsteps and to reach their goals in life. She also talks about all her achievements, even though she was not very confident about her work. She makes connections between different events throughout the biography, to other information, which helps the reader learn more about her, and where she comes

Majority of her poems dealt with depression, anxiety and death. Plath has dealt with many

Jo March, the protagonist of Little Women, has a similar childhood to Louisa May Alcott. “Jo is the perfect part for Louisa to play” (Carter). Louisa uses these

Through life, we often lose someone we loved and cared deeply for and supported us through life. This is demonstrated by the loss of a loved one when Esther's father died when she was nine. "My German speaking father, dead since I was nine came from some

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.

According to Timothy Materer, one of the authors of the book called Social Issues in Literature: Depression in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar by Dedria Bryfonski as the Book Editor, Plath’s depression was caused by her father’s death when she was 8 years old. Her father’s name was Otto Emil Plath, who was an instructor at Boston University where he met her mother, Aurelia Schober Plath, a student, who is twenty-one years younger than her father in 1929. They were married in January 1932. On October 27, 1932, Sylvia Plath was born. They also have a son, Warren Plath, who was born in the year of 1935. During the same year and onwards, the health of their father gradually declined. Sylvia Plath’s father was persistent in dismissing the family’s request for him to seek a health care professional, fearing the doctor’s diagnosis of cancer. He collapsed in 1940 and was said to have untreated diabetes. His leg was amputated the same year in October and eventually died due to an embolism in the month of November 1940. When Sylvia Plath’s mother unravel the heartbreaking news to her about her father’s death, the young eight-year-old’s reply was that she would never talk to God ever again. The mother did not let the children attend their father’s funeral and they eventually left their house in Boston and moved to Massachusetts in

Throughout a person's life, they find themselves at a crossroads at many different points, from deciding a career to picking a partner. As youth exit their teen years, they are faced with difficult decisions concerning the trajectory of their life past high school, but the endless possibilities that are now available to these young adults undermine their ability to make a unbiased, unstressed decision. With an emphasis on being able to do it all, they are left unable to choose due to fear of abandoning the other options. This cultimating stress leads to certain youths blindly following paths that are praised by those around them, rather than addressing their own goals and wants, and making an informed decision. In Sylvia Plath's coming of

Sylvia Plath was a troubled young poet who wrote mostly about the difficulties within her family and marriage. Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts on October 27, 1932 and died on February 11, 1963 in London, England. In her early life she faced many obstacles, one being her father passing away when she was only 8 years old due to complications from diabetes (poets.org). Plath, herself struggled with depression as she tried to kill herself many times. Therefore these feelings of hers reflected in her poetry. Having a high expectation to be perfect, Plath’s depression was often a result of writers block (PAL).Plath’s poems continued to encourage her large audience of readers who were facing the same issues with depression and other struggles.(Poetry Foundation). Plath was a loving wife to Ted Hughes and later a wonderful mother to her two children (poets.org). Plath gave birth to two children in 1960 and 1962, Frieda and Nicholas Hughes (poets.org). Also in 1962 her husband, Hughes left her for another women,

A personal association with Austria seems far more likely for Plath's inclusion of these lines, and indeed a dose and profoundly significant one exists: Plath's mother, Aurelia Schober Plath, was of Austrian descent, both of her parents having emigrated from that country (Wagner-Martin 18). Sylvia Plath's complex, emotionally charged relationship with her mother suffuses many of her poems, of course, and repeatedly in works such as "Medusa" and "The Disquieting Muses," and throughout her novel The Bell Jar, Plath reveals her deep antipathy toward her mother--simultaneous with writing effusive, warm, affectionate letters to her "Dear Mummy."

To begin with, one of the topics that researchers studied was Plath’s early life and her family history, as events that occurred at an early age had a huge impact on the rest of her life. Sylvia Plath was eight and a half pounds when she was born on October 27, 1932 at the Massachusetts Memorial Hospital. After she was born, she lived at 24 Prince Street in Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts. Plath’s parents were Aurelia Schobert Plath and Otto Emile Plath. Aurelia Plath was an American with Austrian descent, while Otto Plath was an immigrant from Grasbrow, Germany. Her father worked at the Boston University as a biology and German professor with a specialty on bumblebees. When her parents met at a class Aurelia attended, instructed by Otto, Plath’s mother was twenty-one years younger than her father. Plath’s brother, Warren Plath, was born about two and a half years later on April 27, 1935. Then, in 1936, the family moved to 92 Johnson Avenue in Winthrop, Massachusetts. During the night of November 5, 1940,

To begin with, one of the topics that researchers study is Plath’s early life and her family history, as events occurring at an early age could have a huge impact on the rest of her life. Sylvia Plath was 8 and ½ pounds when she came to life on October 27, 1932 at the Massachusetts Memorial Hospital. After she was born, she lived at 24 Prince Street in Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts. Plath’s parents were her mother, Aurelia Schobert Plath, and her father, Otto Emile Plath. Her mother was an American with Austrian descent, while her father was an immigrant from Grasbrow, Germany. Her father worked as a biology and German professor at Boston University with a specialty on bumblebees. Plath’s mother was 21 years younger than her father; her parents met when Aurelia attended a class instructed by Otto. Plath’s brother, Warren Plath, was born about 2 and ½ years later on April 27, 1935. Then in 1936, the family moved to 92 Johnson Avenue in Winthrop, Massachusetts near the sea.

Because The Bell Jar is semi-autobiographical, we are given insight into the younger years of Sylvia Plath and have general ideas of how she managed her depression. After numerous suicide attempts, Plath eventually succumbed to her depression and killed herself on February 11th, 1963 at thirty years old. She left behind her forty-poem manuscript of Ariel on her desk, as well as an additional nineteen poems, that her husband later published two years after Plath’s death. Leaving the poems behind allowed for Plath to control the narrative of her life, as the poems from “Ariel” have a noticeable separation between the speaker of the poems, and Sylvia Plath herself.

Throughout the poem, Plath’s speaker fluctuates in her attitude towards her father, from hate to fear and back again, until finally a plain disdain as she ends her letter to her

In the poem Sylvia Plath definitely describe her true feelings about her departed father. At the beginning of her poem she interprets about a child living the unspeakable, dreadful memory of how her father pasted away. Throughout the conversation, the reader founded many emotional feelings of hate towards her father, and how he treated her. Sylvia Plath was afraid of her father. When it was clear that she never communicated, and shield herself towards him in the first line “You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoeing which I have lived like a foot for thirty years, poor and white, barely daring to breathe or Achoo” (Sylvia Plath, 1962). Her father experienced a growth on his toe, and ignored the situation until he passed away cause of the critical condition. It was too late to save his life. In the following passage, “And a head in the freakish Atlantic Where it pours bean green over blue in the waters off beautiful Nauset” interpret how Sylvia reacted when she found out her father’s medical condition that made her very indisposed to her stomach.

Otto Plath and Aurelia Schober were Sylvia’s parents. In late 1930, Otto got very ill, he thought it was cancer because he similar symptoms to his late friend that died of lung cancer. In 1940, he went to see a doctor because of an infection in his foot. The doctor diagnosed Otto’s illness as diabetes, not cancer. In October, Otto’s foot had to be amputated. On November 5 1940, he died just a couple days after Sylvia’s eighth birthday. Sylvia was confused and angry about her father’s death. She thought that in someway, he killed himself because his death could have been prevented if he went to see the doctor earlier. Her father’s death would go on to affect her for the rest of her life.