The Bell Jar Research Paper

Throughout The Bell Jar and The Color Purple both women are subjected to societal constructs that dictate the course of their lives. Although Celie and Ester come from different experiences and upbringings, they both endure the restricted freedoms, frustration, cruelty and violence that have been thrust upon women throughout history. In The Bell Jar Esther uses the fig tree story as a metaphor for her life. The fig tree and the figs upon it represent the opportunities and paths Esther's life could take. She shows her frustration by comparing her life to the fig tree saying “...

Sylvia Plath was the first person to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1982,and she is well known for her poems “daddy”. Sadly Plath committed suicide,but before she killed herself she left a note for one of her neighbors to tell them to get a doctor and when they found her she was lying in the oven with wet towels covering the door so her children wouldn't die from the gas to. Plath’s husband Hughes published most of her poems or novels that weren’t published because she had committed suicide at such an early age. It’s because of Hughes publishing her works that she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982 but she was too late for her to claim it because she was dead 20 something years or so. Plath achieved this from studying with the one and only Robert Lowwell which she made her famous Colossus

For most adolescents, the coming-of-age period can challenging and painful. For Esther Greenwood in “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath, however, coming-of-age is literally life-threatening. As she notices the differences between herself and her friends and attempts to find meaning in her life, Esther regresses into madness, and then makes several unsuccessful attempts to end her life using various means. The source of Esther’s discontent, however, is never entirely clear. In, “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath, the author expresses that Esther’s journey and events are that of a coming-to-age realization or story for her.

Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 28 Sept. 2014. Sylvia Plath’s work had become much respected in the world of literature. Critics began to question the greatness of Sylvia Plath’s literature.

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.

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.

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.

The Bell Jar illustrates the growing feminist itinerary prevalent during Cold War America by describing Esther Greenwood, and Plath’s own descent into madness. Linda Wagner has described The Bell Jar as the female bildungsroman with its principal elements being “‘a growing up and gradual self-discovery,’

The book that I chose to read for my project is called The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. The story follows a woman named Esther Greenwood through her downward spiral of mental illness, and describes her experiences as someone who does not fit the societal expectations placed upon her. She grew up earning A’s in school, and was regarded as a good student. However, as she entered college, her grades and mental health took a turn for the worse. Working an internship in New York for a magazine company, Esther was living a life that many would envy. She was surrounded by friends, entertainment, romantic interests, and the career that she had hoped for. However, none of the things that were supposed to bring her happiness succeeded in doing so.

Sylvia Plath was born on October 27th 1932 in Boston Massachusetts. At the age of eight, Plath lost her father from diabetes, and soon after suffered a deep depression and a failed suicide attempt. Later in her life, in a deep depression, Plath wrote most of her poems to express her feeling and emotions, that weren’t published until after her death in 1963 after she committed suicide. Her father, husband, and depression influenced Plath to write a majority of her poems. The reason they were such a success is due to the fact that they were personal to Plath as she allowed the readers to relive her experiences.

In Sylvia Plath's novel The Bell Jar, Esther Greenwood seems incapable of healthy relationships with other women. She is trapped in a patriarchal society with rigid expectations of womanhood. The cost of transgressing social norms is isolation, institutionalization and a lost identity as woman. The struggle for an individual identity under this regime is enough to drive a person to the verge of suicide. Given the oppressive system under which she must operate, Esther Greenwood's problems with women stem from her conflict between individuality and conformity.

The works of Sylvia Plath have always been at least slightly controversial; most of them have themes of feminism, suicide, or depression. Plath was born in 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts, and by the age of twelve she was reported to have had an IQ of about 160 (Kelly). Growing up in an age in which women were expected to be nothing more than conservative housemaids, Plath stood defiant against the views of society, choosing to expose any misogynistic prejudices or hateful prospects against mental illness through her writings (Allen).

In Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy,” and “Lady Lazarus,” Plath displays her deepest emotions and concerns. Her beliefs completely contradicts her fathers so she has to deal with a lot of negative emotions throughout her life. Both of these poems were both written at the end of Plath’s life and really show her state of mind. Throughout her poems, we are able to see the motivation behind her feelings and her suicide attempts. “Daddy,” and “Lady Lazarus,” by Sylvia Plath are the closing notes to Plath’s grudges towards her father, her husband, and many other things.

In her poem, “Lady Lazarus,” Sylvia Plath uses dark imagery, disturbing diction, and allusions to shameful historical happenings to create a unique and morbid tone that reflects the necessity of life and death. Although the imagery and diction and allusions are all dark and dreary, it seems that the speaker’s attitude towards death is positive. The speaker longs for death, and despises the fact the she is continually raised up out of it.

Sylvia Plath’s life was one of a troubled woman. Her lack of sanity was deeply reflected in her works of writing. Her mental state was very much affected by her life experiences such as her feelings of betrayal towards her father and her instable marriage to Ted Hughes. Plath’s poetry, was a way to explore her mental anguish and share her fixation with death, due to her deathly depression. Despite Sylvia Plath’s crippling life, her poetry was constructed in such an artistic manner in which it touched the lives of many