The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath

Because both her mother and doctor have failed her, Esther must learn to solve her problems on her own. She no longer believes in a cure for her illness and so she relies on the only escape she has left: suicide. Her thoughts on suicide are described in a straightforward, matter of fact manner. She focuses more on the practicalities of her death, how and where it should be done, as opposed to the reasons why she would do it. Her calm outlook on the inevitability of her death suggests that she must do it simply because she sees no other way to escape her pain. As she is most rational when planning her suicide, her point of view is easily understood and her actions seem reasonable.

Slowly declining from the mental strain of school and work and relationships, Esther begins to question her reason for being here, introducing a more obvious form of her mental state, “How could I write about life when I’d never had a love affair or a baby or even seen anybody die?” (Plath 121). Esther realizes that she hasn’t really lived life. During her downfall into depression, she begins to realize that she doesn’t have control over herself and that the future that she envisioned for herself isn’t the future she will in fact

During this time of turmoil, Esther encounters a homosexual moment. When she approaches DeeDee's room for music, she finds that Joan and DeeDee are together in bed. This moment brings back her past memory of another homosexual couple in her college days. Esther questions why a women would seek another woman, and it reveals her curiosity in terms of her own sexuality. She seems to despise the power men have over her, but she is uncertain about exploring about other spectrums of sexuality. Furthermore, Esther decides to get birth control as a way to gain her independence: “I was my own women. The next step was to find the proper sort of man.” She later develops a sense of her sexuality, and she builds her own self-esteem of an independent women. Since she was young, she has believed that the ideal marriage is of a man and a women. She hooks up with Irwin, and she finds that he doesn't actually care about her. This is similar to how she felt with Buddy because she felt like men were using her rather than understanding her as a person. All her past experiences led her to become more independent and proud of herself; Esther leaves all the men in her life to continue on her path to become sane once

The relationship gains the approval of both of the individuals parents and many expect them to settle down and start a family. While finding a life partner is what society of the time deemed a success for a woman, Esther resented Buddy's expectation of her to simply distance herself from her desire to be a poet and become a mother. “I also remembered Buddy Willard saying in a sinister, knowing way that after I had children I would feel differently, I wouldn't want to write poems any more. So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about numb as a slave in some private, totalitarian state.” (Plath The Bell Jar). Buddy’s views become clear to Esther and lead her to finally decide that she is not willing to subside to them. Esther isn’t willing to let go of her creativity in exchange for motherhood, however she feels that she in unable to proclaim this as Buddy’s views correlate with those of her society. Her first escape from alienation, her first feelings of liberation from Buddy Willard and his views are illustrated when Esther asks her trusty doctor, Dr. Nolan to go for a ‘’fitting’’. Esther feels free as she climbs up onto the examination table: she feels both mentally and physically prepared to take on Buddy. Unfortunately, “Ever since I’d learned about

While at home, Esther becomes into a deep depression when thinking about her experience in New York. She doesn’t want to read, write, or sleep and she stops bathing herself. Her mother sends her to see Dr. Gordon who is her first psychiatrist whom she doesn’t like and doesn’t trust. He is the man with a good looking family, and to Esther he is conceited. He doesn’t help Esther, but only hurts her more. He prescribes her with shock treatment. After this horrifying experience, she decides to kill herself. She tries to slit her wrists, but can only bring herself to slicing her calf. She tries to hang herself but can’t find a place to tie the rope, she tries to drown herself at the beach, but cannot keep herself under water, and then she crawls into a space in the basement and takes a lot of sleeping pills. “Wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.” (Plath pg. 117) This quote shows how she felt trapped in the bell jar, and her suicidal urges began. She awakes in the hospital to find that her attempt at suicide wasn’t successful. She is sent to another psychological ward where she still wants to end her life. Esther becomes very paranoid and uncooperative. She gets moves to a private hospital paid for by Philomena Guinea a famous novelist. Esther improves and gets a new

Esther is experiencing internal conflict. This is a book about mental illness, so majority of the conflicts will be within her own mind. Esther in unable to understand why she is not taking advantage of her trip more. She knows many other girls would have done anything to be like her. She lacks the excitement she thinks she should have and doesn’t understand why she does not have it. At this point in the book Esther is just seeing the tip of the iceberg. She thinks the feeling of not belonging will go away and doesn’t treat the feeling as a major problem.

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.

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

The events in New York introduce us to the beginning of Esther’s psychological transformation. The story first inaugurates with the

Esther faces an increasing sense of anxiety concerning her future. She is constantly worries what about her future. Her anxiety leads to a severe depression and several suicide attempts from which Esther slowly recovers through asserting her independence and controlling her own destiny. Silence also leads to Esther’s depression, “The silence depressed me. It wasn 't the silence of silence. It was my own silence.” Esther felt as if she was an outsider to society due to her background as a small town girl. She clearly felt a distinction between her and the other girls like Lenny and Doreen, “I felt myself shrinking to a small black dot [...] I felt like a hole in the ground.” Furthermore, due to her different background, she became disappointed in herself for not meeting the expectations of what society had portrayed girls to be. “I started adding up all the things I couldn 't do [...] I felt dreadfully inadequate [...] The one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and prizes, and that era was coming to an end.”

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

Esther was constantly pushed around by men, which was a stereotype in the 1950’s that men controlled the women and were always in charge. Esther had a relationship with a man named Buddy Willard who was expecting that she was just going to marry him. Men believed that they had everything a woman may desire, but actually they did not. Women were forced to marry men because of their fortune or family relations.

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

A woman’s virginity was considered to be precious as pureness was really important for a girl. Women were only allowed to have sex after marriage; whereas men could have sex before marriage. According to Esther, her virginity is a big factor that is weighing her down. The conflict between losing her virginity before marriage or after marriage causes her to become confused about what would

Sylvia Plath uses many literary devices to convey her purpose in The Bell Jar such as symbolism. The Bell Jar itself is used as symbolic representation of the emotional state Esther is in. The glass jar distorts her image of the world as she feels trapped under the glass. It represents mental illness; a confining jar that descends over her mind and doesn’t allow her to live and think freely. Symbols of life and death pervade The Bell Jar. Esther experiences psychological distress which is a major motif in the novel. The death of Esther’s father and the relationship with her mother is a possible reason for her illness. Sylvia Plath expresses the difficulties Esther faces and parallels her struggle with depression and illustrates it using various symbols such as a fig tree, mirrors, beating heart and a bell jar throughout the novel.