Theme Of Rain In The Bell Jar

At the beginning of the novel, the motif of water is used to represent Sarah and Handful’s hope for freedom and unnoticeable, understated rebellions. The imagery of water is utilized to represent Sarah’s quiet defiance in her campaign for autonomy and fight to become a lawyer.

“So what’s special about rain? Ever since we crawled up on the land, the water, it seems to us, has been trying to reclaim us”. Rain symbolizes a lot of stuff. It symbolizes Fertility and Life. Rain is Clean which symbolizes a form of purification, baptism, removing sin or a stain. If the Rain is Restored it can bring a dying society back to life. Rain can also be destructive. It can causes pneumonia, colds, sickness, hurricanes, floods and other really dangerous stuff. Rain and Rainbows - God's promise never to destroy the world again brings hope; a promise of peace between heaven and earth. Snow which is also a type of water is used negatively. Snow creates cold and the cold can be really bad for people causing death, nothingness, inhospitable. Rain and snow are used so writers plot device, for atmospherics and to challenge characters.

     The use of symbols sets the tone of the piece. She personifies the rain in, “But the rain/ Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and

This feeling originates from the fact that she is unable to conform to one of the ways in which to pursue her life. All throughout the novel Esther battles the pressure put on her and women generally by society to bear children and focus on family life with her wish to dedicate herself to her writing hence going in a more academic direction. This oppression by society feeds her feelings of alienation: “...it wouldn't have made one scrap of difference to me, because 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 The Bell Jar) Plath uses the symbol of the bell jar in order to illustrate Esther’s personal prison. Esther is held captive beneath the bell jar. She is trapped beneath it and unable to escape just like she is trapped beneath the expectations of society. The bell jar is Esther’s own metaphor used to illustrate what she’s feeling in her day-to-day life, and the descent into mental illness. Regardless of what she’s doing or where she is, she sits alienated “under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.” Although her personal prison, the bell jar, is transparent, allowing her to view the world around her, the image she’s met with is distorted. This subsequently leads to

One of the first items the author states is that all symbolism is intentional, there are no accidents when it comes to analyzing famous literature. He describes certain authors like James Joyce and T.S. Elliot as “intentionalists” or writers who purposely try to control every part of the story through symbolism. The author Thomas Foster teaches us never to overlook anything in a novel even if it be little things like the color shirt they are wearing or what the weather is like outside. Building more off the last statement, precipitation, whilst being a little detail added into a story, holds a lot of important roles in moving the story along and even providing hardships for characters to overcome. Even more than that though, he says “It’s never just rain”, rain provides as a symbol in the story so that if someone is in the rain it’s almost as if they are being cleansed.

The water is symbolic of romantic love as an overwhelming and transforming force that changes in form and changes the people involved. The wave is large, unpredictable and spans out as far as the eye can see. The movement of an all-encompassing emotion like love is impossible to contain, much like water. It is free flowing and goes on forever. “Love was a game, a perpetual creation (Paz, 2). Love and water are both creations of the divine and humans tend to use and abuse them. However, humans are emotional and social animals who need both love and water to survive. Waves have a way of hitting humans all at once, just like love. It renders humans excited and full of surprise at first “wave of surprise” (Paz, 2) like a crashing delight. It also leaves us always wanting more. We have an unquenchable thirst for love and affection, thus we chase it even in its most sinister forms, like an abusive relationship. The narrator is accepting of the wave 's presence when she appears in his home where he was once hesitant of the idea of her in his life. Love also transforms and can change us, like water changes states. It can become overwhelming and hard to breathe, but it is often all around us and

Rain as an atmospheric weather condition can be mysterious, murky, isolating, and miserable and brings on misery.

Cleansing rain can symbolize a change in someone. This change can be symbolized as a mental awakening or change in a characteristic, big or small. Changes can include the way someone sees themself or society. Liekt the lady in “Song of Solomon”, her cleansing rain washed away her false ideal of beauty and left behind what beauty truly was. Cleansing rain can also symbolize becoming “stained”, or having a negative change in a characteristic. This is through cleansing rain making a puddle of mud created from this rain. Fog is also an event in weather that is symbolized. Fog symbolizes confusion or a clouded mind. Characters may say that they have a foggy memory, meaning they don 't remember something that previously happened. Fog can also confusion. This is seen through Scooby Doo, since a lot of the mysterious places that their gang visits re clouded by fog, symbolizing the mysteriousness in where their location. Floods and rain aren’t the only thing that is symbolized in weather, seasons also play an important role when trying to symbolize a literary piece.

For example, Foster used of a flood, where it would destroy anything in its path and worry people from drowning, but it can lead to a fresh start of an individual. Another example is snow. Snow can be represented clean, harsh, etc. depending on the way the author uses it in their plot. In TKAM, during Chapter 8, there is an emergence of snow. This was represented as an unwelcome weather (symbolically) since they have not had snow in their region. Upon this event, the children lost their composure and inner peace. To emphasize this drastic weather change, Atticus's neighbor's house catches on fire as well. Later, at the end of the book, there is rain that represents purity and a fresh

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 themes in The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath, are portrayed through Esther’s unique characteristics. Sylvia’s life experiences and personality contribute to these themes: growth through pain, the emptiness of conventional expectations, and the restricted role of women during the 1950’s. Esther must battle through several obstacles in order to move on with her life. She also feels like she does not fit in with society. Women’s role in society during this time also contributes to Esther’s qualities. In order to understand the themes of the novel, one must learn who Sylvia Plath is.

Three days later, she is found and placed in a mental hospital. First assigned to a rich psychiatrist named Dr. Gordon, Esther feels harassed by the doctors surrounding her. She feels that they do not really care about her; in a sense, they don’t. After seeing Esther three times, he states that she is not improving due to the fact that she has not been able to sleep, read, eat, or write in three weeks. She is moved to his mental asylum, where she suffers through electroshock therapy for the first time. The procedure is done incorrectly and she is shocked, literally.

Many works of literature use symbols to represent abstract ideas. One symbol that is commonly used is water. Water is a viable symbol because it is versatile. It can be used to represent many different ideals because water in itself is ever changing. Water is used in many works to represent such ideals as death, life, love, betrayal, purity, holiness, and so on. Giglamesh, the Old Testament, Egyptian Poetry, and The Odyssey all have symbolized water to represent an idea portrayed in the work.

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

Esther is experiencing repression because she is fighting the two different thoughts in her mind. Her state of repression is leading her to become depress.