Depressions often personified as a villain that traps people and does not let them go. This is a claim most of its victims would agree with, especially Esther Greenwood. The Bell Jar, written by the Sylvia Plath, follows Esther Greenwood’s descent into and recovery from madness. Esther is a young and brilliant writer, whose ambitions are stunted by a crippling depression. Plath, describes an outlook on reality that is distorted by mental illness through the symbolism of the fig tree and the bell jar. The indirect characterization of Esther also gives a perspective of this distorted reality. Though she wants to move forward, her state of mind holds her back. Plath argues, that mental illnesses give one an enlightened perception of reality, …show more content…
Esther is depicting a feeling of being wished around and simply moving through life without purposely acting. Just watching it all happen in complete in utter chaos as if she her being swept around by a giant untamable force. She feels separated from the madness and destruction though she is still a part of it. The eye of a tornado has a unique view of the destruction the tornado as a whole creates, but cannot do anything to stop it. For this reason, Esther identifies with the eye of a …show more content…
“Then something bent down and took hold of me and shook me like the end of the world [...] with each flash a great jolt drubbed me till I thought my bones would break and the sap fly out of me like a split plant. I wondered what terrible thing it was that I had done.” (Plath 143). Regardless of how in effective the treatment is known to be at the present time it was thought to be quite effective at that point. However, Esther viewed it as a punishment, showing that unlike most people of the time Esther sees the world in a different way. Her depression allowed her to have an enlightened perspective on the treatment and be able to prove it ineffective ness at that moment and later in the novel.
Esther Greenwood story shows an unconventional part of the depression, a different outlook on reality. Depression is in no way good thing to go through but with this level of sadness the sufferer is forced to look at themselves in a different and enlightened way. Esther understands that she, if she forgets her emotional pain, could have a conventionally nice life. Nevertheless, she also understands that the perils of the disease hold her back and it is not something she can run away from. Either directly or indirectly for better or for worse depression changes the way people perceive their
Sylvia Plath’s poor mental health, which subsequently lead to her suicide on February 11th 1963, may be seen to be reflected in her novel, ‘The Bell Jar’. Death may be deemed to have a lack of meaning throughout her novel due to the casual manner in which the protagonist and narrator, Esther Greenwood, deals with death. Esther’s father passed away when she was nine years old, and she feels that his death marked the point at which she changed, resulting in her mental health becoming unstable. However, along with her mother, she ‘had never cried for [her] father’s death’ (p.159). This clearly demonstrates how Esther deals with death; it is a necessary part of life, and to Esther, as aforementioned, her mental health has caused her to view death as more desirable than ‘sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in [her] own sour air’ (p. 178). Moreover, Esther’s numerous attempts at suicide remind the reader that Esther believes the only ‘way out’ is death. For example, in Chapter Thirteen, Esther asks her friend Cal, how he would kill
Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar is rich with an array of motifs, all which serve to sustain the novel’s primary themes. A motif particularly prevalent within the first half of the novel involves food, specifically Esther Greenwood’s relationship with food. This peculiar relationship corroborates the book’s themes of Esther’s continuous rebirthing rituals, and of her extreme dissatisfaction. The interrelation with food functions in two distinct manners: literally and figuratively. This analysis will concentrate on the figurative role of food in The Bell Jar, and how it denotes Esther’s overall state.
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
The surroundings which one is placed in can drastically contribute to their mental state. Deterioration and a lack of stimulation will be reciprocated within the mind of the inhabitant. “The Yellow Wallpaper,” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892, depicts a young, unnamed woman who is suffering with post-partum depression. In this time period, the treatment of mental illness typically did more harm than good as electroshock therapy, and the rest cure were the classic treatments of choice. Similarly, William Faulkner, the author of “A Rose for Emily”, written in 1930, gives the reader an inside look upon an elderly woman experiencing mental distress. Although there are major signs of an issue being present within Miss Emily’s old, southern house, the town chooses to ignore and cover them up as to not disrupt the elderly woman who buys poisons without a reason and sleeps next to the dead corpse of her lover. Theme and setting play two very distinct and important roles within each of these stories allowing the reader to have a more complete understanding of the message the author is trying to convey.
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
In her search for identity, Esther often compares herself to others. One sign of depression is the feeling the need to compare yourself to others. Throughout the story, Esther questions other’s morals and characteristics and tries to apply them to herself. One
Esther refuses to allow society to control her life. Esther has a completely different approach to life than the rest of her peers do. The average woman during this time is supposed to be happy and full of joy. Esther, on the other hand, attempts to repress her natural gloom, cynicism, and dark humor. This eventually becomes too hard for her and causes her emotions to go crazy. She begins to have ideas
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.
In the novel, Esther Greenwood, the main character, is a young woman, from a small town, who wins a writing competition, and
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
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.
own, Plath had dealt with years of depression, deeply rooted in her strong ambition to be perfect and successful. This part of her character is not something she tried to hide, and one friend even described Sylvia as having had “a sort of natural excellence at whatever she turned her hand to. If she wrote an essay it was effortlessly good… her very remarkable efficiency was also very natural to her and was never accompanied by any sense of strain” (Wagner-Martin 141). Plath strived to seem naturally perfect, and this description easily translated into the character of Esther Greenwood, who is the main character of the novel and whom readers follow along on her journey to insanity.
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 is a very gifted writer and deep thinker, which is probably very closely linked to her depression. Yet her depression keeps her from writing, or even reading or thinking (65). Esther is unable to focus on developing her talent, because she is “so scared, as if [she] were being stuffed farther and farther into a black, airless sack with no way out” (68).
Esther is now experiencing chronic depression. She does meet with a psychiatrist, Dr. Gordon, but she does not trust him. She does not trust him because he is attractive and seems self-absorbed. I think that Esther does not trust anyone who is attractive due to her self esteem. I think she feels that if she could not compare to them then she should have no reason to trust them, which is untrue. When she talks to him she tells him about her inability to sleep, read, or take care of herself. She says that she has not slept in seven days and has not showered in three. This hit me hard when I was reading it, and I felt for her. Depression is not just sadness, but it is a life altering state of mind. There is no motivation left to do daily tasks.