Smith College

The Bell Jar and Its Affiliates Frequently, a writer will express the same symbols and themes in a variety of their works. This is the case with Sylvia Plath, who not only wrote a multitude of poems, but also wrote the renowned novel, The Bell Jar. Three of Plath’s poems that share similar elements to her novel are “Lorelei”, “Daddy”, and “The Applicant”. These ideas include death beckoning the characters, an unstable family unit, and sexism towards women. The poems “Lorelei”, “Daddy”, and “The Applicant”

Both American novelists Sylvia Plath and Lois Lowry wrote a literature novel. These books, Plath’s The Bell Jar and Lowry’s The Giver, both received a literary award, although they were published three decades apart. There were more similarities and differences between the books, however. The Bell Jar and The Giver, had many similarities and differences, including subjects on themes, characters, settings, plots, and literary techniques. To start off, The Bell Jar and The Giver had contrasting themes

Over the span of Sylvia Plath's 1963 novel, The Bell Jar, hero Esther Greenwood perseveres through battles as her New York way of life gets ugly. She builds up an unpredictable fixation on death which thwarts her in finding her character. Her new thinking style just makes the way toward revealing her actual self significantly all the more intense, as self-destructive considerations cloud her psyche and she spirals into a condition of depression. Amid this time of massive battle , she adapts more

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is a realistic fiction novel that tell the story of a young women’s spiral towards insanity and her strive towards social acceptance. Plath writes of Esther Greenwood, a very talented and successful scholar, who receives the chance to intern for a magazine in New York City. This internship is when the audience is given their first glance into Esther’s lack of feelings and empathy towards her own well being. The novel remotely mirrors the renowned author’s experiences

time, subjects such as home economics were taught to girls during their high school and college careers to prepare them for their roles as a housewife (Dunkle 67). Not only are women brought up to become a wife, they are also taught to wait to lose their virginity to their husband, rather than losing it before marriage. Esther's mom sent Esther a cut out of the Readers Digest and mailed it to her at college. The article gave all the reasons why a girl shouldn't sleep with anybody until they were

ADW: A Ritual for Being Born Twice "Everyone wears a mask, its what's underneath that is who we really are". Maya started off our conversation about this article with this bold quote which I think very strongly articulated one of the most commonly experienced human qualities. Esther struggled so profoundly with her appearance and how others perceived her. We can all relate to feeling self-conscious, or feeling the need to put on an act to impress others. At our core, most humans just want to please

An American Dream is, “It was the custom at my college, the little freckled lady in the Scholarships Office told me, to write to the person whose scholarship you had, if they were still alive, and thank them for it.”(Plath 40). Indicating that it is the dream to go to college, have it fully paid for, and to thank the person that gave you the tremendous honor. Unfortunately, not many get the opportunity to be honored

The college setting is first presented to the reader in relation to Natalie’s authorisation over her space, in the description that ‘for the first time, standing in this doorway of this precise room on the day she first saw the college, Natalie knew a certain pride of ownership’ (Jackson, 51). This depiction of Natalie in relation to her setting equates the concept of

Sometimes, the books I choose to read and the things I choose to hear gives its own intentions of overwhelming me with forced ideas of “ intriguing strangeness” and in addition to thoughts of “demoralization”. In Sylvia Plath’s, The Bell Jar, these overwhelming intentions of forced ideas are met. Plath’s poetic style of writing unified with her bizarre life experiences, the setting in the mind of a 1950’s “psychotic” American woman, as well as the scenery of the life of the wealthy, the poor, and

When reading a piece of literature, a reader often finds many symbolic objects speckled throughout the text. Some of these symbolic objects may be quite obvious to distinguish, while others may be tucked away deep within the text. Whether the symbolism of the object is apparent to the reader or not the author places them in the story to elevate the power of the text. In Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, there are a plethora of symbolic objects that hold a deeper