Sylvia Plath uses her writing including, The Bell Jar, as a reflection of her struggle with depression and anxiety and as an insight to help bring further enlightenment to the knowledge regarding mental illness.
Those close to Plath and those who have studied her work relate the struggle in The Bell Jar back to Plath’s life, stating that it was a direct reflection of her life. Research has indicated that Platt’s story was “[i]ntensely autobiographical, Plath's poems explore her own mental anguish, her troubled marriage to fellow poet Ted Hughes, her unresolved conflicts with her parents, and her own vision of herself”(“Sylvia Plath”). She was retelling her life to try and get it into words and get out her emotions she was bottling up because she didn’t think that an actual autobiography would interest others and they would be hurt by her writing. Research has also shown that Plath uses her writing to express her