A Bell Jar with a tight lid As easy as it is for some individuals to go their lives knowing exactly who they are, some people go their whole life trying to find themselves. The journey to self-discovery is present in The Bell Jar, for the novel focuses on the narrator, Esther Greenwood as she struggles to find herself. Through the skillful use of various literary devices, the author, Sylvia Plath, presents the theme of identity in the novel. The first introduction of Esther’s lack of identity is presented in the very first chapter of the book when she introduces herself under a fake name, Elly Higginbottom, to a man she meets in Times Square. She justifies her reasons for using a false name by claiming that [she] didn't want anything
…show more content…
At one point she admits that “Joan was the beaming double of [her] old self, specifically designed to follow and torment [her]” (Plath 205). Indeed, Joan’s life is almost identical to Esther’s; they’ve shared the same boyfriend, they were both over-achievers in college, and they are both mentally unstable. After Joan kills herself, Esther begins to change her life. She starts by ending things with her ex-boyfriend Buddy Willard and demands Irwin, a man who hospitalized her, to pay for the bill. A few days later, she is invited to attend Joan’s funeral and while she is observing them put Joan six feet under, Esther finds a sense of relief as though the complicated suicidal part of her died along with her double Joan. At the funeral she begins to chant “I am I am I am” (Plath 234), a chant she used before, but this time a much “more comforting than another time the refrain had occurred, as she contemplated death through drowning” (Wagner) in one of the previous chapters. The irony in this is that most people would feel some sort of sorrow for someone, especially a friend who has just passed away, but to Esther, she feels as though she is liberated from the part of her that drove her to madness, thus giving the impression that there is hope for self-identity in Esther’s
At one point she admits that “Joan was the beaming double of [her] old self, specifically designed to follow and torment [her]” (Plath 205). Indeed, Joan’s life is almost identical to Esther’s; they’ve shared the same boyfriend, they were both over-achievers in college, and they are both mentally unstable. After Joan kills herself, Esther begins to change her life. She starts by ending things with her ex-boyfriend Buddy Willard and demands Irwin, a man who hospitalized her, to pay for the bill. A few days later, she is invited to attend Joan’s funeral and while she is observing them put Joan six feet under, Esther finds a sense of relief as though the complicated suicidal part of her died along with her double Joan. At the funeral she begins to chant “I am I am I am” (Plath 234), a chant she used before, but this time a much “more comforting than another time the refrain had occurred, as she contemplated death through drowning” (Wagner) in one of the previous chapters. The irony in this is that most people would feel some sort of sorrow for someone, especially a friend who has just passed away, but to Esther, she feels as though she is liberated from the part of her that drove her to madness, thus giving the impression that there is hope for self-identity in Esther’s