Madness In The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath

A very prominent theme throughout the book, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath was that thoughts haunt people which creates a bell jar around people, trapping them in the vortex of madness which is their mind. In the beginning of the book Esther contemplates what it would be like to be “burned alive” through electrocution (1). This thought essentially comes back to haunt Esther when she talks to Hilda who is “glad [the Rosenbergs are] going to die (99),” which contributes to the accumulation of erratic thoughts in Esther’s mind. The entire summer Esther talks about how she couldn’t stop thinking about the Rosenbergs, “all [she] could think about was the Rosenbergs,” (2) and that the experience was like “the first time [she] saw a cadaver”(1). The Rosenbergs ate away at Esther’s mind until it was unbearable and soon she was trapped in the chaos of her …show more content…
An example of this would be when Esther picks up a newspaper and it includes stories of suicide which then leads Esther to try and end her existence in the bell jar. Esther sees a headline “SUICIDE SAVED FROM 7-STORY LEDGE!,” and she starts to think about what would be a safe distance to die via falling from a building. The thoughts in Esther’s mind increase sharply, altering her mental state until she decides that she wants to end herself because she feels that no matter where she was it would be the same “sitting under the same bell jar,” and “stewing in [her] own air” (185). Esther makes the decision that she wants to escape the bell jar and decides to research ways that she can obliterate herself. Esther thinks that the ideal way to do it would be to “open [her] veins in a warm bath,” but when she tries she can’t and realizes that what she wants to kill wasn't on the outside “but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get,” (147). Esther realizes that she wants to kill her thoughts because they enclose her in the madness of her