Patriarchal Oppression In The Bell Jar Analysis

Esther most significant anxiety is her desire to succeed in various parts of her life professionally and personally, while recognizing that she lives in a world where women rarely venture into success outside of their homes. When Esther thinks of the fig tree she finds it symbolic to host her new opportunities that exist. “From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked.” She associates each fig with a different life choice but her desire to branch out into numerous areas of her life got her conflicted because she didn’t know what to choose. Feeling so overwhelmed by the social pressure she began to demonstrate that the choices were much more complicated than they look, unable to break free she got angry and frustrated which …show more content…
Neither her mother or her father there to provide emotional stability. However, her father died at a young age and neither her and her mother dealt with the grief. Per se my health psychology text, grief is the psychological response to bereavement, a feeling of hollowness, often marked by preoccupation with the image of the deceased person, just as Esther does. “Esther’s father was the patriarch of the family; in confronting his grave she confronts all of the different pressures she feels from life and the patriarchy.” The domesticated wilderness: Patriarchal Oppression in The Bell Jar by Allison Wilkins. Without a father figure she felt empty and it prevented her from finding happiness which she tortures herself with suicidal attempts. When she underwent her first electro shock session with Doctor Gordon she had a flashback of her father. This shows how is death affects her. Furthermore, the lack of relationship with her mother also causes emotional distress. In light, her improvement began when she actually grieved over her father’s death which somewhat kills the memory of him which mainly contributed to her resistance to a normal