The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath was an inspiring and gifted young author who used her life experiences as muses for her writings. In the novel The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath portrays mental illness and feminism through Esther. During the 1950’s in America, women were not educated and not expected to go to college. They were not prepared to support themselves and could rely on marriage and children as a predestined fate. Plath and Esther defied these stereotypical views when Plath attended Smith College and exceeded expectations(“Bell”). In The Bell Jar, Esther also pursues her writing career at college as she endures mental illness, has to work against societal views of women, and tries to find a man who she can love(Johnson). Although Sylvia Plath was intelligent and thriving she suffered from great depression and mental illness since she was a child. As she grew older, her depression became severe and altered her attitude and her writing. After she returned home from Smith College for a summer and learned she had not been accepted into a summer writing course, she tried to rebuild herself and her writing, and in the process she became miserable. With a downfall in her writing career, she attempted suicide and was hospitalized. Later she was sent to an asylum where she was given electroshock …show more content…
Esther goes through a handful of men to find one she thinks is worthy enough to entice her when she states, “It was only after seeing Irwin’s study that I decided to seduce him”(Plath 185). Esther loses interest of marriage and uses her energy to find a man worthwhile to lose her virginity too and and has done just that. It was typical and anticipated for a women to get married, as Esther’s mother wants her too. Plath on the other hand followed the terms of exemplary behavior of a women and it led her to desperation, and