The Bell Jar, written by Sylvia Plath, is novel that is stitched together with equal amounts of struggle and emancipation within a society with preconceived identities. Sylvia Plath wrote The Bell Jar as an extension and parallel to her life. Plath was a model student who won many prizes and scholarships but suffered from mental illness, and nearly succeeded in a suicide attempt. The Bell Jar is a coming of age story about Esther Greenwood, a parallel of Plath and a young woman who finds that finding yourself isn’t as easy as society makes it seems. As pressure from both society and herself continues to mount, Esther finds herself stressed and questioning, something that proves to be nearly fatal. Throughout The Bell Jar, Esther extensively
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When Esther introduces Ladies Day to the reader, she takes special care to single Doreen out as an influence, even going as far as saying, “I guess one of my troubles was Doreen. I’d never known a girl like Doreen before” (Plath 4). Esther attaches herself to Doreen almost immediately, seeing her as having an “elaborate decadence that attracted me [her] like a magnet” (Plath 5). Doreen was savvy, man-hungry, and rebellious, a completely different personality that Esther had never encountered. Esther believed, at least for a little while, that maybe she could become more like Doreen, more savvy. This ends in disaster however when Esther follows both Doreen and Lenny, a lecherous disc-jockey Doreen picked up at a bar, to Lenny’s apartment. This situation was so foreign to Esther that she created a false name and identity just to experience it, perhaps in an effort to protect herself (Wagner 426). After an intense and foreign experience Esther recieves from watching Doreen accidentally disrobe, she leaves, not wanting much to do with Doreen anymore. In fact, when Doreen wanders back to Esther’s door later in the night, Esther “decided the only thing to do was to dump her on the carpet and shut and lock my door and go back to bed” (Plath 22) and that “I would have nothing at all to do with her” (Plath 22). This further proves that Esther, after fully …show more content…
This is illustrated through Esther’s failure and the consequences of her attempts to find her true self within her rebellious friend Doreen, who ends up sexually exploited by her boyfriend Lenny, or within her relationships with several men. Buddy Willard ruins the innocence of their relationship, Constantin is not sexually interested in her, and Marco is a woman hater who nearly rapes her. Only when Esther receives aid from Dr. Nolan does Esther look within herself for the first time and discovers how she truly feels. She learns about herself and her emotions and this allows her grow and move forward. Even though The Bell Jar was placed in the 1950’s and published in 1963, many of the situations parallel those today in modern times. Teens struggle with mental illness and awareness of self. If these teens were to look inward and seek good professional help for these issues like Esther did in The Bell Jar then perhaps more teens and young adults would understand
When Esther introduces Ladies Day to the reader, she takes special care to single Doreen out as an influence, even going as far as saying, “I guess one of my troubles was Doreen. I’d never known a girl like Doreen before” (Plath 4). Esther attaches herself to Doreen almost immediately, seeing her as having an “elaborate decadence that attracted me [her] like a magnet” (Plath 5). Doreen was savvy, man-hungry, and rebellious, a completely different personality that Esther had never encountered. Esther believed, at least for a little while, that maybe she could become more like Doreen, more savvy. This ends in disaster however when Esther follows both Doreen and Lenny, a lecherous disc-jockey Doreen picked up at a bar, to Lenny’s apartment. This situation was so foreign to Esther that she created a false name and identity just to experience it, perhaps in an effort to protect herself (Wagner 426). After an intense and foreign experience Esther recieves from watching Doreen accidentally disrobe, she leaves, not wanting much to do with Doreen anymore. In fact, when Doreen wanders back to Esther’s door later in the night, Esther “decided the only thing to do was to dump her on the carpet and shut and lock my door and go back to bed” (Plath 22) and that “I would have nothing at all to do with her” (Plath 22). This further proves that Esther, after fully …show more content…
This is illustrated through Esther’s failure and the consequences of her attempts to find her true self within her rebellious friend Doreen, who ends up sexually exploited by her boyfriend Lenny, or within her relationships with several men. Buddy Willard ruins the innocence of their relationship, Constantin is not sexually interested in her, and Marco is a woman hater who nearly rapes her. Only when Esther receives aid from Dr. Nolan does Esther look within herself for the first time and discovers how she truly feels. She learns about herself and her emotions and this allows her grow and move forward. Even though The Bell Jar was placed in the 1950’s and published in 1963, many of the situations parallel those today in modern times. Teens struggle with mental illness and awareness of self. If these teens were to look inward and seek good professional help for these issues like Esther did in The Bell Jar then perhaps more teens and young adults would understand