The Bell Jar Analysis

The Bell Jar : Depression Caused by Feminism Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar centers on the patriarchal society of the 1950s and how it eventually leads, Esther Greenwood, into her insanity. During the 1950s, women were expected to follow oppressive gender roles, of a wife and mother, which restricted women from achieving their own personal ambitions. However, Esther deviates from this expectation and does not conform into being a wife and mother. Esther’s struggle with the ideal nuclear family and her subsequent identity crisis, reveals Ether’s cause of depression, which stems from Esther’s feminist beliefs , to greater reflect the negative effects of a patriarchal society on women’s sanity. Esther struggles with the ideal of the …show more content…
Esther craves adventure and aspires to many eccentric life goals; Esther actively wanting to ‘shoot off in all directions’ reveals her nature of craving many different colorful aspects of life and not just one singular thing . As a result, Esther can not see herself being strapped down into this gender role because she is aware that, “ in spite of all the roses and kisses and restaurant dinners a man showered on a woman before he married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding service ended was for her to flatten out underneath his feet like Mrs.Willard 's kitchen mat”(Plath 85). Esther realizes that once she is married she is expected to ‘flatten out’ underneath a man’s feet and be submissive to him. Not only are women supposed to be …show more content…
When faced with what she wants to do in her life, Esther almost always refuses to submit into the gender role of being a submissive wife and mother. Although, Esther does sometimes state to want to be a wife and mother because of the pressure pushed on by the patriarchy. Esther ,instead, wants to be ‘everything’, as Jay Cee says. Because Esther does not conform into the easier route of conforming to society 's expectations, Esther’s future is like a fig tree, “ From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked… I saw myself sitting in the crotch of the fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn 't make up my mind” (Plath 77). Esther is indecisive so she can never pick what she wants until her ambitions are beyond possible. Esther’s indecisiveness leads to her metaphorical ‘starving to death’ because of her inability to pick society 's expectations or her own aspirations. As a result,Esther suffers an identity crisis because she can never pick what she exactly wants to do with her life and consequently who she really is. Since Esther does not know what to do with her life, it leaves her feeling inadequate and that she “had nothing to look forward to” (Plath 117). Esther’s identity crisis leaves her unable to pick what she wants, therefore keeping her from actually doing anything. From her