Sylvia Plath; Along with authors such as Virginia Woolf, Simone de Bauvoir and Marguerite Duras, is one of the biggest female authors of 20th century. The Bell Jar shares more characteristics with Sylvia Plath’s life than just a semi-autobiographical novel. The main character of the book, Esther travels to New York to work as an intern in a fashion magazine, just like Sylvia Plath did. They are both poets, who lost their fathers at the age of 8 and both Esther and Sylvia Plath slowly falls into insanity. In her novel, Sylvia Plath tells the story of her first depression and how she managed to overcome it, or rather, how she delayed it. The Bell Jar is considered one of the first feminist novels of its time because the protagonist questions
…show more content…
Unlike men, women have the risk of having a baby. Getting pregnant before marriage is shunned in the society and is completely unacceptable while men carry no such risks as if they are free to do whatever they want. Women are treated as if it’s a necessity to get married and have children. For a woman to save her virginity for her future husband is considered the “normal” thing to do, and this can be seen in 20th centuries society as well as our society now and anything that goes against it is almost unthinkable in the judgemental eyes of society. However Esther, and Sylvia Plath believes in equality between men and women and says that it’s hypocrisy for a non virgin person to expect a virgin partner. “Ever since I’d learned about the corruption of Buddy Willard my virginity weighed like a millstone around my neck. It had been of such enormous importance to me for so long that my habit was to defend it at all costs. I had been defending it for five years and I was sick of …show more content…
Men and the women who conformed to men in this system could be happy while she couldn’t do so. In the book, even during her healing process, Esther rejects the reign of men by saying “What I hate is the thought of being under a man’s thumb, A man doesn’t have a worry in the world, while I’ve got a baby hanging over my head like a big stick, to keep me in line.”
The Bell Jar is a piece that Sylvia Plath has written because there was a voice she couldn’t silence in her, as she says. The problems of women and Esther at 1960’s is also the problems of our generation. It’s a book that everyone who feels stuck between the teeth of life should
Unlike men, women have the risk of having a baby. Getting pregnant before marriage is shunned in the society and is completely unacceptable while men carry no such risks as if they are free to do whatever they want. Women are treated as if it’s a necessity to get married and have children. For a woman to save her virginity for her future husband is considered the “normal” thing to do, and this can be seen in 20th centuries society as well as our society now and anything that goes against it is almost unthinkable in the judgemental eyes of society. However Esther, and Sylvia Plath believes in equality between men and women and says that it’s hypocrisy for a non virgin person to expect a virgin partner. “Ever since I’d learned about the corruption of Buddy Willard my virginity weighed like a millstone around my neck. It had been of such enormous importance to me for so long that my habit was to defend it at all costs. I had been defending it for five years and I was sick of …show more content…
Men and the women who conformed to men in this system could be happy while she couldn’t do so. In the book, even during her healing process, Esther rejects the reign of men by saying “What I hate is the thought of being under a man’s thumb, A man doesn’t have a worry in the world, while I’ve got a baby hanging over my head like a big stick, to keep me in line.”
The Bell Jar is a piece that Sylvia Plath has written because there was a voice she couldn’t silence in her, as she says. The problems of women and Esther at 1960’s is also the problems of our generation. It’s a book that everyone who feels stuck between the teeth of life should