Smith College

Sylvia Plath’s 1963 novel “The Bell Jar”, briefs the story of an amazing, gifted poet, Esther Greenwood, whose falling apart piece by piece due to the pressure of society. Throughout the novel Esther gave many signs on how she's slowly falling apart. When working for the Ladies’ Day magazine in New York, Esther develops a mental illness. An illness that makes her unable to sleep then leads to her not being able to read and write. She then tries to commit suicide multiple times due to the lack of…

Frida Kahlo, who was born on July 6, 1907, in Coyoacan, Mexico, was a Mexican artist known for self-portraits, which had a deeper meaning. Frida Kahlo used oil, Masonite, and canvas for her self-portrait paintings. She died on July 13, 1954, in Coyoacan, Mexico, due to a pulmonary embolism. The art styles of Frida Kahlo were surrealism and realism. Surrealism is an art form when a painting has unrelated images in a very strange way. Realism is a style of painting are depicted as they are…

she admits that “Joan was the beaming double of [her] old self, specifically designed to follow and torment [her]” (Plath 205). Indeed, Joan’s life is almost identical to Esther’s; they’ve shared the same boyfriend, they were both over-achievers in college, and they are both mentally unstable. After Joan kills herself, Esther begins to change her life. She starts by ending things with her ex-boyfriend Buddy Willard and demands Irwin, a man who hospitalized her, to pay for the bill. A few days…

Trances and Dreams Complicating Desire & Blackness in Jean Toomer’s “Esther” Jean Toomer’s “Esther” is a bildungsroman text that follows the light skinned protagonist, Esther, through four distinct ages in three chapters. “Esther” is full of magical realism coupled with female desire which is often expressed through dreams, visions, and color. From the beginning, the reader can contrast Esther with Karintha, Louisa and other female characters in Cane. Esther is not desired by white or black…

control her emotions, and her hatred of mirrors. During the most prevalent time of Esther's depression the gap between her mind and body is the strongest. The divide starts to occur because Esther wasn't able to make it into a writing course at her college for the summer and she is marooned at home in her mother's small house in the suburbs. As boredom starts to overwhelm her Esther…

The “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath is a novel about a girl named Esther Greenwood. The novels setting first begins in New York City. There Esther and eleven other girls works for a fashion magazine. A flash back to college is seen when Esther tell about how when she dated a man like her age named Buddy Willard. Esther believed that Buddy and his family was great but later she feels betrayed by Buddy when Esther ask and Buddy says yes, this scares Esther since she has never been intimate with…

recollects on this important part of her life is a key factor to seeing how she has changed in the end. (Plath 3) Esther never wanted to get married or have kids, yet after this time in her life she has one. In the beginning, Esther is introduced as a college girl that many would envy as she has a charming boyfriend, academic success, and a job for a women’s magazine in New York, with expenses paid, and piles and piles of free gifts. (Plath 3) Esther has never been out of New England except for…

magazine, where she excels. The problem is that she doesn't fit in with the eleven other girls, causing her to distance herself. Spending a month on the job, she learned a lot about friendship, but she also realized that she didn't know what to do after college. After getting food poisoning in New York, Esther spends the summer with her mother. During this time, she began to lose most motivation for writing, and is soon unable to sleep. When the psychiatrist he mother…

Considering how much influence it had on my family, I wondered what has influenced the music itself and the influence alternative music has had as a whole? While interviewing my mother, I found that the alternative music of the 80’s, preferably “The Smiths” and “The Cure”, have had a large impact upon her childhood. With this being said, I hope to learn about the history, sounds,…

This past Thursday I visited the Smith Academy for Excellence and was surprised at how the school worked to help the boys learn best. We learned that most of the boys come from a poverty stricken neighborhood with many family problems. Along with this, a majority of the students were African American but there were also a few Caucasians and Latinos. The age/grade range of the boys is from second grade up until twelfth. They are extremely proud that this is the first year they will have a…