The Bell Jar

“In a society that tries to standardize thinking, individuality is not highly prized” - Alex Grey, American visionary artist and author. Written in 1963 by Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar is a stunningly intricate novel that tells the story of Esther Greenwood, a 19-year-old woman who has just been awarded an internship at Ladies Day Magazine in New York city. Although her life seems beautiful and full of opportunities, Esther comes to despise it as she slowly loses her mind upon returning from New…

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and Thelma and Louise (1999) are both similar in that they are both strong feminist texts, addressing and discussing the issues of women’s rights in early and modern society. To represent this issue, as well as others within the text, both employ the use of characterisation, the development of the protagonists, and themes. Characters in the two texts play an important role in expressing the limited freedoms and rights of women and the societal conventions they are…

The idea of maintaining an idealistic image of what a woman should be can be daunting for many women. In the novel written by Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar is a feminist classic as it entails the struggle that the main character, Esther Greenwood, faces as she battles relationships, motherhood and the ideal image of women brought to her by the magazine internship she works at, all while slowly losing her sanity. Esther unravels and begins to show signs of her mental illness early on. High-class…

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…

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…

Jay Scott published his article the “Jarring approach to Bell Jar” in The Globe and Mail; Toronto, Ont. His article begins with an introduction to Plath’s life before he begins to talk about Larry Peerce’s film interpretation of her novel The Bell Jar. Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar can be described as one of the most depressing books ever written. Unfortunately for Plath, the novel has part of her story that is roman-a-clef, meaning they are based on her actual life. In 1950 Plath started…

Sylvia Plath, knowledgeable beyond her years, had many complications with her mental health as she grew up. This poem in particular was introduced to the public through a biographical introduction of her novel “The Bell Jar”. Through the villanelle structure, Mad Girl’s Love Song uses seemingly endless repetition, dark personification, and references to mythological creatures to touch base with the complications of the human mind, the toxicity of mental illnesses and disorders, and beyond…

symbolism of the bell jar poignantly struck me. Bell jars are inverted glass jars used to display a specimen of curiosity in an unchanging, oppressive environment. For Esther, her madness is a bell jar. She feels like she is a foreign, rare creature people talk about, but never understand. I felt the same. People would always talk about me, as if I were some role model others should emulate, but never get close enough to learn the reality of my life. Similarly, Ester feels like the bell jar…

The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath is about a girl named Esther who is a young women from the suburbs in Boston. She is working for an editor in New York interning at a magazine during the summer. She feels like she doesn’t fit in or belong with society and this is leading to depression. After many suicide attempts, her mother sends her to a psychiatric institution where she meets a female doctor named Doctor Nolan who eventually helps her overcome her problems and depression. I chose the signpost…

A Summer in New York City Before The Trapping of a Bell Jar Pain, Parties, Work by Elizabeth Winder gives an account of the summer in New York City that Sylvia Plath talks about in her novel, The Bell Jar. This novel captivates in great and vivid detail the enjoyment that Sylvia Plath has in the summer of 1953. However, while Pain, Parties, Work sheds light on the vivacious side of Sylvia Plath during that summer, it doesn’t match the life that Sylvia portrays in her own novel. Sylvia in New…