The Bell Jar

a. Jeffrey Eugenides and Sylvia Plath both carefully create characters that exist to exhibit the lives of teenage girls, and their inherit suffering during adolescent. The lives of these teenage girls in The Virgin Suicides and The Bell Jar are shaped by mental illness and isolation, stemming from a withdrawal from society and any kind of community thereafter. The Lisbon Sisters and Esther Greenwood are more often than not, forced to interact with communities and families that prove to be…

A Bell Jar with a tight lid As easy as it is for some individuals to go their lives knowing exactly who they are, some people go their whole life trying to find themselves. The journey to self-discovery is present in The Bell Jar, for the novel focuses on the narrator, Esther Greenwood as she struggles to find herself. Through the skillful use of various literary devices, the author, Sylvia Plath, presents the theme of identity in the novel. The first introduction of Esther’s lack of…

The Bell Jar is about a story of a young, brilliant and enormously talented woman and her struggles as she grows up in a foreign country, America. This short autobiographical novel details six months in the life of its protagonist, Esther Greenwood and the events of Sylvia Plath's twentieth year; about how she tried to die, and how they stuck her together with glue. In the narrative's opening chapter, Esther, an over-achieving college student, is spending an unhappy summer as a guest editor for…

ever wanted; the opportunity to spend a month in NYC editing a national magazine. One might ask what in the world possibly be the same about them? The main characters in the novels The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger be similar than thought possible. Both Ester from the Bell Jar and Holden from The Catcher in the Rye face many trials that helps them to develop their own views on protection of innocence, mental illness and death which results in them…

herself. As written in “The Bell Jar”, in Sylvia Plath’s book The Bell Jar her main character Esther is constantly searching for her identity through the novel which put pressure on her to become something greater. Esther ends up losing her sanity because she searches so much which leads her to her depression. (The Bell Jar, 30). Sylvia Plath uses Esther in her writing to show what she went through as a way to deal with her depression. As Helene Henderson writes, The Bell Jar is about a college…

Transitioning into adulthood is hard for any gender but it was especially difficult during the 1950s, a socially conservative time. As a woman in the 1950s, transitioning to adulthood was difficult and for Esther it was nearly impossible. Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar provides the opportunity to view a young woman's journey into early adulthood during a period where gender roles, double standards, and social norms severely restricted the options and opportunities available to women. Further, when…

Dr. Seuss once asked: “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”, a question still relevant today. Why should we conform to society’s expectations when we were born to escape them? In The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Esther Greenwood suffered from depression but suppressed how she really felt in hopes of fitting in, which caused her to sink into a further depression. Only when Esther grew out of her desire to fit in was she able to find a way out of her depression. This brought on a valuable…

wondered if her depression was neurotic or psychotic.” The main character from “The Bell Jar” is similar to her in this way, often falling into fits of depression, even breaking into tears when a photographer asks her what she imagines herself doing in the future. Is there a young woman in this world who hasn’t experienced this mental stress? In a social environment with tremendous pressure placed on women, Esther (The Bell Jar) has a tumultuous relationship with food. She consumes luxurious…

Elements of Voice: The Bell Jar The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is a timeless literary classic. One reason that this novel has transcended the ages since the 1960s is Plath’s expert use of the elements of voice. Few novels may stand the test of time. A vast knowledge of author’s craft is necessary to create a story that is intricate and detail-oriented without becoming overly specific and unrelateable. Sylvia Plath suffered from depression throughout her life, which led to her poetry and novels…

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath relies heavily on shift in tone and topic to portray the ongoing descent into depression that is the basic story arch for the main character Esther Greenwood. Plath employs a large arsenal of techniques to convey the necessary shifts in the novel. One of the most obvious methods is a direct statement of shift by a character. The direct shift is combined with hints through typical behavior, such as crying. Plath also uses contrasting statements both through Esther…