"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet." (Chapter 7)
Who would like The Bell Jar?
I would recommend The Bell Jar, to anyone high school age, who likes to be surprised in a book. Someone who doesn't like being able to predict what'll happen at each turning page. I believe that anyone who enjoys reading realistic fiction and/or a story that can be related to, would read this. I was recommended to this book by my English teacher and a friend who had just finished reading it. I think that I would definitely read it again, because I think that I could uncover new things about this book if I were to reread it. This is the type of book that makes the reader think about life and reflect and see life in a different way. Because this book is autobiographical, even though the reader does not know it, they are learning about the author, through her book.
This is book is set apart from any other, because it shows the main characters' thoughts in her head and basically takes the reader along on her path to becoming insane. I think this book could appeal to anyone who has interest in psychology and how a person's mind works. It was interesting to me because I got to see what really can set people off. Also, I saw that some people are just born apart from others. In addition, Sylvia Plath's way of writing is not like other authors. She has a unique writing style and as the reader progresses into the storyline, it becomes more evident on how she differs. Plath's writing style is elegant and comprised through what she has experienced in life. She uses her life, her feelings, and her emotional connection to literature, to write. The way she composes her pieces, the reader can see her true knowledge and intelligence. Plath was depressed, from what we know, while writing this book and her sadness and basic cry for help is channeled and let out through The Bell Jar's main character. In the end, this book would be something that I would recommend to anyone who likes a good story with twists and turns and an unpredictable ending.
This is book is set apart from any other, because it shows the main characters' thoughts in her head and basically takes the reader along on her path to becoming insane. I think this book could appeal to anyone who has interest in psychology and how a person's mind works. It was interesting to me because I got to see what really can set people off. Also, I saw that some people are just born apart from others. In addition, Sylvia Plath's way of writing is not like other authors. She has a unique writing style and as the reader progresses into the storyline, it becomes more evident on how she differs. Plath's writing style is elegant and comprised through what she has experienced in life. She uses her life, her feelings, and her emotional connection to literature, to write. The way she composes her pieces, the reader can see her true knowledge and intelligence. Plath was depressed, from what we know, while writing this book and her sadness and basic cry for help is channeled and let out through The Bell Jar's main character. In the end, this book would be something that I would recommend to anyone who likes a good story with twists and turns and an unpredictable ending.
Overview and Analysis of The Bell Jar
The Bell Jar starts with the reader meeting Esther Greenwood, a timid but very adventurous college student from Massachusetts. Esther, rather called Elly Higginbottom travels to New York to work on a magazine for a month as a guest editor, with a women named Jay Cee as her boss. Esther is introduced as numb, worrisome and emotionless. She has a wide opinion, but rarely speaks her mind. She lives in the Amazon, a hotel she shares with eleven other girls who are guest editors as well. Esther hits it off best with Doreen, an outgoing, southern party girl. Another girl living in the hotel, Betsy, a midwestern and very friendly girl, who just wants to be friends with Esther. Esther does not feel the same that even when Betsy offers to share a cab with her, she quickly declines and jumps into one with Doreen. I think that Esther is selfish and rude for this act. I think that she looks at Doreen as someone who runs in a more popular crowd and as much as she says she doesn't understand girls like Doreen, I think that deep down she wants to be the same way.
While stuck in traffic, Doreen and Esther are approached by a man, by the name of Lenny, who convinces them to join him and his friends at the nearby bar. Esther is inexperienced with alcohol and is trying to figure out what she likes, so she just tries out things randomly, until she finds something she likes. While Lenny's friend, Frankie, is trying to talk with Esther, she brushes him off and leaves with Doreen to go to Lenny's apartment. Things start to get physical during their visit and that is when Esther decides it is time for her to leave. Even drunk, she's able to make it back to the hotel. She takes a hot bath and heads for bed, only to be woken up by a drunken Doreen at the door. She lays her down in the hall way after Doreen vomits and when she opens the door in the morning, Doreen has disappeared. I think that Esther just leaves her in the hallway because events ought she considers Doreen one of her friends, she does not feel that it is her job to look after her. Esther's way of thinking is interesting to me because she does not think of friends the same way other people would. I would like to think that I would do anything for my friends, while she does not.
The following day Esther attends a lunch put on by Ladies' Day magazine. She enjoys the food and goes into extreme detail on how she eats and puts each food item on her plate. She ends up eating two plates of caviar and chicken and avocados stuffed with crab meat. Betsy reminds her of the conversation she had with her boss, Jay Cee earlier that day about her aspirations and her future and becomes sad. The uncertainty of not knowing what she wants to do is what upsets her. After the lunch, she feels sick and her and Betsy throw up in the back of a cab, the elevator and the bathroom of the hotel. A nurse helps them and informs them of their food poisoning. Esther feels uupset after her discussion with Jay Cee and about the fact that she does know what she wants to do after this month. She feel uncertain of her furture and slightly embarrassed that she doesn't know, like she thinks that she should. The food poising in a way brings Besty and Esther closer. Esther finally lets her share a cab with her as well, not that she had a choice though. I think Esther having food poisoning reflects how she feels on the inside.
Just as Esther is recovering she receives a phone call a man by the name of Constantin, who is an interpreter for the UN. He asks her out to "get a bite to eat," and she agrees. By saying yes to him, Esther believes that she is doing a favor for Mrs. Willard, her former love interest's mom.
Even though Mrs. Willards son is someone that Esther does not particularly like anhmore, she still somehow feels that she owes Mrs. Willard something, this favor.
This thought then sparks her into recalling all the memories she has with Buddy Willard from the year before. She talks about him being at Yale, and how he wrote her a letter to ask her to a Junior Prom at Yale. Also about how she felt like they were just friends the whole time, but that when he kissed her at the end of the night, she was excited to tell the other girls about it. Esther thinks about the times she visited Buddy at Yale Medical School and how after one time she and Buddy were in his room and Buddy tried to initiate sex with her and how she was into it, until she discovered he had slept with a waitress during the summer. She is not bothered that he slept with someone, more that he acts innocent and like a virgin, which he is not. She eventually decides to break up with him, but before she can, he calls her and tells her he has been diagnosed with TB. She ends up not breaking up with him, because she knows they will not spend much time together due to his illness. Her not breaking up with Buddy because he is sick, most people would think its out of sympathy for him, but really she just is doing it for herself. She can say they're still together and tell the girls in her school all about him, or really lies about them, and not have to spend time with him because he is too sick to hangout with her. So she's doing it more for herself than she is for him.
Breaking back into the real world, Esther goes to dinner with Constantin and even finds him attractive. She feels happiness, which she says she has not felt since she was a child. She decides she should let him seduce her and sleep with him, as a way to get even with Buddy. He invites her to his apartment and despite Esther's desires, they only hold hands and drink wine. Sleepily, they lay down in his bed and she watches him sleep. She thinks about being married to him and decides that marriage would only consist of cooking and cleaning and would get in the way of her will to live. She falls asleep and goes home the next morning.
On Esther's last night in New York, Doreen convinces Esther to go to a country club dance with Lenny and one of his friends, Marco. When Esther sees him she profiles him as a "woman hater," but hangs around with him anyways.
Estehr is able to identify things about people that normally wouldn't be picked up on right away. Even though she thinks he's awful and knows he will be trouble she still chooses to hang around him. This shocks me because if I saw red flags from someone I wouldn't be comfortable hanging around them.
When he wants to dance, but Esther does not, Marco takes her drink and throws it into the plants and then makes her dance with him anyways. When Marco takes her outside later that night, Esther asks Marco questions about love and about his life. He barely answers them, but reveals that he is in love with his cousin, who is going to be a nun. He becomes angry about the situation and pushes Esther down onto the ground and rips her clothes. She just lays there, accepting that she is going to actually lose her virginity. Although, when Marco calls her a slut, she punches him in the nose and begins to fight him. He goes to leave her but turns back around to wipe the blood from his nose across her face. He begins yelling at her and looking for the diamond that he gave her. She runs from him and his threats and finds a ride back to the hotel. Here, she climbs onto the roof and throws all of her belongings and clothing items off the roof, one at a time. This whole scene hurts my heart. She even though knowing he is not reaps table of women and is forcing himself onto her, lets him. She is so absorbed in the fact that she just wants to lose her viriginity that she does not care that the act her is doing is not right. She has no problem with it until her calls her a derogatory name. I'm happy that she fights him and runs away from him and did not just lay there and let it continue to happen. This part was definitely hard to read.
Esther then takes the train back to Massachusetts, where her mother meets her. They travel back to her childhood home and Esther is reminded of all of the things she hates about her town and her neighbors. She receives a letter from Buddy saying he has fallen in love with a nurse, she writes him back that she in engaged and never wants to see him again. She then decides to observe around her a write a novel. She struggles because she feels that she is not experienced in life enough to write a good novel and gives up. That night she is not able to sleep and when she asks her family doctor for more sleeping pills, she is referred to a psychiatrist.
Esther visits Dr. Gordon and is frustrated because she does not feel like he can help her. After a few sessions, he recommends shock treatment. During her treatment, Esther wonders what she did to deserve a punishment like that one. It reminds her of certain events from her childhood and Esther decides that in order to not be like the rest of the people in the hospital, she should get better. After, she goes to a park where she ponders the idea of ending her own life. She realizes she cannot slit her wrists or let the water take her, and decides to go home.
After being convinced to start work at a local hospital, by her mother, she begins to hate herself even more and when her mother leaves for work, she writes a note saying that she has gone for a walk. She then takes her mother's sleeping pills and hides in a crawl space, takes a bunch of pills, and falls asleep. When she wakes up, she is in a hospital. After contradicting feelings of anger with herself, she wants to see what a suicidal girl looks like. When she gets a mirror and see her shaved head and bruised face, she drops the mirror to the ground. Esther is eventually moved to a hospital in the city and when Philomena Guinea, pays for her to go to a private mental hospital, she is moved there.
This is when the reader is first given the depth into the meaning of the bell jar and realizes that the bell jay of her illness is what really traps her. The bell jar symbolizes her pain and madness. When she learns she is being transferred to a new asylum, she plans to leap out of her car and jump from a bridge when they cross the river, but her mother and brother make that impossible by sandwiching her in between the two of them. She meets her new psychiatrist, Dr. Nolan, and makes a friend, Valerie. During her first session with Dr. Nolan, Esther explains how she did not like electroshock treatment and how she does not want it to be done again. Dr. Nolan tells her it was done incorrectly and that she has to have it done again at this hospital. She continues to seem to make progress and become more comfortable at the asylum. She even gets moved to a new ward, one for women who are closest to being released. Esther seems to enjoy her time in the new ward, until she is denied her breakfast tray one morning. She finds it strange because usually, only the girls going to shock treatment, don't get breakfast. The reader gets the pain she is feeling when reading this section. You can truly tell that she is scared and how much she does not want shock therapy threatmne,t it saddens me that this is the only way they see that they can fix her. Also the cruelty and the server ith of the shock treatments and how they are carelessly given, shows that people did not really think abut treatment. If you were said to be crazy, this is what they ought you needed. It went from zero to one hundred with no in between and that's truly scary to think about. I can't imagine today if it was still like that. Kind of sickening to hear about her experience.
Esther then learns she is scheduled for shock treatment and when it begins, she becomes unconscious. When treatment is done, and Esther awakes, Dr. Nolan takes her outside and the metaphorical bell jar seems to have been lifted from her life and she can now breathe again. This excited me. I had certain parts in the book that I didn't really like Esther, but was happy for her when the bell jar seemingly disappeared from her mind. The reader gets a feeling of happiness for her and relief.
She gets shock therapy treatments three times a week and continues to get letters from Buddy Willard. Having no interest in Buddy, but having her mind back on her virginity, she goes to a doctor to be put on birth control. She then goes on a hunt to find someone to lose her virginity to. While on one of her leaves from the hospital, she meets a math professor named Irwin. She goes to dinner with him and gets permission from her Dr. to spend the night in Cambridge. She decides to sleep with Irwin and when it finally happens, she begins to bleed and cannot get the bleeding to stop. Esther flees to Joan's apartment and Joan tells her that she is hemorrhaging. She is taken to the emergency room and gets the bleeding to stop. She is brought back to the hospital and several nights later, is informed that Joan is missing. The next morning, she learns that Joan hanged herself in the woods. This completely surprised me. I thought that Joan would be okay and would be someone that Esther could continue to lean on for help. Also, this saddened me because I feel like Joan was a good person.
Esther then is eventually considered to be released and when waiting for her last interview with her doctors, she's nervous. Even though she feels ready to leave, she realizes that the bell jar of her madness will probably come back later in life. She is called into her final interview, gets up to walk into the room full of doctors, and that is when, this book comes to a close.
Was definitely a weird ending and I felt a little angry to not get to know how things actually end up. To if she makes it out or not and how her life progresses afterwards, I had many questions of to if her illness comes back and takes over her life, if she becomes truly halt and if she lives a good life. This book definitely ends with a bit of a cliffhanger, but I think that is intended. The reader can make their own opinion on how she lived after and it leaves them asking questions.
The most interesting thing about this book to me, is that it is autobiographical. The more I dug into this book and the more I dug into Sylicia Plath's life, the more they connected and were similar. The ways Esther attempted to end her life are the same ways Plath did. Buddy Willard is created after a man named Dick that was in Plath's life. Even the smallest of details, like Esther's father dying when she was nine, Plath's father died when she was nine as well. The way I look at this is that this whole book was a cry for help. I think that Plath was Esther and all of her emotions were being channeled through her. The all of her emotions resembled those of Esther. This book was published under an alias and put out a month before Plath killed herself. I'm not sure to why she used an alias or why she killed herself shortly after publishing it, but I do believe that there's meaning behind it. I think that she could have thought publishing it under her true name, would've made people pressure her more and think more ill of her. I also think that she could have thought that maybe someone would pick up on the fact that it was her writing and that when no one did, she felt helpless and took it into her own hands. I think that her death is a message and a symbol within itself. She tried everything she felt she could and I'm the end just wanted freedom. I think she wanted the freedom that Esther seemed to have found. Also the the ending to the book is how Plath wishes her life could've been. That maybe writing The Bell Jar, she would change her ending. The ending the Esther got, is the ending Plath wishes she could've reached.
While stuck in traffic, Doreen and Esther are approached by a man, by the name of Lenny, who convinces them to join him and his friends at the nearby bar. Esther is inexperienced with alcohol and is trying to figure out what she likes, so she just tries out things randomly, until she finds something she likes. While Lenny's friend, Frankie, is trying to talk with Esther, she brushes him off and leaves with Doreen to go to Lenny's apartment. Things start to get physical during their visit and that is when Esther decides it is time for her to leave. Even drunk, she's able to make it back to the hotel. She takes a hot bath and heads for bed, only to be woken up by a drunken Doreen at the door. She lays her down in the hall way after Doreen vomits and when she opens the door in the morning, Doreen has disappeared. I think that Esther just leaves her in the hallway because events ought she considers Doreen one of her friends, she does not feel that it is her job to look after her. Esther's way of thinking is interesting to me because she does not think of friends the same way other people would. I would like to think that I would do anything for my friends, while she does not.
The following day Esther attends a lunch put on by Ladies' Day magazine. She enjoys the food and goes into extreme detail on how she eats and puts each food item on her plate. She ends up eating two plates of caviar and chicken and avocados stuffed with crab meat. Betsy reminds her of the conversation she had with her boss, Jay Cee earlier that day about her aspirations and her future and becomes sad. The uncertainty of not knowing what she wants to do is what upsets her. After the lunch, she feels sick and her and Betsy throw up in the back of a cab, the elevator and the bathroom of the hotel. A nurse helps them and informs them of their food poisoning. Esther feels uupset after her discussion with Jay Cee and about the fact that she does know what she wants to do after this month. She feel uncertain of her furture and slightly embarrassed that she doesn't know, like she thinks that she should. The food poising in a way brings Besty and Esther closer. Esther finally lets her share a cab with her as well, not that she had a choice though. I think Esther having food poisoning reflects how she feels on the inside.
Just as Esther is recovering she receives a phone call a man by the name of Constantin, who is an interpreter for the UN. He asks her out to "get a bite to eat," and she agrees. By saying yes to him, Esther believes that she is doing a favor for Mrs. Willard, her former love interest's mom.
Even though Mrs. Willards son is someone that Esther does not particularly like anhmore, she still somehow feels that she owes Mrs. Willard something, this favor.
This thought then sparks her into recalling all the memories she has with Buddy Willard from the year before. She talks about him being at Yale, and how he wrote her a letter to ask her to a Junior Prom at Yale. Also about how she felt like they were just friends the whole time, but that when he kissed her at the end of the night, she was excited to tell the other girls about it. Esther thinks about the times she visited Buddy at Yale Medical School and how after one time she and Buddy were in his room and Buddy tried to initiate sex with her and how she was into it, until she discovered he had slept with a waitress during the summer. She is not bothered that he slept with someone, more that he acts innocent and like a virgin, which he is not. She eventually decides to break up with him, but before she can, he calls her and tells her he has been diagnosed with TB. She ends up not breaking up with him, because she knows they will not spend much time together due to his illness. Her not breaking up with Buddy because he is sick, most people would think its out of sympathy for him, but really she just is doing it for herself. She can say they're still together and tell the girls in her school all about him, or really lies about them, and not have to spend time with him because he is too sick to hangout with her. So she's doing it more for herself than she is for him.
Breaking back into the real world, Esther goes to dinner with Constantin and even finds him attractive. She feels happiness, which she says she has not felt since she was a child. She decides she should let him seduce her and sleep with him, as a way to get even with Buddy. He invites her to his apartment and despite Esther's desires, they only hold hands and drink wine. Sleepily, they lay down in his bed and she watches him sleep. She thinks about being married to him and decides that marriage would only consist of cooking and cleaning and would get in the way of her will to live. She falls asleep and goes home the next morning.
On Esther's last night in New York, Doreen convinces Esther to go to a country club dance with Lenny and one of his friends, Marco. When Esther sees him she profiles him as a "woman hater," but hangs around with him anyways.
Estehr is able to identify things about people that normally wouldn't be picked up on right away. Even though she thinks he's awful and knows he will be trouble she still chooses to hang around him. This shocks me because if I saw red flags from someone I wouldn't be comfortable hanging around them.
When he wants to dance, but Esther does not, Marco takes her drink and throws it into the plants and then makes her dance with him anyways. When Marco takes her outside later that night, Esther asks Marco questions about love and about his life. He barely answers them, but reveals that he is in love with his cousin, who is going to be a nun. He becomes angry about the situation and pushes Esther down onto the ground and rips her clothes. She just lays there, accepting that she is going to actually lose her virginity. Although, when Marco calls her a slut, she punches him in the nose and begins to fight him. He goes to leave her but turns back around to wipe the blood from his nose across her face. He begins yelling at her and looking for the diamond that he gave her. She runs from him and his threats and finds a ride back to the hotel. Here, she climbs onto the roof and throws all of her belongings and clothing items off the roof, one at a time. This whole scene hurts my heart. She even though knowing he is not reaps table of women and is forcing himself onto her, lets him. She is so absorbed in the fact that she just wants to lose her viriginity that she does not care that the act her is doing is not right. She has no problem with it until her calls her a derogatory name. I'm happy that she fights him and runs away from him and did not just lay there and let it continue to happen. This part was definitely hard to read.
Esther then takes the train back to Massachusetts, where her mother meets her. They travel back to her childhood home and Esther is reminded of all of the things she hates about her town and her neighbors. She receives a letter from Buddy saying he has fallen in love with a nurse, she writes him back that she in engaged and never wants to see him again. She then decides to observe around her a write a novel. She struggles because she feels that she is not experienced in life enough to write a good novel and gives up. That night she is not able to sleep and when she asks her family doctor for more sleeping pills, she is referred to a psychiatrist.
Esther visits Dr. Gordon and is frustrated because she does not feel like he can help her. After a few sessions, he recommends shock treatment. During her treatment, Esther wonders what she did to deserve a punishment like that one. It reminds her of certain events from her childhood and Esther decides that in order to not be like the rest of the people in the hospital, she should get better. After, she goes to a park where she ponders the idea of ending her own life. She realizes she cannot slit her wrists or let the water take her, and decides to go home.
After being convinced to start work at a local hospital, by her mother, she begins to hate herself even more and when her mother leaves for work, she writes a note saying that she has gone for a walk. She then takes her mother's sleeping pills and hides in a crawl space, takes a bunch of pills, and falls asleep. When she wakes up, she is in a hospital. After contradicting feelings of anger with herself, she wants to see what a suicidal girl looks like. When she gets a mirror and see her shaved head and bruised face, she drops the mirror to the ground. Esther is eventually moved to a hospital in the city and when Philomena Guinea, pays for her to go to a private mental hospital, she is moved there.
This is when the reader is first given the depth into the meaning of the bell jar and realizes that the bell jay of her illness is what really traps her. The bell jar symbolizes her pain and madness. When she learns she is being transferred to a new asylum, she plans to leap out of her car and jump from a bridge when they cross the river, but her mother and brother make that impossible by sandwiching her in between the two of them. She meets her new psychiatrist, Dr. Nolan, and makes a friend, Valerie. During her first session with Dr. Nolan, Esther explains how she did not like electroshock treatment and how she does not want it to be done again. Dr. Nolan tells her it was done incorrectly and that she has to have it done again at this hospital. She continues to seem to make progress and become more comfortable at the asylum. She even gets moved to a new ward, one for women who are closest to being released. Esther seems to enjoy her time in the new ward, until she is denied her breakfast tray one morning. She finds it strange because usually, only the girls going to shock treatment, don't get breakfast. The reader gets the pain she is feeling when reading this section. You can truly tell that she is scared and how much she does not want shock therapy threatmne,t it saddens me that this is the only way they see that they can fix her. Also the cruelty and the server ith of the shock treatments and how they are carelessly given, shows that people did not really think abut treatment. If you were said to be crazy, this is what they ought you needed. It went from zero to one hundred with no in between and that's truly scary to think about. I can't imagine today if it was still like that. Kind of sickening to hear about her experience.
Esther then learns she is scheduled for shock treatment and when it begins, she becomes unconscious. When treatment is done, and Esther awakes, Dr. Nolan takes her outside and the metaphorical bell jar seems to have been lifted from her life and she can now breathe again. This excited me. I had certain parts in the book that I didn't really like Esther, but was happy for her when the bell jar seemingly disappeared from her mind. The reader gets a feeling of happiness for her and relief.
She gets shock therapy treatments three times a week and continues to get letters from Buddy Willard. Having no interest in Buddy, but having her mind back on her virginity, she goes to a doctor to be put on birth control. She then goes on a hunt to find someone to lose her virginity to. While on one of her leaves from the hospital, she meets a math professor named Irwin. She goes to dinner with him and gets permission from her Dr. to spend the night in Cambridge. She decides to sleep with Irwin and when it finally happens, she begins to bleed and cannot get the bleeding to stop. Esther flees to Joan's apartment and Joan tells her that she is hemorrhaging. She is taken to the emergency room and gets the bleeding to stop. She is brought back to the hospital and several nights later, is informed that Joan is missing. The next morning, she learns that Joan hanged herself in the woods. This completely surprised me. I thought that Joan would be okay and would be someone that Esther could continue to lean on for help. Also, this saddened me because I feel like Joan was a good person.
Esther then is eventually considered to be released and when waiting for her last interview with her doctors, she's nervous. Even though she feels ready to leave, she realizes that the bell jar of her madness will probably come back later in life. She is called into her final interview, gets up to walk into the room full of doctors, and that is when, this book comes to a close.
Was definitely a weird ending and I felt a little angry to not get to know how things actually end up. To if she makes it out or not and how her life progresses afterwards, I had many questions of to if her illness comes back and takes over her life, if she becomes truly halt and if she lives a good life. This book definitely ends with a bit of a cliffhanger, but I think that is intended. The reader can make their own opinion on how she lived after and it leaves them asking questions.
The most interesting thing about this book to me, is that it is autobiographical. The more I dug into this book and the more I dug into Sylicia Plath's life, the more they connected and were similar. The ways Esther attempted to end her life are the same ways Plath did. Buddy Willard is created after a man named Dick that was in Plath's life. Even the smallest of details, like Esther's father dying when she was nine, Plath's father died when she was nine as well. The way I look at this is that this whole book was a cry for help. I think that Plath was Esther and all of her emotions were being channeled through her. The all of her emotions resembled those of Esther. This book was published under an alias and put out a month before Plath killed herself. I'm not sure to why she used an alias or why she killed herself shortly after publishing it, but I do believe that there's meaning behind it. I think that she could have thought publishing it under her true name, would've made people pressure her more and think more ill of her. I also think that she could have thought that maybe someone would pick up on the fact that it was her writing and that when no one did, she felt helpless and took it into her own hands. I think that her death is a message and a symbol within itself. She tried everything she felt she could and I'm the end just wanted freedom. I think she wanted the freedom that Esther seemed to have found. Also the the ending to the book is how Plath wishes her life could've been. That maybe writing The Bell Jar, she would change her ending. The ending the Esther got, is the ending Plath wishes she could've reached.
Theme
The big picture theme in The Bell Jar could be argued as many things. It all comes down to the reader. There many ways this novel could be interpreted and many things that a reader could identify a theme as. When reading, many themes can be picked out. Such as, unfair or unusual medical treatment and how that effects the patient, gender roles and how men are superior to women, that madness is measured unfairly, etc. The theme that is most prominent, has to do with the symbolism of the bell jar in Esther's head. Countless times Esther has been told she is crazy. Countless time while reading, it is shown that she is not normal or regular or like other people. The big problem with her constantly being told she's crazy, just because she's different, is that then she starts to become driven more and more into insanity because that is all she can seem to think about. The fact that everything she does is different, weird, or not correct. She obsesses over losing her virginity because, in her mind, everyone but her has lost there's. This is why she does not seem to care who she loses it to, as losing it is more important than how or who she loses it to. Another trait that she is told is insane, it that she cannot seem to sleep or write correctly. The problem she has with sleeping gets worse the more she thinks about it, because when she's trying to sleep, all she's thinking about is that there is something wrong with her because she can't sleep. Which pushes her more to not be able to sleep. The same thing with writing. The more Esther opens up to her psychiatrist, the more he tells her just how wrong her mindset, thinking and actions are. Him and all her other eventual doctors tell her that she is abnormal and crazy so often, that it pulls her more and more into believing and being crazy. The more shock therapy she receives, the more it takes the numbness out of her and makes her more "normal." Or what society believe to be as normal. She begins to be able to feel more, where before she was pretty numb to her emotions and impartial to what people thought. Since the start of her treatment to the end, she slowly been morphed into what the doctors believe is better. The underlying theme to this all is that, the more a person is told they are something, the more that person will believe that and in the end, that society will always push you more towards their view of normal, no matter how different it is from the beginning personality.
The bell jar symbolizes all of the insanity and madness that Esther has, because of society. The society and world around her has driven her more into madness. In the end of the book, when she describes seeing the bell jar disappear, it signifies her becoming free from the braces of society and her own madness. There's a sense of freedom and relief that the reader sees from her. Sylvia Plath builds into the theme from introducing it in the beginning, seeing Esther struggle to find her place, watching her become more numb and dull to her own emotions and actions and eventually becoming emotionless. The story continues to build into the theme by proving that as hard as Esther tries to be normal again, she won't ever truly lose who she is. The depression may come and go but her overall personality cannot be erased. Esther sees that too, she sees that even though the bell jar has seemingly disappeared, she realizes that it will probably come back. Sociatal opinion is held so high as something that is important to fit in to. The theme of The Bell Jar is how society's opinion, as powerful and as pressuring as it is, can drive individuals into insanity and that even when that individual feels free from its grasps, the person can never truly be free.
The bell jar symbolizes all of the insanity and madness that Esther has, because of society. The society and world around her has driven her more into madness. In the end of the book, when she describes seeing the bell jar disappear, it signifies her becoming free from the braces of society and her own madness. There's a sense of freedom and relief that the reader sees from her. Sylvia Plath builds into the theme from introducing it in the beginning, seeing Esther struggle to find her place, watching her become more numb and dull to her own emotions and actions and eventually becoming emotionless. The story continues to build into the theme by proving that as hard as Esther tries to be normal again, she won't ever truly lose who she is. The depression may come and go but her overall personality cannot be erased. Esther sees that too, she sees that even though the bell jar has seemingly disappeared, she realizes that it will probably come back. Sociatal opinion is held so high as something that is important to fit in to. The theme of The Bell Jar is how society's opinion, as powerful and as pressuring as it is, can drive individuals into insanity and that even when that individual feels free from its grasps, the person can never truly be free.