The Bell Jar is a novel by Sylvia Plath about Esther Greenwood, a young woman who moves to New York city for a summer internship. The book chronicles her progressing state of depression, her attempts to continue writing fiction, her mistrust of a psychiatrist, Dr. Gordon and her attempted suicides. After swallowing sleeping pills, Esther is found days later, still alive and then committed to a mental asylum where she receives electroconvulsive therapy. The "bell jar" becomes a metaphor for suffocating depression.
When we look at her childhood we see that Plaths father encouraged her precociousness and that Plaths mother made great efforts to see that her daughter would be successful in society She certainly came from a family that encouraged and rewarded her achievements and made it clear that discipline was one of the keys to success Was the ill fated short life of Plath really grounded in her fathers untimely death when she was barely eight years old She writes of this loss again and again but never d
In Sylvia Plaths autobiographical novel The Bell Jar the reader learns of the adventures of a young woman in a male dominated society that will not let her achieve her true potential Plaths alter ego Esther is thus driven to a nervous breakdown and attempts suicide numerous times In many ways this novel is a feminist text centered around the struggles of a young woman who cannot reach her goals in our male dominated society People close to Esther do not accept her talents as a poet and writer b
The title the bell jar can symbolic the emotional states of the character Esther The emotional state of Esther can be divided into several states The first state is about her internship life In the beginning of the book when Esther first time went to New York City for her summer internship she started to feel sick toward her surroundings As she described I didnt know what I was doing in New York I am stupid about execution The idea of being electrocuted makes me sickbut I couldnt help wondering
The Bell Jar Assignment The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is a novel about a young woman battling between societal expectations and sexuality The main character Esther Greenwood sinks into depression during the summer after her third year of college Esther spends a month interning at a ladies fashion magazine in Manhattan but quickly finds out she is uninterested in the work and unsure of her future career plans A major theme in this novel is female sexuality Many of Esthers problems stem from the c
Lazarus of Bethany is the subject of a miracle recounted in the Bible where Jesus restores Lazarus to life after four days of being dead Plath sees herself as the female Lazarus who has been raised from the dead three times and thus a miracle Like the sense of miracle Plath sees her deaths like Lazaruss for they dont fall into the category of usual deaths Sylvia Plath completed her masterpiece Lady Lazarus in the days before her suicide in 1963 while in a condition of disturbance suffering and