Being a conflicted adolescence transitioning to the adult world, Esther rejected majority of the models of womanhood that is offered to her while she struggles to define her own ideas of what it means to be an authentic woman. According to the article Plath’s bell jar as Female Bildungsroman “the bell jar is the traditional bildungsroman, the character’s escape to a city images the opportunity to find self as well as truths about life.” In society today, most adolescent find it more convenient and necessary to conform to social environment when it comes to gender roles, individuals either live a double life and according Erikson they battle role versus identity confusion, trying to keep up with appearances or they become casualties of society …show more content…
When Esther thinks of the fig tree she finds it symbolic to host her new opportunities that exist. “From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked.” She associates each fig with a different life choice but her desire to branch out into numerous areas of her life got her conflicted because she didn’t know what to choose. Feeling so overwhelmed by the social pressure she began to demonstrate that the choices were much more complicated than they look, unable to break free she got angry and frustrated which continues her down spiral. The most relatable part of this novel is her journey that is filled with uncertainty in her upcoming plans and her pursuits. In every stage of her life she was plagued with the insecurity of her future. “Esther’s search for selfhood through the dramatically opposed lives of poetry and motherhood offers us a character who throws herself against the limited options available to her like a furious pinball, aiming for and then bouncing away from discrete targets of female identity.” The Radical Imaginary of the Bell Jar by Kate A. Baldwin. When Esther started dating the well liked boy in town Buddy Willard, she got respected by for that. Her mother approved the relationship but just like …show more content…
She halted doing even basic health rituals done by most people including washing her hair and her clothes. This is classic signs of depression. Depression is a neurotic or psychotic mood disorders marked especially by sadness, inactivity, difficulty thinking and concentration, a significant increase or decrease in a appetite and time spent sleeping, feelings of dejection and hopelessness and sometimes suicidal thoughts and attempts to commit suicide. In the beginning of the novel one could already sense that Esther was depressed. “I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel moving dully along in the hullabaloo. (pg) Esther tried to commit suicide more than once in the novel which caused her to be hospitalized in more than one hospital where she got treated. The first hospital didn’t do any good but the last one she did much better. In this hospital she met her psychiatrist doctor Nolan. Esther received talk therapy, insulin injections, electroshock therapy. All this allowed her to get herself together. The first thing that got Esther depressed was her family. Neither her mother or her father there to provide emotional stability. However, her father died at a young age and neither her and her mother dealt with the grief. Per se my health psychology text, grief is the psychological response to bereavement, a feeling of hollowness,
...es these primitive standards, she becomes melancholy because she does not attune into the gender roles of women, which particularly focus on marriage, maternity, and domesticity. Like other nineteen year old women, Esther has many goals and ambitions in her life. Nevertheless, Esther is disparaged by society’s blunt roles created for women. Although she experiences a tremendous psychological journey, she is able to liberate herself from society’s suffocating constraints. Esther is an excellent inspiration for women who are also currently battling with society’s degrading stereotypes. She is a persistent woman who perseveres to accomplish more than being a stay at home mother. Thus, Esther is a voice for women who are trying to abolish the airless conformism that is prevalent in 1950’s society.
Sylvia Plath wrote the semi autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, in which the main character, Esther, struggles with depression as she attempts to make herself known as a writer in the 1950’s. She is getting the opportunity to apprentice under a well-known fashion magazine editor, but still cannot find true happiness. She crumbles under her depression due to feeling that she doesn’t fit in, and eventually ends up being put into a mental hospital undergoing electroshock therapy. Still, she describes the depth of her depression as “Wherever I sat - on the deck of a ship or at a street a cafe in Paris or Bangkok - I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air” (Plath 178). The pressure to assimilate to society’s standards from her mother, friends, and romantic interests, almost pushes her over the edge and causes her to attempt suicide multiple times throughout her life. Buddy Willard, Esther’s boyfriend at a time, asks her to marry him repeatedly in which she declines. Her mother tries to get her to marry and makes her go to therapy eventually, which leads to the mental hospital. Esther resents the way of settling down and making a family, as well as going out and partying all night. She just wants to work to become a journalist or publisher. Though, part of her longs for these other lives that she imagines livings, if she were a different person or if different things happened in her life. That’s how Elly Higgenbottom came about. Elly is Esther when Esther doesn’t want to be herself to new people. Esther’s story portrays the role of women in society in the 1950’s through Esther’s family and friends pushing her to conform to the gender roles of the time.
In the end of the novel, Esther at last, comes to terms with reality. She has got to stop living her life according to what others expect of her. She needs to start living her life for “her”. After Joan commits suicide, Esther believes that unless she turns her life around, she will also commit suicide. Esther saw so much of herself in Joan, that when Joan ended her life she was frightened that she would follow in her footsteps, due to the fact that she had throughout the entire novel. Once Joan was gone, Esther was truly free. The part of Joan that was reflected in Esther vanished. The “bell jar” that had been suffocating her was finally lifted.
Sylvia Plath’s novel, “The Bell Jar”, tells a story of a young woman’s descent into mental illness. Esther Greenwood, a 19 year old girl, struggles to find meaning within her life as she sees a distorted version of the world. In Plath’s novel, different elements and themes of symbolism are used to explain the mental downfall of the book’s main character and narrator such as cutting her off from others, forcing her to delve further into her own mind, and casting an air of negativity around her. Plath uses images of rotting fig trees and veils of mist to convey the desperation she feels when confronted with issues of her future. Esther Greenwood feels that she is trapped under a bell jar, which distorts her view of the world around her.
Like most young adults, Esther, a nineteen-year old college student, also struggles with choosing her career after college due to the suppressed social conditions for women and her lack of confidence about herself. In the chapter seven, she adds up things she is not good at. Plath employs symbolism to demonstrate what Esther is not confident about. She cannot cook unlike her grandmother and mother. As cooking represents domestic work and women were supposed to do housework especially at this time, she expresses her uncertainty about being a good wife and mother. Also, she does not know shorthand, which signifies a practical job. Esther mentions that her mother has kept telling her that she needs to learn shorthand to get a job despite having a bachelor’s degree in English as women had difficulty in succeeding as professionals in their careers during the time. As a widow raising two children, her mother has to deal with family finances. Therefore, her mother emphasizes a practical standpoint in terms of ca...
The Bell Jar was an exceptional novel that can be used to view the ideas of gender roles. Ester, who despised marriage and focused on education, went through multiple events that pushed her to subvert and conform to society’s expectations. Women’s literature—such as this work—of the nineteenth century provided confirmation of society’s emphasis on “The Cult of Womanhood and Domesticity”. Plath’s life mirrors Ester’s and ultimately brought awareness to the oppression of women.
On the eve of her freedom from the asylum, Esther laments, “I had hoped, at my departure, I would feel sure and knowledgeable about everything that lay ahead- after all, I had been ‘analyzed.’ Instead, all I could see were question marks” (243). The novel is left open-ended, with a slightly optimistic tone but no details to help the reader fully understand the final step of her healing process. Esther desired to be free of social conventions and double standards, but consistently imposed them upon herself and on the people around her. Her evolution in understanding never reaches a satisfying conclusion, and the reader is also left with nothing but question marks.
The listing plath uses builds detail but also creates a long rambling effect, the repetition of the connective “and” emphasises the endless opportunities that are available to Esther. While many women would dive at the opportunities that are available, esther’s response to the dilemma of choosing is negative. She feels burdened with the dilemma and feels “dreadfully inadequate” therefore due to esther’s negative perception of self makes esther belief that she is unqualified to make a decision. But why does esther feel this way? What is the cause of the hesitation? - is it because of her mental illness?
... scolded me, but kept begging me, with a sorrowful face to tell her what she had done was wrong” (226).The reason Esther is in this situation is because of her mom. Esther depression has reached its climax. The result of an unhappy relationship according to Freud has impacted Esther.
In Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, gender roles are presented as barriers that stop female characters from reaching their full potential and from being in control of their own lives. The novel relates to the Feminist Phase of Second Wave Feminism which is focused on the oppression of women and the roles of women within a society.
The fact that Esther couldn't really accept her father's death contributed to career problems: she had no idea of what to do with her life, she `thought that if my father hadn't died he would have taught me....`
The beginning of the novel introduces the reader to Esther O'Malley Robertson as the last of a family of extreme women. She is sitting in her home, remembering a story that her grandmother told her a long time ago. Esther is the first character that the reader is introduced to, but we do not really understand who she is until the end of the story. Esther's main struggle is dealing with her home on Loughbreeze Beach being torn down, and trying to figure out the mysteries of her family's past.
The Bell Jar is an autobiography of a female sophomore. The girl-Esther, who is 19 years old, came from suburban area of Boston. As she had talent writing skills, she was invited to New York to serve as guest editor in a national fashion magazine office. In her one-month stay in New York, on one hand, Esther was cautious and conscientious to learn from an able and efficient female editor-Jay Cee, and she dreamt to follow Jay Cee’s successful step. On the other hand, she met various men and women in her colorful social life. These experiences reminded her of her life in women’s university, especially her relationship with her boyfriend- Buddy Willard. As the recollection often interweaved with reality, they brought Esther perplexity, discouragement and lost. Esther could not even more figure out the significance of reality as well as the goal of her own life. When her life in New York came to an end, Esther came back her hometown to spend the summer vacation with her mother. However, a new incident hard hit Esther- she was rejected by the writing course that she was given high expectation by professors in her university. The conservative atmosphere in the town made Esther feel days wear on like years. Esther denied completely that all achievements she got in past 19 years, and she even felt doubtful and terrified toward the future. Facing such heavy pressure, she was broken down totally. Since she was lost at that time, she tried to put an end to her life. After she was saved, she received psychological consultation in a psychiatric hospital. In this period, she rethought and relocated her position, and she rebuilt confidence step by step. At the end of the novel, Esther waited to leave hospital and she looked forward to starting a...
In her search for identity, Esther often compares herself to others. One sign of depression is the feeling the need to compare yourself to others. Throughout the story, Esther questions other’s morals and characteristics and tries to apply them to herself. One example of this is at the beginning of the novel. She wonders if she is more like her friend Betsy, or her friend, Doreen. She describes Betsy as a good girl, and Doreen as more of the bad girl type. Although Betsy is a cheerful and optimistic person, Esther concludes that she can relate more to Betsy. She cannot understand why though, because she feels as if she is not a happy, nor optimistic person.
The theme to this book is identity, all Esther really wanted to do was fit in. She figured that there was something wrong with her, with others, with society, that she didn’t want what other’s wanted. She didn’t want to get married unlike every other girl that got married because it was the norm. Esther didn’t find it fun nor got the reason why she would have to. The quote connect to identity because Esther wanted to be the same as everyone but she wasn’t she worked hard throughout school and work in order to succeed in life with or without a man. Ester’s identity was being a hard worker, an overachiever, someone who has high ambitions. So when she started to slowly distance from that identity she pretty much ended up in the unknown for her. With the pressures to fit in and be like everyone else with the fact that she was somewhat losing her identity she panicked and tried to go everywhere which eventually took a toll on her mind and body.