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Sylvia Plath poems about death
Themes and poetic style of Sylvia Plath
Themes and poetic style of Sylvia Plath
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The Bell Jar - Feminist Thought
The Bell Jar This autobiographical novel by Sylvia Plath follows the story of Esther Greenwood, a third year college student who spends her summer at a lady's fashion magazine in Manhattan. But despite her high expectations, Esther becomes bored with her work and uncertain about her own future. She even grows estranged from her traditional-minded boyfriend, Buddy Willard, a medical student later diagnosed with TB. Upon returning to her hometown New England suburb, Esther discovers that she was not selected to take a Harvard summer school fiction course, and subsequently starts to slip into depression.
Esther finds herself unable to concentrate and perform daily tasks. Therefore she decides to undergo a few sessions with Dr. Gordon, a psychiatrist, and even undergoes treatments of electroshock therapy. As the depression sinks in, Esther becomes obsessive about suicide, and tries to kill herself by crawling into the cellar where she subsequently ingested a bottle of sleeping pills. Esther's attempt fails and she is taken to a city hospital, and then over to a private psychiatric institution by the intervention of a benefactor. As Esther begins to recover, she develops a close relationship with her psychiatrist Dr. Nolan, and eventually leaves the hospital as a transformed woman.
This transformation, spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation is exactly the kind of happy ending described by Fay Weldon. In The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath ends the book with the scene of Esther going into meet the doctors of the mental evaluation board. She is standing outside the room with Dr. Nolan, observing the people around her and making observations about herself:
'Don't be scared,' Doctor Nolan had said.But inspite of Doctor Nolan's reassurances, I was scared to death.
There ought, I thought, to be a ritual for being born twice patched, retreaded and approved for the road, I was trying to think of an appropriate one when Doctor Nolan appeared out of nowhere and touched me on the shoulder.
All right, Esther.
I rose and followed her to the door..and guided myself by them (the doctors), as by a magical thread, I stepped into the room. (pg.199)
This particular assessment is significant to the rest of the work because Esther goes through a drastic change in order to get where she is now. At the start of the novel, Esther is seen as very intelligent, yet she faces the woman's dilemma of choosing between career and family to the ambivalence of remaining a virgin.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- This essay will compare the ways in which the novels "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath and "Quicksand" by Nella Larsen deal with relationships, paying particular attention to how this aids the characterisation of Esther Greenwood and Helga Crane, the central characters respectively. It will explore their relationships with other characters in the novel, especially how the authors use relationships to fulfil their writing aims. It will also discuss the relationship between the protagonist and the reader, and how successfully this is achieved through the novel's language. Finally, it will attempt to compare the ways in which they relate to the world around them, which is particularly fascinating as although both novels could pass as fiction, they are largely autobiographical, raising the question of why the author's chose to tell their own life stories in this relatively detached way.
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.
In this novel, there are very few women. In the World State society, men are the dominant gender. Lenina Crowe and Linda are the most featured women in this society. Lenina is a nurse at the hatchery and she can be used to represent single independent women in this society. She is described as young, beautiful and sexy. She is admired by many men in this community and has dated several of them. While in the lift, Lenina says that she had spent a night with most of the men there (Huxley, 2007 pp. 4). Lenina dates one man at a time. She is dating Henry Foster while at the same time she is attracted to Bernard. Sex in the World State society is encouraged from a young age and Lenina is scolded by her friend Fanny Crowe for dating one man for too long (Huxley, 2004 pp. 13). In this novel, being a single independent woman is not a virtue. A woman should date as many men as possible. Having sex with them should not be made a big deal. It is said “everyone belongs to everyone else” (Huxley, 2004 pp. 12). A single independent woman...
There is a great deal of evidence that supports the idea that we, in the twenty first century, are headed toward the society described by Huxley in Brave New World. Such things as advances in technology, government yearning for complete control, and an uncontrollable world population are many of the reasons Huxley’s world might become our own.
In the past 100 years, the world has completely turned around. The technological and computer revolutions have completely changed the way the world works. Henry Ford revolutionized factorial production through the creation of the assembly line. It increased efficiency and a basic standard of conformity among products, therefore making the company a lot more successful. The rest of the industry creating a nation-wide revolution based on efficiency adopted this new innovation. Following the innovation of the assembly line, a new era of development came into existence. In the 1970’s, computers were first introduced. Although they were as large as a room and could only play tic tac toe, they were the start of the technological revolution that made our society what it is today. Hundreds, if not thousands, of new inventions were thought of each year, creating new jobs and a new way of life. Records and files previously kept in file cabinets are now all computerized. Every person’s life is computerized: identification, police reports, one’s house and work. Almost every person has a computer, whether it is used for fun, school, Internet connection, graphic arts, or music. Computers have revolutionized our lives, whether that is a good or bad thing is the question. Do we create and control the computers, or have our own inventions taken such a hold on our lives, that they now control us? Aldous Huxley uses Henry Ford as the basis for an omni powerful leader who enforces the new values of efficiency through a totalitarian and mind-controlling government; subsequently, Huxley creates Brave New World to warn us of the effect that technology will have on our lives in the future.
Huxley effectively uses distortion in Brave New World in his depiction of Soma as a replacement for religion. Soma is a rationed narcotic that is emphasized by the government to help the people escape from their problems. The people of Utopia have become dependent on the drug to keep them in a constant state of pleasure. In their "perfect" society there is no escape from happiness. The primary example of the degrading effects of Soma is Linda. Brought back from the Savage Reservation after being left behind pregnant, Linda faced many moral and ethical dilemmas she chose to avoid. Her addiction to Soma, which is looked upon as a good thing by everyone except John, brings about the terrible end to her life in which she was in a state of constant delusion. Soma, as Mustapha Mond puts it, is "Christianity without tears" (244). Soma, in effect, is the key to social stability in Utopia. Soma prevents uprisings, saves revolutions and suppresses emotions. Although Huxley's distortion of religion is powerful, there are other strong arguments in the book.
Throughout The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath explores a number of themes, particularly regarding the gender roles, and subsequently, the mental health care system for women. Her 19-year-old protagonist, Esther Greenwood, is the vessel through which Plath poses many probing questions about these topics to the reader. In the 1950s when the novel was set, women were held to a high standard: to be attractive but pure, intelligent but submissive, and to generally accept the notion of bettering oneself only in order to make life more comfortable for the significant male in her life. Esther not only deals with the typical problems faced by women in her time, but she has to experience those things through the lens of mental illness though it is up for debate whether or not it was those same issues that caused her “madness” in the first place. In particular, Esther finds herself both struggling against and succumbing to the 1950s feminine ideal- a conflict made evident in her judgments of other women, her relationships with Buddy Willard, and her tenuous goals for the future.
Rationale: Nowadays, online presence is a “must” for many businesses. Moreover, being a Canadian sports retailer, it is an asset to have access to other markets that guarantee sales throughout all the year, and not just in the summer season. Additionally, it can’t be argued that Braun’s online incursion was very successful, and that being online represents another way of interacting with customers, which have been Braun’s base of success. The fact that they’ve translated their customer service orientation into its online portal, have provided them with a competitive advantage.
Plath uses metaphors to describe the protagonists entrapment, suffocation and torture. Bill Gibson (2000) clearly defines the purpose of the metaphorical bell jar, stating that the “bell jar is a entrapment, and a way of placing one on a display of sorts, behind a glass”. Hence, Plath uses the bell jar to describe how she feels- an object, to be stared and looked upon. - mom low ideas of mental illness- So plath uses the imagery of the bell jar to convey the suffocation and isolation that is felt by all women. Also, the unlimited expectations that society creates for women and esther’s failure to achieve the expectations leads to her sorrow and disillusionment. Hence, esther
The glass of which a bell jar is constructed is thick and suffocating, intending to preserve its ornamental contents but instead traps in it stale air. The thickness of the bell jar glass prevents the prisoner from clearly seeing through distortion. Sylvia Plath writes with extreme conviction, as The Bell Jar is essentially her autobiography. The fitting title symbolizes not only her suffocation and mental illness, but also the internal struggle of Plath's alter ego and novel protagonist Esther Greenwood. The novel illustrates the theme confinement by highlighting the weaknesses of both Esther and Plath.
Life is full of endless amounts of beautiful encounters for every character in the novel The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, except for Esther. She suffers from a severe and complex mental illness that impacts her life greatly. Although it is clear that Esther suffers strongly from depression in the novel, Sylvia Plath chooses to tell her life abstractly through countless symbols and ironies to prove that Esther depression completely consumes her. Everything that Esther sees is through a lens of depression, which scews her outlook on life.
Esther’s psychological transformation from a perfectly healthy person ends up suffering from depression. Her influences around her have negatively shown Esther a negative path to take. The events during the 1950s such as the Rosenbergs executions have only made the transformation even powerful. Sylvia Plath’s life could be compared to the Bell Jar because she was in the same situation as Esther. Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis and psycho dynamic has addressed depression through the main character Esther.
Imagine living in a society where there is no such thing as mothers or fathers, where you look exactly like the 500 people standing next to you, where casual sex and drug use is not only allowed, but is encouraged. Well, the society in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, is just that. While the prophecies from the Brave New World society are quite different from those of today, they can be argued as both right and wrong, but , and the technology to make them happen may be just around the corner.
At the end of the novel, Esther finally see’s a light at the end of the tunnel. She finally realizes that there is hope for her to become healthy again. Once Esther realizes that she will not always feel as bad as she does, she also comes to the conclusion that all the negativity and questioning in her life have made her into the person she has become. Esther finally realizes what her true identity is and she is okay with who she has become.
After finding out that she didn’t get into a summer creative writing course everything goes downhill for her and her suicidal depression comes out. She is forced to go to a Dr. Gordon and he proposes that she does shock therapy. But he botches the electroshock therapy and causes her depression to worsen. After Esther tries to take her life with sleeping pills she is taken to a psychiatric institution, she has a new doctor, Dr. Nolan. While at the institution, Esther goes through a electroshock and insulin therapy sessions and it is successful this tume. Also while at the institution she meets an old ex of her ex, Joan. They slowly make an acquaintance with each other. Later on, while Esther is getting better Joan takes her own life. The Bell Jar ends roughly a year later, with Esther going into her exit interview to see if she is ready to leave the