The Bell Jar Plath

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath narrates a journey of introspection and the vanquishment of insanity. Esther Greenwood, the main character in Plath’s novel, is a praiseworthy character with commendable qualities. Her role in the story proves the theory that the good things you are given do not necessarily guarantee happiness, and that the real arbitration lies within. To reach this conclusion, Esther faced tribulations of everyday life and confronted them with unconventional methods. Her thoughts and actions throughout the story struck me as honest, poetic, and tenacious—all features that, in my opinion, make Esther a truly admirable character.
Esther is the type of person to internalize thoughts, but there are golden moments when she chooses

Her distinct literary voice stands as another one of her admirable traits. She managed to make even the bleakest of situations elegant and symbolic. Remarkably, she also managed to put her intense feelings and emotions into words, which is hardly an easy feat. “I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.” (Plath, 3) In the presence of the other girls and among the hustle and bustle of the busy cities in New York, Esther felt like an outsider. Her symbolic analogy is important because it gives readers a first look into her emotions, which would soon develop into something much more complicated. Later on, she mentions a conversation with her mother, whom Esther said had decided to “forgive” her. Her mother also said to forget everything that happened, like it was a bad dream. With this, Esther recollects everything that took place within the past few months—all the incidents and mishaps she had been a part of—and realized that it was not easy to forget her experiences like one would with a bad dream. “A bad dream. To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream. A bad dream. I remembered everything…Maybe forgetfulness, like a kind snow, should numb and cover them. But there were part of me. They were my landscape.” (Plath, 237) This metaphor

Though it may not be as powerful as it is in some points of the story, she never loses her ambitions. In one instance, a man who took Esther on a date was about to rape her but she fought back—and won. The man wiped the blood from his wound on Esther’s face as a symbol to reclaim the diamond he had given her as a gift earlier. The next morning, Esther “hadn’t, at the last moment, felt like washing off the two diagonal lines of dried blood that marked [her] cheeks. They seemed touching, and rather spectacular, and [she] thought [she] would carry them around with [her], like the relic of a dead lover, till they wore off of their own accord.” (Plath, 113) This is one of my favorite quotes from the book because it highlights how powerful and indestructible Esther was at that moment. She had saved herself and kept the marks as a memento. On the contrary, Esther also encountered things on the more difficult end of the spectrum. She “was beginning to resign [herself],” but even so, “If [she] was going to fall, [she] would hang on to [her] small comforts, at least, as long as [she] possibly could.” (Plath, 209) Esther was getting used to the routine in the mental ward she was soon admitted in and this passage showed that although she was slipping, she admitted to it and would at least try to hold on to what she found solace in. Tenacity is a helpful trait to have, especially in the conditions Esther