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.
...g either one.” (Plath 120). Society has come a long way from there, though a margin still contain these views, more and more people are forming feminist ideals. The only if is that if Esther were here today our world would suit her much more comfortably.
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, while fictitiously showing the future possible advances of science and technology, is actually warning people of what science could become. In the Foreword of Brave New World, Huxley states: “The theme of Brave New World is not the advancement of science as such; it is the advancement of science as it affects human individuals” (xi). He is not suggesting that this is how science should advance, but that science will advance the way that people allow it to. The novel is not supposed to depict a “utopian” society by any means, but it is supposed to disturb the reader and warn him not to fall into this social decay. Huxley uses satire to exploit both communism and American capitalism created by Ford.
...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’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.
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.
1.) The Savage Reservation is similar to the Utopia world in several ways. They both have drugs that are designed to calm people down. Soma, used in the Utopia and mescal used in the Reservation. They both also have a separation within their own society. The Utopia has social castes and the reservation has separation between the men and women, the men having more power. The two worlds also both have ceremonies. The Utopia has the orgy porgy ceremony in which everyone gathers around and has an orgy, hence the name. The Savage Reservation has traditional dancing ceremonies like the many traditional Indian tribes have today. The two cultures have many similar ideas, just expressed a little differently.
In this world where people can acquire anything they need or want, we have to wonder, “Is the government controlling us?” Both the governments in A Brave New World and in the United States of America offer birth control pills and have abortion clinics that are available for everyone, thus making birth control pills and abortion operations very easy to acquire. Although both governments offer birth control pills and abortion clinics, A Brave New World’s government requires everyone to take the pills and immediately get an abortion when pregnant. This in turn shows us that A Brave New World’s government is controlling the population and the development of children. China is one of the few countries that currently have control of the development of children. In controlling the development of its children, China is also controlling the population levels. In any country, controlling the amount of children a single family can have can dramatically decrease the population levels. Just by having birth control pills and abortion clinics there for anybody to take advantage of shows that the involvement of either government is already too high.
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.
"'God isn't compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness.'" So says Mustapha Mond, the World Controller for Western Europe in Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. In doing so, he highlights a major theme in this story of a Utopian society. Although the people in this modernized world enjoy no disease, effects of old age, war, poverty, social unrest, or any other infirmities or discomforts, Huxley asks 'is the price they pay really worth the benefits?' This novel shows that when you must give up religion, high art, true science, and other foundations of modern life in place of a sort of unending happiness, it is not worth the sacrifice.
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Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World illustrates a colorful, fantastic universe of sex and emotion, programming and fascism that has a powerful draw in a happy handicap. This reality pause button is called “Soma”. “Take a holiday from reality whenever you like, and come back without so much as a headache or a mythology.” ( Huxley 54 ).
Many individuals wonder about whether using artificial pathways to happiness, through drugs, yields more positive or negative results for society. People enjoy the fact that they can easily escape from their stress by using these drugs. However, these drugs also can lead to terrible consequences, such as becoming more oblivious to reality or overdosing. In the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Huxley criticizes society’s reliance on drugs to provide citizens with artificial happiness. By writing about soma, a made-up drug that the government distributes in order to ensure that their citizens remain happy, Huxley implies that the allowance of similar drugs can lead individuals to become dependent on them and fine with their lack of freedom,
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...
The events in New York introduce us to the beginning of Esther’s psychological transformation. The story first inaugurates with the executions of the Rosenbergs, where the Rosenbergs were electrocuted to death. They were believed to be supporting communism. The executions of the Rosenbergs deeply affected Esther’s mental state because of the way that they were executed. She believed that electrocution was unconstitutional and should have not been applied to them. According to Esther in chapter one, “I knew something was wrong with me that summer, because all I could think about was the Rosenbergs and how stupid I’d been to buy those uncomfortable, expensive clothes”(Plath 2). This quote emphasizes how Esther is becoming unable to control her mind mainly because of the events surrounding her. Based on Freud’s theory, a person’s mind is composed of both unconscious and conscious thoughts. When these thoughts interact they create a state of repression, where the person becomes unaware of conflicting problems that they be having. According to Rashmi Nemade author of “Psychology of Depression- Psychodynamic Theories Esther”, repress...
Ever since I was created, I have been mining here at Sector C-88 for coal. Sector C-88 is a monumental quarry with up to ten-thousand workers in a 10-kilometer by 15-kilometer area. Surrounding the massive quarry is an extensive network of processing and extracting factories and centers. Beyond that is, well, I don’t know. It’s just called the Beyond here, and it’s said to have something called “society”, but there’s probably nothing interesting like coal or anything. I looked up at the polluted beige sky and observed the curious shapes from the factory smokes. What could be above the smog? Infinite emptiness? I wondered. Suddenly, a familiar voice broke my course of thoughts.