Mental Illness In Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar

461 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Sylvia plath style of poetry

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath chronicles the mental illness of narrator Esther Greenwood. Plath, who was clinically depressed for most of her adult life, incorporates her own affair with depression, which she did in many of her other works, making the story semi autobiographical. Plath’s own struggle with mental illness is what draws readers in and allows them to connect with Esther on a deeper, more meaningful level. That is also what makes the story worth telling: not because it is an extraordinary or adventurous story, but because it’s a common experience most writers tend to ignore, but Plath illustrates excellently through many metaphors and symbolic experiences. One of the most relatable metaphors Plath used hits especially close to a …show more content…

“How could I write about life when I’d never had a love affair or a baby or even seen anybody die? A girl I knew had just won a prize for a short story about her adventures among the pygmies in Africa. How could I compete with that sort of thing?” (page 121). Her dissatisfaction with her own life as well as the comparison to one of her peers adds a level of unhappiness that many people experience, but is rarely written about. Usually, the protagonist leads an action packed life that somehow ends with happiness, and don’t have time to envy others or feel unhappy with their own accomplishments. That is why Esther’s journey is different, and why it’s important. Her story is not extraordinary, but that doesn’t make it unimportant. Overall, The Bell Jar is a story that, while fictional, is extremely important, even if it doesn’t meet certain expectations for what a novel should be. Readers can connect with Esther, share her concerns, and learn from her experience. The book is beautifully written, and captures what Esther refers to as the bell jar perfectly. It’s a story that deserves to be

Show More
Related

  • The Characterisation of the Heroines in The Bell Jar and Quicksand

    2358 Words  | 5 Pages

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.

    Read More

  • The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath: Tangled in Society's Expectations

    1617 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...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.

    Read More

  • Esther Greenwood in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar

    945 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • A Comparison of Joan Gilling and Esther Greenwoods in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar

    1217 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the novel, Esther Greenwood, the main character, is a young woman, from a small town, who wins a writing competition, and is sent to New York for a month to work for a magazine. Esther struggles throughout the story to discover who she truly is. She is very pessimistic about life and has many insecurities about how people perceive her. Esther is never genuinely happy about anything that goes on through the course of the novel. When she first arrives at her hotel in New York, the first thing she thinks people will assume about her is, “Look what can happen in this country, they’d say. A girl lives in some out-of-the-way town for nineteen years, so poor she can’t afford a

    Read More

  • Symbolism Within the Bell Jar Novel

    1662 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

    1366 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...sther enough due to the clouds of her life as a widow, stressing practicality in career and acceptance of the irregularities in the society. I have seen a dandelion in full bloom between the cracks of concrete. The spores of a dandelion look like a big one flower if seen from a distance, but a dandelion embraces numbers of spores. This makes me think a dandelion torturously breaks its body into numbers of pieces to survive. Again, I have seen a success of spores that overcame pains of torturing its own body despite the tough environment. Esther resembles Plath as The Bell Jar is a semi-autobiographical novel. However, even if Plath eventually died from suicide, no one can say Esther will walk in the same path with Plath. Esther can become the one of a successfully full-blown dandelion.

    Read More

  • The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

    1154 Words  | 3 Pages

    One is often enticed to read a novel because of the way in which the characters are viewed and the way in which characters view their surroundings. In the novel The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Esther Greenwood is a character whose "heightened and highly emotional response to events, actions and sentiments" (Assignment sheet) intrigue the reader. One of her character traits is extreme paranoia that is shown in different situations throughout the novel. As a result of this, she allows herself to be easily let down, as she believes that all events that are unsatisfactory are directed towards her. Finally, it is clear that she attempts to escape this notion by imagining an idyllic yet impossible life that she envisions in remote circumstances. It is clear that Plath's creation is a Novel of Sensibility as her writing not only possesses all of the qualities associated with this genre, it also effectively takes the reader into the story with the protagonist.

    Read More

  • The Bell Jar

    1270 Words  | 3 Pages

    After building confidence within herself, Esther decided to write an autobiography using herself as the heroine but she felt that she could not write a novel based on life because she felt she had not experienced it. "How could I write about life...baby or even seen anybody die." (Sylvia Plath pg. 99) Thus, this proves that Esther did not even have the self confidence within herself to follow through with her own ambition of becoming a writer.

    Read More

  • The Feminine Ideal in The Bell Jar

    1397 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Weaknesses of Esther and Plath Exposed in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar

    1187 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Depression in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar

    1110 Words  | 3 Pages

    Depression can be defined as part of a psychological state of mind that a person might encounter. Most famously recognized psychiatrist Sigmund Freud is known for his Psychodynamic theory. His psychoanalysis theory is known to be successful for treating patients with mental illness. Sylvia Plath, the author of the Bell Jar, makes the main character Esther go through a psychological transformation. Esther’s transformation can be realized through Freud’s psychoanalysis theory as the story unfolds from the beginning to end. The influences of people and events around Esther have affected her transformation.

    Read More

  • Esther`s Suicide Attempts in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar

    1129 Words  | 3 Pages

    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....`

    Read More

  • Did Esther Trap Herself in "The Bell Jar"?

    1590 Words  | 4 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Esther Greenwood's Search for Identity in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar

    1059 Words  | 3 Pages

    One’s identity is the most important lesson to be learned. It is vital part of life knowing who you are in order to live a fulfilled life. Without knowing your identity, and the way you perceive life, it is difficult for others to understand you, along with a struggle to live a happy life. In Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar,” Esther Greenwood struggles to find her own identity, and in the process, she develops a mental illness which helps her discover the person she is on the inside.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar

    2556 Words  | 6 Pages

    “Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.” ( http://thinkexist.com/quotes/sylvia_plath/)

    Read More

More about Mental Illness In Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar

Open Document