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How does family influence identity formation
Analysis of the second sex by simone de beauvoir
Essay on The Second Sex by simone de beauvoir
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The Bell Jar is an autobiographical account of major events in Plath’s life. The book is a purgative expression of Plath’s solitary existence. It is the journey of Esther (fictional name of Plath) who had hard time in gathering courage to live life on her own terms. She had to fight against the ingrained beliefs, norms and expectations that society had woven into her. All through her life, Esther struggled to resolve the dichotomy between her real self and the ideal self that she was expected to perform. Esther is the product of expectations of her society. Her inability to mould herself in accordance with the stereotypical expectations from a woman and the societal pressure to not to be her real self, strangled her sense of self and identity …show more content…
They were made to believe that they would lose their femininity if they move outside the realm of feminine model of passivity. Even brilliant women gave up their education and careers as they did not possess the audacity to be outrageous. It had drastic effects on their emotional, physical and mental health. Having education and employment on the one hand and family and home on the other, the generation of 1950s suffocated in the roles that could not …show more content…
By losing her father at the age of nine, she turned into a lopsided personality, lacking balance in life and relationships. Esther could not relate to the androgenic model because of lack of father figure and could not adapt to the feminine model either, which became the prime cause of her split self. According to psychological model explained in The Second Sex, “[H]er drama is epitomised in the conflict between her ‘viriloid’ and ‘feminine’ tendencies” (43). Beauvoircriticises the psychological theories of Freud and Adler regarding gender. She rejects psychologists for their ignorance of scope of choice for women.Plath’s fluctuation between her wish to be like her father and her inability to detach herself from her mother’s influence coincides with the psychological model which Beauvoir is sceptic about. Esther expresses her disappointment at the lack of a masculine role model in her life after the death of her father. It indicates her idealisation of her father and her repulsion of her mother, as Freud proposes in his theories. Thus, Beauvoir’s criticism of psychological model does not coincide with the incidents and experiences depicted in The Bell
...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.
In the novel, The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath the protagonist is named Esther Greenwood. Through the book Esther wonders if she should marry and live a conventional domestic life, or attempt to satisfy her ambition. Esther is from Massachusetts who goes to New York as a college student who is working for a month to be a guest editor for a magazine. She and the other eleven girls are pampered all the time. She has two friends who worry her, Betsey is very perky, but Doreen is very rebellious. Esther once goes on a date with a man named Marco who tries to rape her, but doesn’t succeed. This is something that can have an emotional, psychological, physical, personal, and social effect on someone and their day to day living. After having all of this happen to her with Marco and her two friends she says “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 magazine, and the...
Esther losing her virginity leads to her being “half black with blood” (p.219), a symbol of blood to indicate a new her: “I felt a part of a great tradition” (p.219). Furthermore, blood symbolism is used when Marco, “a woman-hater” (p.102), attempts to rape Esther and when she resists, leaves her “with two strokes stained on my cheeks” (p.105). Plath uses the symbol to represent major defining milestones in Esther’s life, similarly to other situations, such as the suicide attempts. The blood symbolism also represents the violence that can attach itself to sex in a society where women are seen as lower, especially for younger women. In these situations, Esther believes she is reaching “a new condition in peace” (p.219), but often she is putting herself in dangerous situations. This is too similar to Holden, who hires a prostitute to lose his virginity as he has “never got around it yet” (p.83). Her young and nervous demeanour begins to make him feel “more depressed than sexy” (p.86), and this leads to a violent standoff between him and Sunny’s pimp. Both authors use characterisation and Plath uses symbolism to make a point about the confused mindset adolescents have; both males and females believe that it should change their identity drastically, however, the transition for each has a different purpose. The authors are attempting to convince the reader that adolescents are often misinformed about sex and this leads to the idolisation of losing their virginity; a negative belief that often leads to mistakes and hurt. Idolising this concept leads them to adopting it as a part of their
Esther's fundamental problem with female relationships is best exemplified in her conflict with mothering and mentoring figures. These women defy her desire to be independent and free. Rich describes the tendency toward matrophobia, the fear of becoming one's mother. She explains that "the mother stands for the victim in ourselves, the unfree woman" (236). This fear of becoming like the mother/...
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 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
Bernard, Lauren. "TAKING ON A MOURNING HER MOTHER NEVER BOTHERED WITH: ESTHER’S ANGUISHED MEMORY AND HER RESISTANCE TO A DOMESTIC LIFE IN SYLVIA PLATH’S THE BELL JAR." Ed. Steven Axelrod.Department of English University of California, Riverside, 2009. Web. 5 Dec. 2013.
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?
It is perhaps her over-analysis of situations that causes the manifestations of her psyche; she consistently volleys between multiple possibilities, searching for the most fruitful option. The novel's theme is consistently shown as a mental battle of Esther versus herself, a direct result of her mental illness.
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 scewed her outlook on life. An irony that is carried throughout the entire novel is the fact that Esther works in a prestigious fashion world, yet she sees everything gruesomely and cynically.
... 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.
...which were dead in mothers’ belly, were placed in the bottle. To Esther, this image always linked to abnormal growth, suffocation and death: “The air of the bell jar wadded round me and I couldn’t sir” (p.178). The latter part in the novel, Esther experienced a serious of symbolic events, and she began all over again and was ready to new life. However, what waited for her was still the contradiction that the society put on women, and the value of women could not be totally reflected as before. It could be predicted that in such society-value was distorted like the bell jar, Esther would be probable to fall into the “crisis of roles” and lost the courage for living again. The novel did not describe Esther’s “new born”, anyhow, the “new born” of the author-Sylvia Plath did not last for a long time.
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.
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.