The bell jar critical essays. The Bell Jar Mental Illness Essay Essay 2022-10-13
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The Bell Jar is a novel by Sylvia Plath that tells the story of Esther Greenwood, a young woman struggling with mental illness. The novel has been the subject of numerous critical essays, with many critics exploring themes of identity, gender, and mental illness in the novel.
One of the most prominent themes in The Bell Jar is the issue of identity. Throughout the novel, Esther grapples with the question of who she is and what she wants to be. She finds herself torn between the expectations placed on her by society and her own desires and aspirations. This conflict is symbolized by the bell jar, a metaphor for the feeling of being trapped and suffocated by societal expectations.
Another important theme in The Bell Jar is gender. Plath uses the character of Esther to explore the ways in which society limits and oppresses women. Esther is constantly fighting against the expectations placed on her as a woman, and she struggles to find a sense of agency and autonomy in a world that seems determined to control her.
Finally, mental illness is a major theme in The Bell Jar. Plath based the character of Esther on her own experiences with mental illness, and the novel serves as a powerful and poignant exploration of the struggles and challenges faced by those who suffer from mental illness. Through Esther's journey, Plath offers a poignant and deeply empathetic portrayal of the experience of mental illness, and the ways in which it can impact a person's sense of self and their place in the world.
Overall, The Bell Jar is a thought-provoking and deeply moving novel that continues to resonate with readers today. Its themes of identity, gender, and mental illness are as relevant today as they were when the novel was first published, and it remains an important work of literature that continues to inspire critical analysis and debate.
The Bell Jar Essays
That, along with the use of these very emotionally provoking words, she captures the audience from the beginning with this pathetic appeal that carries on throughout the essay. The Bell Jar is plotted to establish two primary themes: that of Greenwood's developing identity, or lack of it; and that of her battle against submission to the authority of both older people and, more pertinently, of men. We can be sorry for Plath, but we do not have to accept her point-of-view. During the last presidential term, the "No Child Left Behind" Act attempted to assure that individuals with disabilities were increasingly mainstreamed and assured of high educational results. . Readers have often stressed the analogy between Greenwood and the Rosenbergs and sometimes lamented the inappropriateness of Plath's comparing her personal angstwith their actual execution but in this opening description, the Rosenberg execution is just one of the threatening elements present in the New York context. But however it is labeled, The Bell Jar gets inside the mind of a brilliant young woman who cannot accept the constraints placed on her by her time.
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If one of the goals of writing such a book was self-discovery, then Plath's evident anger may have been as dismaying, for her in the early 1960s, as it was unexpected. As she comes near death from the poisoning, she also assesses the female role models available to her: her own mother, who urges her to learn shorthand; the older writer Philomena Guinea, who has befriended her but prescriptively; and Jay Cee, by now an admonitory figure. The last date is today's date β the date you are citing the material. On the morning of February 11, 1963, Sylvia Plath committed suicide in her flat in London, England. Although Esther feels purged and holy and ready for a new life after her ordeal, she cannot rid herself of the feeling of betrayal. For the first time in the years depicted, she speaks directly.
Philomena Guinea's novels turn out to be endless soap operas, "crammed. Plath never learned what was her responsibility to control, and every human being should accept some things as being beyond his or her control. A similar deception motif occurs in the account of the banquet given by the Ladies' DayFood Testing kitchens, at which every girl lucky enough to attend gets ptomaine poisoning from the beautiful avocados stuffed with crabmeat. The essays in this volume each adopt a specific perspective from which to examine the work. What does it mean to be a woman, she wonders, and which of the female roles she has studied by observing those around her should she play? She pleads her case by telling the editor she knows no pleas will help, though publication here will cause "suffering" in the lives of several persons whom Sylvia loved and who had "given freely of time, thought, affection, and in one case, financial help during those agonizing six months of breakdown in 1953.
Wanting more direct evidence, she can only infer it from her massive hemorrhaging. The story ends suspended at this significant moment before Esther exits the hospital. She attempts to drown herself, hang herself, slit her wrists and after taking an overdose of sleeping pills is sent to a psychiatric ward, first in the state run hospital and then in a private hospital. The first person Esther encounters at the private hospital is Valerie, who is reading Vogue. Until then, sensitive persons can look only to themselves and follow paths of moderation and try to keep their own bodies and minds in balance by whatever means seem appropriate and useful to them.
It was my own silence. Willard kept insisting, "What a man is is an arrow into the future and what a woman is is the place the arrow shoots off from. Its ultimate affirmation is a negation. Work and work for self-respect. Sylvia Plath's novel, The Bell Jar 1963 , is conspicuously autobiographical.
In her study of suicide, she reads, asks questions, correlates material, chooses according to her own personality, and progresses just as if she were writing a term paper. The protagonist, Esther Greenwood, is a talented writer who has a bright future ahead of her. Later Buddy told me the woman was on a drug that would make her forget she'd had any pain and that when she swore and groaned she really didn't know what she was doing because she was in a kind of twilight sleep. It also offers a powerful critique of the way that mental illness is often viewed and treated. As Pratt observes, even the most conservative women authors create narratives manifesting an acute tension between what any normal human being might desire and what a woman must become. For a woman of the 1950s, finding an identity other than that of sweetheart, girlfriend, and wife and mother was a major achievement. He does not get very far before he is recaptured, but the experience has given him hope that there might be a better life waiting for him somewhere.
This leads Esther to see two possibilities of the things around her, and she feels as if she is forced to pick a side. Plath's concern with Esther's sexual experience is relevant, certainly, for her choices will determine her life. . That year she came down to New York from Smith one summer month to work as an apprenticeeditor for Mademoiselle here Ladies Day for its college issue, a reward for being a good, straight-A girl and promising young writer; and had exactly the prescribed kind of time, meeting people and going places, eating out and dressing up, shopping and sightseeing, and thinking maybe it was about time she got laid. In this forward movement to positive personal and social goals, women must play a key role. I was appalled to see how wrinkled and used up I looked.
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So, Plath used The Bell Jar as a forewarning to the young women of America and England to move past the controlling patriarchy of society, or they would risk their mental health by repressing their desires and dreams. Since her mom does not bother to take the time to comprehend her situation, it is clear that she does care about how Melinda feels. . Whatever the sexist following suggestion might sound, it does not deprive it of its validity β it is namely the fact that Esther has been doing little too much thinking on subjects she could not possibly comprehend, due to her age, which speeded up her descend into madness, instead of allowing her to gain a fame of writer, as she originally hoped. In contrast to the doorless blankness of tunnels, sacks, and bell jars, this open door and Esther's ability to breathe are surely positive images. In its structure, The Bell Jarshows how closely these strands are interwoven.
