The Bell Jar Essay

Three days later, she is found and placed in a mental hospital. First assigned to a rich psychiatrist named Dr. Gordon, Esther feels harassed by the doctors surrounding her. She feels that they do not really care about her; in a sense, they don’t. After seeing Esther three times, he states that she is not improving due to the fact that she has not been able to sleep, read, eat, or write in three weeks. She is moved to his mental asylum, where she suffers through electroshock therapy for the first time. The procedure is done incorrectly and she is shocked, literally.

The Bell Jar, a coming of age, semi-autobiographical novel, by Sylvia Plath follows the life of a troubled young girl named Esther Greenwood, her slow descent into mental illness and then her subsequent recovery. The second half of the book details Esther's mental breakdown, her incarceration and stumbling recovery whilst the first half uncovers the protagonists, narrators day to day struggles which go on to contribute to her eventual breakdown . Throughout the novel, the reader comes to understand that Esther feels there are few choices; in character a woman must be either the virgin or the whore, both of which are demonstrated by Esther's friends, Betsy and Doreen. This presents one of the key internal conflicts the protagonist, Esther battles.

Esther did not know what she especially wanted with her life. Jay Cee stated to Esther that not having an idea of what she wants, will not get her very far because Esther is

Esther refuses to allow society to control her life. Esther has a completely different approach to life than the rest of her peers do. The average woman during this time is supposed to be happy and full of joy. Esther, on the other hand, attempts to repress her natural gloom, cynicism, and dark humor. This eventually becomes too hard for her and causes her emotions to go crazy. She begins to have ideas

When Esther first arrives in New York, she doesn't have the same reaction that most of the other girls around her have. She enforces this reaction when she says “I guess I should have been excited the way most of the other girls were, but I couldn't get myself to react.” From a psychological perspective we could tell that something is deeply wrong with her. She is isolating herself from others. According to Saul McLeod, the author of the article called “Psycho dynamic Approach” states that “our behaviors and feelings as adults are powerfully affected by the unconscious thoughts” . This means that unconscious are a product of behaviors and feelings. She is unable to think in a rational way because of her inability to control the balance between her conscious and unconscious thoughts.

The Bell Jar, Essay Test A. Pick six (6) of the following themes and give an example of an incident from the book that BEST illustrates that theme. (30 points) In the introduction of the novel, the reader is introduced to society’s high expectations for the female gender. The main character, Esther Greenwood, is undergoing the leisurely lifestyle of a New York City woman. One day in particular, Ladies’ Day, serves as a prime example of the conformity that occurred during this era of women’s history.

Throughout the novel, Esther struggled with what she felt how a woman in her society should act. At times, she feels as if there is no point to college because most women only become secretaries anyway. She feels as if she should be learning short hand and other techniques she should be learning for the secretary roll, however she does not want to. Esther wants to be a writer, however, during the time of the novel, society gave women the role as housewife. Esther felt pressure to settle down and start a family. No matter what accomplishments Esther achieves in her life, it doesn’t matter too much because they will not do her much in her later life. Everyone expects Esther to marry buddy and start a family. Once she becomes a mother, it would be assumed that she would give up her passion for writing. This discourages Esther because she is not sure that is what she wants with her life.

In The Bell Jar, Esther finds it extremely difficult to put her thoughts into words. She loses friends as she is unable to communicate with them. She lacks relationships due to her silent behaviour. “The silence depresses me. It isn’t the silence of silence. It’s my own silence,” (Plath 18) she says. Although at first Esther feels upset by the lack of connections she has, she loses motivation to even try and explain herself to others. Unlike Mr. Chance in The Cloud Chamber, and Deborah in I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Esther’s mental state does not improve, and she is unable to resolve lost connections. Esther’s mother tells her, “the cure for thinking too much about yourself is helping somebody who is worse off than you” (Plath 161). However, in her case, she’s so disconnected from the people who were once a big part of her life, that she doesn’t know who to reach out to. She doesn’t see herself being capable of maintaining stable and happy relationships with others when she can’t even maintain her own happiness.

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

In all aspects of the lives we live, normal can not ever be defined as a single idea. If normal is such a thing at all, it is a subjective opinion and can only be defined on an individual level. Everything we interpret is relative to our upbringing and our environment. Not one person had the same upbringing or lived in the same environment as another person for even siblings who have lived together their whole lives have different nurturing experiences. The differentiation between normal and abnormal is a topic of much debate. The meaning of normality varies in many ways such as by person, time, place, situation, culture and set of values. Normality is usually seen as good and desirable by society and what society thinks while abnormality may be seen as bad or undesirable (Boundless).

Esther’s abrupt shift in mood thoroughly captures how the tiniest conditions can have a lasting effect. In The Bell Jar, Plath consistently writes Esther’s character and being as independent, hence, leading Esther to be more on her own with tasks. She does not believe in having other people in her life, solving or controlling anything. Esther’s constant independent characteristic resulted in different desires, passions, and arrangements for her future, than most other people in her life. As Buddy attempted to talk to her about marriage and love, the two always had opposing viewpoints on the matter. “I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a fourth of July rocket”. Plath portrays Esther as wanting trepidation, solely by herself. Not married, or looking after a child. The achievement of having an eternal response on the readers part was high, because the comparison of a fierce independence woman to a rocket made an

While on a day-long break from the institution, Esther has a sexual encounter with a professor and is put in a dangerous situation. Luckily for her, Joan, her friend from the institution, helps her to the emergency room. It is later that same week that Joan commits suicide on the grounds of the institution. Finally, as Esther’s condition improves, the novel ends with her exit interview from the

She stops writing, bathing, changing her clothes, and sleeping. This worries her mother, who sends Esther to a psychiatrist who prescribes her to shock therapy. But instead of having the shock treatment healing Esther, the doctors do the procedure improperly and terrify her, which leads her into a living hell.

This thesis analyzes the patriarchal oppression faced by the main character in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. This research aims to describe and explain the patriarchal oppresssion faced by main character and the efforts taken by the main character. The descriptive analysis method and radical feminism approach are used in this research. Descriptive analysis method is used to collect, classify and interpret the data, then the data are analyzed by the radical feminism theory.

In Sylvia Plath's novel The Bell Jar, Esther Greenwood seems incapable of healthy relationships with other women. She is trapped in a patriarchal society with rigid expectations of womanhood. The cost of transgressing social norms is isolation, institutionalization and a lost identity as woman. The struggle for an individual identity under this regime is enough to drive a person to the verge of suicide. Given the oppressive system under which she must operate, Esther Greenwood's problems with women stem from her conflict between individuality and conformity.