As society builds its expectations of women, the struggle to break from these expectations build as well. The Bell Jar is a semi-autobiographical work by the American writer and poet Sylvia Plath that depicts this notion. The tragic story of Plath’s life is reflected in the novel, which depicts a character named Esther Greenwood – a woman who attempts suicide through sleeping pills. Not long after the release of the book, Sylvia Plath herself committed suicide. This work is important for American literature since it candidly shines a light on the unique female experience with depression and anxiety.
The Bell Jar is a deeply personal piece of literary work. As Plath has written to her mother regarding the novel, she put together events of her life to show her experience with isolation and mental health struggles (Pascual-Garrido 73). The heroin of the novel struggles with depression after she is rejected from Harvard. She opts for work in New York, where she reaches the peak of her mental instability and attempts to commit suicide.
Sylvia Plath has undergone similar circumstances while she was studying at college. As Esther Greenwood, Plath had suffered from depression during her adolescence. Furthermore, the character is placed in the same historic context as Plath and faces the same battles of misunderstanding and misogyny. Exactly as Plath, the heroin attempts to commit suicide through pills, but survives. Subsequently, the context of the story concerns the notions of feminism greatly, showing the distress that imposed societal role cause for women.
The writing style of the novel, which is confessional writing, allows readers to look freely into the protagonist’s world and the internal and external battles that she faces. The first-person narration gives the work a sense of a personal connection with the writer, especially since the language used is oftentimes colloquial and uncontrived. The notion of a confession is to release a darker, hidden part of the person’s identity (Ahima 80). The style of confessional writing allowed Plath not only to unearth and showcase her struggles, but also to elicit sympathy and understanding from the readers. The story given in The Bell Jar is one of coming-of-age. The majority of people have gone through their adolescence experiencing various volatile extremes, as does the main character, which makes her relatable to general audiences. However, the demographic that would find this work most relatable is women.
For many years, obtaining an independent personal identity in both social and literary settings has been a struggle for women. The writer’s formative years have been influenced by the expectations placed upon women by society, peers, and authoritative figures. The Cold war had created an ideology that fostered the prescriptive nature of women’s role in the world (Smith 33). The idea of the woman’s place in the world was influenced by the idolized image of a homemaker that was widely promoted and supported at the time (Smith 37). For example, Esther’s mother insists that she learn shorthand, which was considered a more feminine skill (Plath 122). Furthermore, Esther suffers from unwanted attention from men who display misogynistic views. One such example is Marco, a man who claims that all women are alike and tries to rape Esther (Plath 106). Nowadays, despite the changes in public rhetoric regarding women, these types of ideas still severely harm many women’s mental and physical health.
The topic of mental illness and the ways it affects a person’s life a distinctly prominent throughout the novel. The name of the work itself is intended to represent the distorted sense of the world that depression creates: as if the affected person is looking through a bell jar. For Sylvia Plath, the themes of emotional tension, neurosis, trauma, and death were highly significant (Moldoveanu 186). The Bell Jar has a plethora of instances where Esther experiences the symptoms mainly associated with depression and anxiety. For example, she describes her state as feeling “very still and very empty” as she cannot bring herself to feel excited about events that she believes she should be excited about (Plath 144). In another instance of her self-admitted apathy, she describes herself as “dumb as death’s head” (Plath 19). These elements are used to create a sense of disconnect between the character and society.
These bolts of apathy could be caused by her lack of desire to succumb to the role given to her by society. She can marry a man who is a successful doctor and become a housewife; however, her very nature rejects this idea, creating a compelling conflict. She feels that people do not understand her ambitions as she writes: “She and Buddy couldn’t understand why I chose to go to New York City” (Plath 19). Indeed, the society of that time did not largely understand the woman’s need to establish and prove herself.
In conclusion, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is a significant work in American literature. It encompasses women’s struggles with mental health, mainly depression and anxiety, thoroughly depicting the environment that can cause such problems. It reflects the Cold War attitudes towards a female role in society and the difficulties that women face in pursuit of their ambition. This work’s capability to be relatable and compelling ensures its solidified position among the greatest works of American literature.
Works Cited
Ahima, K. S. (2021). “Catharsis of Confessional Writing: A Comparative Study of Sylvia Plath’s Bell Jar and Kamala Das’s My Story.” Language in India, vol. 21, no. 10, pp. 79–91.
Moldoveanu, Daniela. “Sylvia Plath’s War Metaphors or How Female Confessional Poetry Changed Public Perception of Women’s Personal Identity.” Philologica Jassyensia, vol. 15, no. 29, 2019, pp. 183–196.
Pascual-Garrido, María Luisa. “The Inoperative Community in” The Bell Jar”: The Sharing of Interrupted Myth.” Atlantis, vol. 39, no. 1, 2017, pp. 71–89.
Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. HarperCollins, 2006.
Smith, Rosi. “Seeing Through the Bell Jar: Distorted Female Identity in Cold War America.” Aspeers: Emerging Voices in American Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, 2008, pp. 33–55.