The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath's only novel. It was originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963. Plath suffered from clinic depression. It is an accepted theory that The Bell Jar is semi-autobiographical with names and places changed. Plath committed suicide in 1963, a month after The Bell Jar was published in the United Kingdom.
Plot Summary
Set in 1953, The Bell Jar is about Ester Greenwood's clinic depression. As the novel opens, Ester is in New York on a one month summer internship at a prominent magazine. As the month comes to an end Ester starts to ponder her future. The few options she has leave her feeling trapped. Upon completely her internship, Ester returns to her home in Massachusetts feeling down. And that feeling increases when her mom tells her that she did not get into a writing course she hoped to enroll in for the rest of the summer. Ester's depression worsens, she sees a psychiatrist, attempts suicide and winds up in an asylum.
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The Bell Jar is a hard novel to get into. At times I found it dragged. In the end, I came to enjoy Plath's subtle way of telling the story. At first I didn't think there was anything wrong with Ester, I thought she was just quirky. I didn't realize she wasn't all there until her last night in New York, when she is almost the victim of date rape. Once she started to decline in happened fast and furious. As her depression worsens, Ester describes herself as feeling trapped under a bell jar. A bell jar is a piece of laboratory equipment used to create a vacuum. In essence, she feels trapped in a vacuum.
Imprisonment is a major theme in this novel. Being a female Ester feels trapped by society's expectations, the consequences of sex and a lack of career choices.
Although times have changed and women have a lot more choices, many of us still feel pressure to live up to society's expectations. It's still expected that women are going to marry and have children, and when they choose not to go down this path, they are described as spinsters, old maids, cat ladies, or their sexual preference is questioned.
The world has gone through a sexual revolution since the 1950s but women still face more consequences when it comes to sexual relations. Just think how many words you've heard to describe women who are believed to be promiscuous. How many words do you know for promiscuous men? Also consider, women in committed relationships are more likely to be responsible for birth control. And when birth control fails, a woman's life definitely changes more than a man's life. Until oral contraceptives are widely available for men and they have the ability to physically bear children, women will always face more consequences in sexual relations.
My point in comparing the 1950s and 2011 is not to stand on a soap box, but merely to explain why I think The Bell Jar is still very relevant almost 50 years after it was first published. Read it if you like, you can only gain knowledge and insight into one of society's taboos - mental illness.
4/5
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