... The book tells of this college English student's placement in New York, her summer vacation and her difficulties reconciling with the 'real world' before charting her tragic breakdown and difficulties with rehabilitation.
Plath writes the novel in such a way that ensures its reading public ... Read review
Plath was an excellent poet but is known to many for this largely autobiographical ... more
novel.The Bell Jartells the story of a gifted young woman's mental breakdown beginning during a summer internship as a junior editor at a magazine in New York City in ...
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Plath was an excellent poet but is known to many for this largely autobiographical ... more
novel.The Bell Jartells the story of a gifted young woman's mental breakdown beginning during a summer internship as a junior editor at a magazine in New York City in ...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Plath was an excellent poet but is known to many for this largely autobiographical novel. ... more
The Bell Jar tells the story of a gifted young woman's mental breakdown beginning during a summer internship as a junior editor at a magazine in New York City i...
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Plath was an excellent poet but is known to many for this largely autobiographical ... more
novel.The Bell Jartells the story of a gifted young woman's mental breakdown beginning during a summer internship as a junior editor at a magazine in New York City in ...
Postage & Packaging: refer to website Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
Advantages: Beautifully written, 'poetic' without compromising truth Disadvantages: I can't think of any.
...may have been because at the time I was experiencing firsthand the destruction that depression and mental illness can cause. Plath's book is very sad. But it also reinforces the fact that societal expectations and boundaries can push people to the limit. Esther, the college-age protagonist is clearly very ill. But what makes this book wonderful is the sense of intimacy we feel for Esther. The book tells of this college English student's placement ... ...with the 'real world' before charting her tragic breakdown and difficulties with rehabilitation.
Plath writes the novel in such a way that ensures its reading public do not feel estranged from a girl whom others may consider to be crazy. In fact, this bright, articulate, intelligent and world-weary young woman is in some respects more 'sane' than the characters who punish her for her malaise.
I loved this book. It may have been because at the time I was experiencing firsthand the destruction that depression and mental illness can cause. Plath's book is very sad. But it also reinforces the fact that societal expectations and boundaries can push people to the limit. Esther, the college-age protagonist is clearly very ill. But what makes this book wonderful is the sense of intimacy we feel for Esther. The book tells of this college English student's placement in New York, her summer vacation and her difficulties reconciling with the 'real world' before charting her tragic breakdown and difficulties with rehabilitation.
Plath writes the novel in such a way that ensures its reading public do not feel estranged from a girl whom others may consider to be crazy. In fact, this bright, articulate, intelligent and world-weary young woman is in some respects more 'sane' than the characters who punish her for her malaise.
In spite of an ongoing battle with extreme depression, Plath retains the dignity and heroism of her subject. Esther is a real, warm sensitive human being; with an illness that slowly destroys her. But her humanity always stays intact and the beauty of the prose suggests that the interior of Esther's world is a terrifying, confusing place that inspires genius whilst destroying the 'self'.
The book deals with mental illness in a tender way. I think more people need to read it to understand the devastating effects of depression. Moreover, other themes of sexual politics and sexual hypocrisy are woven into the fabric of the book.
The style is candid and 'poetic' but in a way that only reinforces the erudite abilities of its subject. The style is never so over-poeticised that the stark and horrific realities are destroyed. The treatment of Esther's breakdown is shocking and makes me realise how lucky we are to live in an age in which social attitudes towards mental illness are beginning to change and treatments are becoming more effective.
Esther does not fit. She cannot reconcile her 'self' (with whom in many ways she is completely at peace with) with the struggles and realities of the modern world and modern soicetal attitudes. The book is a real eye-opener and although it is, in many senses, a bleak window onto the controlling power of mental illness and mental breakdown, it simultaneously leaves a part of its heroine in tact. The story is tragic. But, perhaps what is more tragic is the fact that Esther can never find true peace with herself. But, in spite of this, her beauty and courage remains. Like Plath (and we must remember that the novel is semi-autobiographical) her tragic genius is also her tragic downfall. It is a powerful book and an eye-opening read.I think it is worth the 'sadness'; after all, mental illness can happen to anyone and should be an issue that is less taboo and less hushed up than it currently is.
Advantages: Wonderfully written with such fluidity and authencity with her own experiences Disadvantages: It ended too soon!
The Bell Jar. This was the only novel that Plath published, which she did under a pseudonym back in the 60's. She was an excellent poet but is largely known for her largely-autobiographical novel. Her real-life persona in the book is Esther Greenwood; a woman in the 60s who has won a contest and is spending the summer at a New York magazine; she has many inner conflicts within herself, she increasingly finds herself suffocating in a bell jar of depression ... ...to communicate effectively out of the jar. This gets too much for her and she ends up being hospitalised. The book is intensely emotional as I knew Plath was talking about her own mental issues that she had in this book. She describes the depression as if it was a never-ending pit of cynicism and true despair that only people who have gone through can truly describe it . She didn't try to make it melodramatic in this sense, she portrayed the suicidal ...
Annallon 25.08.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Advantages: Honest, poignant, truthful ending Disadvantages: The sense of hopelessness - not very encouraging if you're suffering from depression yourself
I think that this is the kind of novel that takes on a new kind of dimension if you can personally relate to it. Don't get me wrong: you will still enjoy this story if you've never had the misfortune to suffer from depression, but being able to empathise with the main character probably makes you think of it in a different way. Plath's analogy of the bell jar (that you're stewing in your own fetid air) was particularly poignant to me.
Esther is ... ...fig she has to lose the others. She finds it so hard to decide which one to take that they fall off the tree before she has a chance. She finds herself stifled by her own life, feeling that she has to choose the paths expected of her (such as marrying her hypocritical medical-student boyfriend) rather than the ones she wants.
There is a sense of hopelessness throughout the book: Esther can't seem to find a way out. She knows that she's fortunate ...
DoubleFantasy11 21.11.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Advantages: A very well witten novel, easy to understand but not simplisic Disadvantages: A shame Plath didnt write another novel; her short stories are also excellent
...cite this as one of the early feminist novels. I see it as just a great novel, with a criticism towards society in there too. But I don't think Plath wrote it just to attack society; it is a very personal, semi-autobiographical novel, exploring themes such as mental illness, the role of women in society and peoples' perceptions of and intelligent girl such as Esther's decision to defy society and follow her own ambitions rather than accept society's ... ...explores many serious issues through the voice of a college student, and does it effectively and in an emotional, believable style. She explores the srained relationship with her mother; and the resentment she feels towards her. She also presents the character of Buddy Willard, a medical student she was expected to marry, as a hypocritical liar, showing the double standards of the time; his affair with a waitress was acceptable, whereas her losing ...
MagicKitten 13.11.2000 (27.11.2000)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Advantages: Poetic purity Disadvantages: Depressing - but artistic in its own way
...these are beaten out of the picture by the enfoldings of the story. The book is a run through of her degeneration in attitude and mind to show the inside of the tragic tale that ended in her her real life death. The build of emotion in her comes across as a dull, numb ache constantly throbbing away at her mind as it slowly erodes the hope that is left in her. Fatigued and after having given in she is put into psychiatrists wards and homes but nothing ... ...poetic genius that lies behind the book with moments of description that fill the reader with admiration. She does not tend to stretch to language that will have you constantly reaching for the dictionary but it is of a variety that is complex enough for the task she wants to fulfill.
The degeneration is of mind and she leaves the reading with a feeling that she is as pure as she wants to be and that she is what she wants to be. The book is involving ...
Sleepflower 24.12.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Advantages: Wonderful insight into mental illness Disadvantages: May bring you down
...I was really left with the feeling that i had just experienced a mental breakdown myself. It is about a young girl who is put into a mental institute and her experiences before, after and during her stay there. The main lesson (a la' Oprah !) that i took from the book was that it is all too easy to cross the border between instability and mental illness and that, although your average mad-looking-person on the street might just look simply crazy, ... ...illness is often affected by the way that the outside world reacts to you. This book was clearly so close to Sylvia Plath's heart, considering her suicide soon after its release, that i felt she had really given herself to me. It humbled me and made me feel grateful for all that i have. You should read it too - if you're feeling strong. If you're not feeling quite that strong!, i would recommend that you read 'Girl Interrupted' by Susannah Kaysen ...
SideTiePanties 09.08.2002
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
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Advantages: Fantastic book, really well written, well worth reading Disadvantages: Er....none that I can think of.
and the proablems he faces.
I'd say this was one of my favourite books, and well worth reading. If you've read The BellJar by SylviaPlath or Girl, Interrrupted by Susanna Kaysen, or even Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest or anything similar to that and liked it, I'd strongly reccomend The Catcher in the Rye. ...
Advantages: fascinating stuff Disadvantages: a bit depressing on the spirits
This is one young woman's memoir of her experience in McLean psychiatric hospital, America. It is a self-conscious account of both her own and the other girls' progress and regression whilst they are committed to the confines of the hospital.
Humour in the book provides some light relief, as the reader learns of Lisa's youthful pranks and rebellious nature that cause a stir. This text has a place within the same genre as SylviaPlath's The BellJar and even more similar to Elizabeth Wurtzel's Prozac Nation.
It is a vivid account of the pressures of modern living and the mental
instabilities that young people often face. It is undeniably a story of survival and recovery. ...
Advantages: Fantasic book, well written Disadvantages: Most people only know of it as a film
The obvious comparison to make is between Girl, Interrupted and SylviaPlath's The BellJar. Both Kaysen and Plath were patients at McLean hospital (ot "the loony bin" as Kaysen affectionately refers to it). However, Plath's is biographical fiction, whereas this is more personal biography. Kaysen writes in a slightly sarcastic, humourous way about her experiences and treatment at McLean, seeming detached from her experiences yet emotionally involved at the same time. She conveys her fear and depression at the time but with the emotional attachement attained by looking back. The way she describes her "troublesome boyfriend" made me laugh!
Kaysen not only tells of her own experiencs in a mental institution, but criticises society's perceptions of mental illness and its treatment of the mentally ill, describing herself as "a victim ...
