I have recently started a Film BA, after years of anxiety and depression, so am stressed but proud o...
I have recently started a Film BA, after years of anxiety and depression, so am stressed but proud of myself! Unfortunately, it leaves me with less time for reading, writing reviews and generally hanging about on Ciao...
Member since:11.08.2005
Reviews:187
Members who trust:36
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 an academically-gifted young woman who doesn't know exactly what she wants from life. At one point, she compares herself to someone sitting in a fig tree and each fig representing a different life option, but by choosing one 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 enough to be intelligent and to have won a scholarship, but can't seem to make things work for herself. She desperately tries to think up ways to kill herself, either failing or rejecting the idea. Eventually, she takes an overdose of sleeping pills in a cubby-hole in the basement and is taken to an asylum.
Written in the first person, The Bell Jar communicates the sense of confusion surrounding depression really well. Esther herself doesn't know what's wrong with her - it's that old ignorant attitude of "what's she got to be depressed about?" that society seems fond of saying - and once she is sent to the asylum, people think she's a lunatic. There is a suggestion that the death of Esther's father may play a role in her depression, but it doesn't insult the reader by over-emphasising the point; Esther's depression is much more complicated, as is most people's. Plath is particularly good at demonstrating how detached Esther feels from her own life, describing events in a surreal, dream-like manner.
Esther constantly makes plans - for her schooling, career and even losing her virginity - but things never go according to plan and everything ends up messy. She's wasting her life. I can definitely identify with the way in which other people view Esther's wasting her life: they think that she's just being silly and that a few words of wisdom will cure her. They don't seem to realise that she simply cannot help it. That's the scary part: this book was published in the early sixties and attitudes towards mental illness haven't changed that much since then.
Esther herself is sometimes endearing, sometimes impossible. She doesn't exist just to perform a role in the story, as in a lot of novels, but she is the story and it doesn't matter whether the reader likes her or not. She is also unique - Plath uses her own experiences to create her, rather than using a stereotype to demonstrate the nature and effects of depression as some authors do when writing about mental illness.
I liked the conclusion of this novel: I don't think I'm ruining the story by saying that it leaves you to decide whether Esther fully recovers, because the story is about the journey rather than the destination. There's no fairytale ending to ruin the honesty and reality of the novel. However, this open ending is affected by the knowledge that Plath killed herself - the small message of hope is tainted by this and the sense of hopelessness prevails. As much as I'd like to think that Esther went on to lead a long, happy and fulfilling life, I just can't believe it. But maybe Plath intended the hopelessness to be the lasting impression - after all, she never recovered from her depression.
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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...
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 ... 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...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
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
Advantages: Beautifully written, 'poetic' without compromising truth Disadvantages: I can't think of any.
lizzie_haycocks 25.05.2005 (25.05.2005)
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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
Nov 21st, 2005
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