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Review rated by 13 Ciao members on average: very helpful
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Many people 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 guidelines.
The novel follows Esther, a college girl who has won a competition to write for a magazine in New York, through a difficult summer followed by her inevitable breakdown. Plath 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 her virginity to a man she hardly knew was a very taboo subject; she starts bleeding heavily afterwards and could not find a doctor to treat her because of how it happened.
If the characters are stereotypical Plath does it deliberately to ridicule society; Buddy the "nice" boy who has an affair with another woman and so on.
Overall the novel is a well written story of acheivement and survival, touching and emotional in some places, funny in others, with Plath's talent as a poet well exploited for some beautiful, descriptive imagery.
tobiographical 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 ...
tobiographical 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 ...
tobiographical 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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23.11.2000 22:31
I agree that the book works better as a story than as a moral crusade. Try her poetry for deeper meanings