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The Bell Jar
by Sylvia Plath
A confessional tale of a young woman's psychological downward spiral.
This is the story of the unstable psychological journey of Esther Greenwood. A college student from Massachusetts, she travels to New York to work as a magazine editor. Esther and eleven other girls stay in a Manhattan hotel and are showered with gifts and expensive dinners. Although she should be enjoying her life, she feels relentlessly plagued by depression. Set on losing her virginity as a means to end what she feels is a pointless existence she tries to sleep with a UN interpreter, but he is uninterested. Unsure of herself and her plans after college Esther struggles to decide whether to marry her college boyfriend and live a conventional life or to follow her ambition of becoming an established writer. Because he does not understand her desire to write poetry Esther decides that he is a hypocrite whom she cannot marry, and she returns to her Boston home.
Upon her arrival she learns that she has been accepted to a writing class and makes plans to attend it and begin her senior thesis. But her depression worsens until she is no longer able to write, eat, sleep, or even bathe. After her mother takes her to a psychiatrist who prescribes electric shock therapy her condition continues to decline, and she attempts suicide. Upon a series of failed suicide attempts she awakens in a hospital where she stays until her body heals then is then sent to a psychiatric ward. She eventually meets others there, whom she slowly begins to trust, and she works toward overcoming her depression.
Originally published in 1963 under the pseudonym “Victoria Lucas” The Bell Jar is the semi-autobiographical novel of American writer Sylvia Plath. The book parallels Plath’s own decent into madness, and tragically, she committed suicide soon after the book’s first publication. A beautifully honest story that deals with mental health, the sometimes restricted role of women, and the emptiness of traditional expectations. The Bell Jar examines painful issues that are too often overlooked.
Title: The Bell Jar
Author: Sylvia Plath
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
ISBN: 0060930187
Review written by: Jennifer Kneisley
Reviewer's Rating:10
Reader's Rating: 0
Reader's Votes: 0
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