The Bell Jar

The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath

I have to admit I found myself drawn into the narrative of the Bell Jar. Early on I made the unfortunate move of identifying with the main character and some of the feelings she was having while everything was still amusing, and really, just sort of blasé. I realized this was a bad move, identifying with the main character of a Plath narrative, but it was too late, I was a bit entranced by Esther Greenwood’s take on things in New York. It wasn’t until her decent into depression that I really regretted it, finding myself feeling more than a little blue the more the narrative struck home.

Still, it was excellently written and I did find myself sneaking paragraphs and pages in the fractions of free time I could steal fro my day in addition to my dedicated reading time.

Plath really puts forth an wonderful societal critic through the eyes of Esther, whose parallel’s to Plath’s own life leave the reader a little haunted by Plath’s ghost.

The tale’s feminist critique of a woman’s role in society is particularly interesting and really highlights the thoughts that were beginning to spring during this time period. I believe it’s initial publication in London was in 1963, the same year that Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique was printed. It’s interesting how Esther’s thoughts, while likely stemming from some form of depression, really does focus in on her uncertainty of where to go with her life and whether to settle for domestication or seek out a life as a writer. Even the way sex and gender relations are treated is such a comment on the times.

Amusingly, I couldn’t help but draw a parallel to Esther worries and Addie’s reflections on her own life in As I Lay Dying. The same sense of betrayal and of bring tricked Addie reflects on in relation to Anse is the same that Esther feels in relation to Buddy Willard. The moment she sees the woman give birth, in her drugged induced state, and they way she feels when she see women with all these babies, she almost fears developing the emotions (hatred and resentment) that Addie actually does develop—she fears the loss of her self to this act but unlike Addie (perhaps from inexperience and her young age) she then questions those feelings and wonders if she just shouldn’t given in (as Addie herself did to Anse by the lake).

Overall, I dug this book. A good read.