Women's Lives and Relationships Annotation: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Author:     Sylvia Plath

Title:     The Bell Jar

Genre:     Women’s Lives and Relationships

Publication Date:     January 14, 1963

Number of Pages:     244 (Harper Perennial 2004 Paperback Edition)

Geographical Setting:     New York City; Wellesley, MA; Boston, MA

Time period:     1953-1954

Series:     Standalone Novel

Plot Summary:    This semi-autobiographical novel begins with narrator and protagonist Esther Greenwood during her summer internship at a women’s magazine in New York City – a placement she won, along with several other young women, by submitting writing samples to the magazine.  After a month of manic social events and luxury, she returns to the suburbs of Boston and to a home at which she shares a bedroom with her mother.  Although she had shown signs of creeping mental illness during her time in New York, these symptoms escalate upon learning she was not accepted into a coveted writing class at her university.  She is unable to eat, sleep, or write, and finally – at her mother’s insistence – she visits a psychiatrist, an experience that is ultimately traumatic for Esther and worsens her condition.  As the reader follows her downward spiral and attempts at both self- and institutionalized treatment, we wonder along with Esther if she will ever live a “normal” life without suicidal ideation.

Subject Headings:     Mental Depression, Women College Students, Suicidal Behavior, Fiction (Evergreen Indiana)

Appeal:

Tone/Mood  The tone of The Bell Jar is realistic and provocative.  The mood swings from light (during Esther’s time in New York) to dark and tense (during her increasing mental illness and the bulk of her treatment) to hopeful.  The first-person narration creates a feeling of intimacy between the reader and Esther, and it feels like she is confiding in the reader her deepest thoughts.

Characterization  This story line follows a single character, Esther, although her accounts of descriptions and encounters with secondary characters are fascinating as well!  All her relationships are problematic on some level, apart from her doctor in the final chapters of the book.  Because of her impatient and impulsive urge to lose her virginity, a string of potential lovers pass through her life, ranging from her former steady boyfriend to a blind date to casual encounters at parties.  These men are generally portrayed in a positive or neutral light, even (frustratingly) a man who physically and sexually assaults her on her last night in New York City.

Story Line  Mental illness affects people regardless of gender.  That said, the themes in The Bell Jar surrounding Esther’s illness seem more specific to the female experience.  Although Esther acknowledges that she needs help, and the reader can see the agony inside her mind with her fixations on suicide and feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness, what ultimately leads to her institutionalization are her socially unacceptable behaviors, like showing anger and sexual urges.  Her mother’s attempts at getting her to “decide to be better” include setting her up on blind dates and getting her a job at a hospital delivering flowers to patients in the maternity ward.  The people who are responsible for her recovery, apart from Esther herself, are her mother, her benefactor (a wealthy and elderly successful writer who underwrites her care at a private mental hospital), and her doctor at the private hospital, a woman, who is the first in a long line of (male) doctors who were unable to reach Esther and treat her successfully.

Frame/Setting  This book was written in the 1960s, though it is set ten years earlier.  Plath did spend part of a summer working in New York City, and her descriptions of 1950s New York are riveting.  Much of the book takes place in mental hospitals, and for a reader in 2018, it is fascinating to see the good and the bad sides of mental care in that era.

Style/Language  Plath’s literary prose uses lush descriptions of her thoughts and environments to allow the reader to fully immerse themselves in the book.  The story is told through first-person narration.

Pacing  The pacing of The Bell Jar is slow, especially once Esther has left New York.  One must pay close attention to cues mentioning seasonal changes (e.g., there is snow on the ground) to have any idea how much time has passed while Esther receives treatment.  The reader might wonder if Plath used this timeless feeling of the story to relate to the emotional feeling of her character Esther, who doesn’t know how soon – if at all – she will be allowed to leave the hospital.

Three Terms That Describe This Book:  Depression, Suicide, Perseverance

Readers Might Also Enjoy:

Fiction:

• The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• The Women’s Room by Marilyn French
• I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Hannah Green (pen name of Joanne Greenberg)

Nonfiction:

• Rough Magic:  A Biography of Sylvia Plath by Paul Alexander
• Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
• Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman’s Journey Through Depression by Meri Nana-Ama Danquah

Reference

Evergreen Indiana. (n.d.).  The bell jar / Sylvia Plath.  Retrieved from Evergreen Indiana: http://evergreen.lib.in.us/eg/opac/record/4215343?locg=1