Student Classic - The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Described byJoyce Carol Oates as "a near perfect work of art", The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath's only novel, first published in 1963under the pseudonym of Victoria Lucas.
It is a novelthat questions social expectations and challenges those experiences which aresupposed to be life-changing.
It is writtenfrom the protagonist, Esther Greenwood's point of view as she starts a monthlong internship for a magazine in New York.
Living witheleven other girls in a single sex hotel she feels alienated from the worldaround her and under pressure to conform to the social expectations that thegirls present as the norm.
After escaping asexual attack and finding out that her boyfriend has been unfaithful, Estherreturns to Boston and a sense of dissatisfaction consumes her, leading toelectric shock treatments and failed suicide attempts.
As the novelends we see Esther returning home from a psychiatric hospital to start a newcollege course; however, the reader is left questioning how stable her sanityis and whether she could ever be free from her delicate state of mind.
This is a comingof age story which is both witty and harrowing, made all the more so due to thefact that it parallels events in Plath's life and her descent into mentalillness.
This novel and the reading of it gives Plath the recognition that she never received in her short lifeNatalie Lambert
It was onlypublished under her own name posthumously in 1966 after she had committedsuicide.
Plath's suicideand the creation of the character of Esther Greenwood have made her a feministmartyr.
She was livingin the shadow of her more successful, adulterous husband in the highly ideologicallycharged world of 1950s America where she was trying to break into the maledominated field of literature.
This novelrepresents Plath's pull between her own desire to write and the socialexpectations of a domestic life - she is essentially an oppressed woman.
The bell jarthat the novel takes its title from is symbolic of Esther and Plath's sense ofbeing trapped, not only in the society that they live in, but in their own mindalso.
This novel and the reading of it gives Plath therecognition of a great writer that she never received in her short life.
So whether you're interested in feminism,coming-of-age fiction or just want to try something new, Plath'ssemi-autobiographical novel will not fail in impressing you and making youquestion the role that you play in society, but also the role that societyplays in your life.
