A response to The Bell Jar Essay

You would expect allbody to want the story of depression and suicidal thoughts to come out your memory as soon as the last page was over. However, The tam-tam Jar is more about the spirit of survival when you are pin down inside yourself and frightened because the rest of the world expects something completely different from you something you drive outnot travel by them. Something you dont want to give them, if it were your choice. This is a highly auto-biographical written report by Plath of a young girl finding that when she should be intimately excited about her life, she instead finds that things arent what she expected, and that the culture of the 1950s doesnt seem to allow for all that she wants, which begins her descent into depression.The Bell Jar is in the form of a Roman clef, with the main protagonist (Esther Greenwood) succumbing to mental illness. Esther begins the watchword thinking about the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenburg, and thinking about cadave rs, which is a motif that recurs after on in the book. Esther thinks universe executed moldiness be the scald thing in the world so we can tell already that she isnt exactly a light-hearted character. Instead, throughout the novel, we discover that she is brutally in effect(p) and self deprecating. She wins a fashion writing contest, but she isnt as well happy about it, viewing the gifts and girls there superficial Girls kindred that attain me sick. She appreciates that she is meant to be the envy of thousands of other college girls but her future prospects trouble her she can either embrace, or, become a secretary and then marry.Neither satisfies her. So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, so women in the fifties are meant to want to marry and start a family, and Esther knows this too well. It isnt considered right to think otherwise, so these opinions stay inside her head. Perhaps, this is why mental i llness festers within her she bottles up her emotions and they mix with more menacing thoughts. chum laughs at her when she refuses his marriage proposal, axiom that shes crazy and shell change her mind. She thinks he is a hypocrite, and no drawn-out sees him in admiration because of his double standards.Esther observes the gap between what society says she should eff at her age and what she does experience, and this gap intensifies her madness and makes her more aware of any problems she may have, because she is now able to see everything wrong with her in soulfulness elses eyes. Esther feels she must repress her natural gloom, cynicism, and dark humour and prepare opinions. Esthers aversion to convention and conforming is perhaps why she feels so alone and her darker thoughts take over its really you getting smaller and smaller and lonelier and lonelier.Esthers descent into depression and suicidal thoughts begins on the ski slopes, when she begins scared but aims straight do wn. This is only the first of numerous felo-de-se attempts she wants to experiment hanging, drowning, pill overdoses and cutting her wrists, but there are flaws in all of them. When Esther tries to kill herself, she finds that her body seems determined to live. Esther believes that she could kill herself if she wanted, but she must remove the barrier of her body. The beating heart symbolizes her life, as her heart beats, I am I am I am. This is again enforced because she neer assigns a blame to her depression, but rather lets us see what it feels like to be in it and living through an experience like it, as she wrote I am I am I am.But I think the whole book can be summarized by something that Buddy said to her on the ski slopes You were doing fine, a familiar voice communicate my ear, until that man stepped into your path.