Preview

The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
544 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath
A study was done to examine the effect of quality of workplace relationships on the mental health of college students and it concluded that all relationships influence the mental health of a student. People are caught up in the life of homework and more focused on their grades than their mental health. College is supposed to be an unforgettable experience, yet for many students it comes in the form of depression. This onset depression may start before college, yet college has a great impact on the suicide rate of young adults. In The Bell Jar, written by Sylvia Plath, the main character, Esther Greenwood, struggles with suicidal depression on top of being a working college student, something Plath relates to entirely.

Many people
…show more content…
Sylvia had no trouble writing this book due to her experiences with suicidal depression. Sylvia was first diagnosed with depression at the age of 20. This depression set in due to the fact she did not get into a writing class at Harvard and was overworking herself. She then proceeded to cut herself on her thighs in an attempt to commit suicide. She was later referred to a physiatrist and they decided to start her on ETM, electroconvulsive therapy. Although that did not take to her depression. So, Plath set out on a new method, swallowing sleeping pills. Upon doing so she went into a coma for two days and was found under her porch by her family after making noises. These events described were actually in the book due to Plath writing her thoughts into her work. Plath knew depression better than anything and though it was good too write her thoughts out. In doing so it helped her cope with her depression better. Yet Sylvia was also sad as a child because her father was not there and her mixed feelings for her mother. Plath later took one final attempt by putting her head in the oven. She was found dead with her head in the oven and the gas turned

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Sylvia Plath’s father died when she was eight years old due to complications of diabetes (Steinberg 2007). He is already dead; Sylvia Plath wrote this poem when she was 30, but in stanza 2 she says “Daddy, I have had to kill you. / You died before I had time—“(lines 6-7). What she is killing is the memories of him; he died too early and has caused a great amount of grief. This poem is angry, perhaps because he left her when he died while she was so young. Throughout the poem Sylvia Plath uses words like “achoo” and “gobbledygoo” giving the poem a childish feel, as it uses these themes of the Holocaust and vampires, adding a contrast. The poem also has an irregular rhyme scheme using the “oo” sound. There is no evidence from sources that Sylvia Plath’s father was ever abusive to her, so one can conclude that the loss was so immense, and caused so much pain, that it was like if she was being tormented.…

    • 1791 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    So Plath being the writer of this book The Bell Jar, along with many other book must have had some kind of meaning in that she is saying. you would have to assume Sylvia could be just writing…

    • 733 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sylvia Plath’s, The Bell Jar takes readers deep into the chaotic minds of not only Esther Greenwood, but also Plath herself. Many people believe that The Bell Jar is intended to be an autobiography with Plath using Esther to portray some of the issues that happen in her life. In 1953, Plath gets invited to be a guest editor and during this time she endures a mental breakdown. This parallel reveals the sources of the madness for Plath, Esther and women all over. According to Esther, this madness comes from not wanting to succumb to the pressures of being the stereotypical housewife, not allowing herself to be dominated by men, and trying to prevent her personal relationships from impeding her progression toward her career goals.…

    • 969 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The entire story Sylvia is in a struggle between nature and civilization. In fact is all about telling or not telling the secret: if she tells it, she will no longer be a part of the nature; if she doesn’t, it is almost of no importance as she cannot stop time and the changing of things. She chooses a third option: to keep silence, but by doing that , she remains outside time, outside history.…

    • 1181 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Throughout the film ‘Sylvia’, Plath is portrayed as a helpless, innocent young girl, who is corrupted by Hughes, the leading cause of her eventual demise. Jeff’s has depicted her in this way to allow the audience to emotionally connect and sympathise with her throughout the film. In the opening scenes, a tracking shot of Plath riding a bicycle, down the streets of London, with cheerful, non-diegetic music playing in the background, influences the audience to feel approval towards Plath, forging a positive bond between the…

    • 983 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Sylvia Plath, an extremely influential and beloved female poet who lived in the mid-20th century, was the author of numerous poems as well as the semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar. Her work, especially that of her adult life, heavily reflects the darkness and depression that she dealt with. Plath, born in October of 1932, began writing at a very young age. Her first published work, titled simply “Poem”, was published before she had even turned ten. Plath wrote many short stories during her early years, and she even won several writing competitions. One of these was a fiction contest that earned her a position as guest editor at Mademoiselle…

    • 1079 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Perhaps the first thought to mind when the name Sylvia Plath is mentioned is pure ironic tragedy. What a destructive death for a woman with a seemingly jubilant life. It is know to most that she was a poet and author beyond her time, beaming with creativity and writing poetry in her early teen years. However, with longing for fame struck the bittersweet reality of holding the title for the most unfortunate life. How can it be, that a woman struck by dire occurrences, leave such an incredible mark in the guest book of all great authors and poets? It seems to be true that many a melancholy poet, tend to be of the male gender; at least those who are greatly remembered and studied. So why is Plath one…

    • 1435 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Woman today would find themselves lost in the times of the mid-1900’s society. Through the novel The Bell Jar, the reader will experience society’s expectations of women, their relationships with men, and how they follow right along with what the main character’s beliefs. The reader will learn to understand that there are punishments of society when one does not do what they should. The search for her identity and the acceptance of her truth has inspired women in future generations. Through the character of Esther Greenwood, Sylvia Plath explores the oppression felt by women in the 1950’s in her semibiographical novel The Bell Jar.…

    • 1501 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The flashbacks give us with the impression that Esther has always played the roles which others have wanted her to play. Helen O’Grady proclaims that this kind of identification of self prevents spontaneity and weakens the chances of active participation in the making of the female identity. Furthermore, she argues that women have a tendency to police themselves and criticize their own performances within the broader culture. In the broader culture’s representations, for example in the media, the female body is frequently represented as a kind of uniform, representing an unrealistic standard. This strategy of negative self-policing tends to happen automatically; it becomes a natural part of our thinking and therefore difficult to discover.…

    • 337 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Bell Jar Failure

    • 1269 Words
    • 6 Pages

    People's lives are shaped through their success and failure in their personal relationships with each other. The author Sylvia Plath demonstrates this in the novel, The Bell Jar. This is the direct result of the loss of support from a loved one, the lack of support and encouragement, and lack of self confidence and insecurity in Esther's life in the The Bell Jar. It was shaped through her success and failures in her personal relationships between others and herself.…

    • 1269 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    When Plath describes the atmosphere of the bell jar as being rarified, one is almost led to belief that she views the air as exclusive, premiere, or even possibly the image of tasting well. The jar described in the novel however entirely counteracts this idea in the connotation switching to negative, spoiled, or discomforting. Esther describes herself as almost cooking in this jar full of bitter lonesomeness, or rotting in a forgotten storage container, slowly becoming worse and less appealing, while going unnoticed by the outside world, only compounding upon itself when trying to escape. This leads the reader to believe that this confinement is not only gross and horrifying, but also insightful of hatred and anger. Because she is trapped, and has no way of contacting the people just out of reach, she has grown in her frustration, and begins directing her aggression outward..…

    • 2047 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Sylvia Plath Research Paper

    • 4554 Words
    • 19 Pages

    Plath 's poetry is full of symbols and allusions cryptic to those unfamiliar with her biography, so it is necessary to begin any analysis of her work with a brief account of her life. Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932 near Boston and for much of her childhood lived near the sea, which finds its way into many of her poetic images (Barnard 14). Her father, Otto Emil Plath, was an immigrant from Germany and her mother, Aurelia Schober, a second generation Austrian American (Barnard 13). Allusions to her German heritage and to World War Two era Europe abound in her work.…

    • 4554 Words
    • 19 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Bell Jar Plath

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Esther greenwood struggles to depression in the story “The Bell Jar” and not only did the character of “The Bell Jar” suffer from depression so did Sylvia Plath, the writer. Sylvia Plath took her own life on February 11, 1963. Again, this quote, “A story must be exceptional enough to justify its telling; it must have something more unusual to relate than the ordinary experience of every average man and woman,” represents that there has to be meaning…

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Bell Jar

    • 675 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The presentation and significance of moments when light and dark imagery are brought to the fore.…

    • 675 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    3) Gerisch, B. (1998). `This is not death, it is something safer': A psychodynamic approach to Sylvia Plath. Death Studies, 22(8), 735.…

    • 1156 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays