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Mental illness
- The bell jar symbolizes mental illness and gives the novel its title. It is Esther ’s own metaphor for describing what she feels like while suffering her nervous breakdown: no matter what she is doing or where she is, she sits alienated “under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.”
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May 3, 2024 · The Bell Jar, novel by Sylvia Plath, first published in January 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas and later released posthumously under her real name. The work, a thinly veiled autobiography , chronicles a young woman’s mental breakdown and eventual recovery, while also exploring societal expectations of women in the 1950s.
- Sylvia Plath, Frances Monson McCullough, Lois Ames
- 1963
The Bell Jar is the only novel written by the American writer and poet Sylvia Plath. Originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963, the novel is supposedly semi-autobiographical with the names of places and people changed.
- Sylvia Plath, Frances Monson McCullough, Lois Ames
- 1963
The bell jar is an inverted glass jar, generally used to display an object of scientific curiosity, contain a certain kind of gas, or maintain a vacuum. For Esther, the bell jar symbolizes madness.
The Bell Jar is set in 1950s America, a time when American society was predominantly shaped by conservative values and patriarchic structures. It was a society that placed particular restraints on women as it expected them to embody traditional ideals of purity and chastity and to aspire to the life of a suburban mother and homemaker rather ...
Explanation of the famous quotes in The Bell Jar, including all important speeches, comments, quotations, and monologues.
The Bell Jar tells the story of a young woman’s coming-of-age, but it does not follow the usual trajectory of adolescent development into adulthood. Instead of undergoing a progressive education in the ways of the world, culminating in an entrance into adulthood, Esther regresses into madness.
The Bell Jar offers an in-depth meditation on womanhood and presents a complex, frequently disturbing portrait of what it meant to be female in 1950s America. Esther reflects often on the differences between men and women as well as on the different social roles they are expected to perform.
