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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 · Initially celebrated for its dry self-deprecation and ruthless honesty, The Bell Jar is now read as a damning critique of 1950s social politics. Plath made clear connections between Esther’s dawning awareness of the limited female roles available to her and her increasing sense of isolation and paranoia.
- Sylvia Plath, Frances Monson McCullough, Lois Ames
- 1963
Esther describes her life as being suffocated by a bell jar. A bell jar is a thick glass container sometimes used to create a vacuum space. Here, it stands for "Esther's mental suffocation by the unavoidable settling of depression upon her psyche".
- Sylvia Plath, Frances Monson McCullough, Lois Ames
- 244
- 1963
- January 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.
Sylvia Plath. Study Guide. Themes. Next. Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. Growth Through Pain and Rebirth. 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.
The title refers to the metaphorical bell jar that Esther perceives surrounding her, representing her sense of isolation and suffocation. The Bell Jar is deeply connected to the social norms and gender roles prevalent in the 1950s.
