The Bell Jar Essay, Research Paper

The Bell Jar

The book starts with the setting in New York as the main character is

pondering the execution of the Rosenbergs. Esther the main character is in

New York because of contest held by a fashion magazine. While in New York

Esther tells about her life by the encounters she’s had. She is a college

student and is in the honors courses. The whole trip to New York had messed

up Esters way of thinking. For example before she went to New York she had

planed to finish college and become a poet or English professor, but now she

had no idea.

When Esther returned home she became very depressed. She wanted to

disregard the whole New York experience by taking a exclusive summer writing

course. Only the best of the best writers had been able to be excepted to this

class and Esther was sure she had made it until her mother had told her she was

not accepted. This was what pushed Esther over the edge. She became more and

more obsessed about how she would kill herself and planed it out carefully.

When the time came she just couldn’t do it. So she began to preoccupied herself

by thinking of other ways of death. She couldn’t sleep or read this bothered

her because she loved to read. Finally she went to see a doctor who gave her

shock treatments. This made Esther even worse an so she slipped even deeper

into her depressed state. She knew the bell jar was almost completely apon her

and there was nothing she could do to prevent the suffocation of her own life.

She knew there was something very wrong and neither her family or herself had no

idea how to help prevent this and it made her wish for death. Finally she did

it, she plotted a scheme to end the torture of her insanity. “The silence drew

off, baring the pebbles and shells and all the tatty wreckage of my life.”

This way she thought she could escape the madness inside herself and this made

her happy. So she did it and her family knew then she needed help so they with

the help of a rich lady put her in a facility that could help her. Esther did

get help and became sane again through special help and a good doctor who gained

Esthers trust.

Sylvia Plath’s life is the basis for this intriguing book. She was born

in Massachusetts 1932. In August of 1950 her first publication was “And Summer

Will Not Come Again,” this was in Seventeen magazine. Another publication was in

the Christian Science Monitor this was a poem “Bitter Strawberries.” In

September 1950 Sylvia went to Smith College (the largest woman’s college in the

world). Just like in the book she won a contest to go to New York. In June of

1955 she graduated from college and soon after at Cambridge University she met

her husband. Ted Hughes who was a poet married Sylvia in London in spring of

1957. Later Sylvia became a instructor at Smith College in the English

department. In April of 1960 thier first child was born and Sylvia’s book of

poetry was accepted for fall publication by William Heinemann Limited. In

January of 1962 their second child was born. In 1962 the “Bell Jar” was

published and in 1963 she ended her life. The Bell Jar had descended again she

wrote in her journal.