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Depression In The Bell Jar

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When looking in a mirror, you expect to see yourself, right? Whether it is an angry or happy or neutral version of yourself, it is still you. The only real difference you would probably expect to see is that of your image being flipped or something relatively new on your person. Seeing a complete stranger looking back at you is something most people would expect to see in a horror movie. In The Bell Jar though, Sylvia Plath has her main character, Esther, go through this exact situation several times. The story follows a timeline of how she is in college and then gradually breaks down until the point where she tries to commit suicide. Esther’s depression causes her to disconnect with her outwards appearance, which then causes her dissociation …show more content…

Esther is reluctant to take her pictures because she knows she is going to cry. After Esther breaks down, she decides to look into the mirror and thinks “The face that peered back at me seemed to be peering from the grating of a prison cell after a prolonged beating” (p.102). This scene shows that Esther is starting to have a disconnection with her body and this affects how she views herself. Not only was she disconnected with her visual representation, but she also started losing control of herself here. Even though she knew she was about to start crying, she could not control her body when she started and feels as if she was possessed. The terminology used is interesting because people who are possessed are trapped inside their bodies. The stranger is described to be in a jail cell, and people in jail are either captured or stuck there. No matter what they want, the prisoner and the person being possessed are not able to leave. This prison cell could be a metaphor for her depression. Just like the prisoner, Esther feels trapped. She is stuck within her depression and has no idea how to stop it from completely taking over her personality. In an earlier chapter, Esther calls a mirror a “silver hole”. If the mirror is a hole, then that means it is a place where she is capable of losing all or part of herself. This fortifies the idea that she is being taken over by her

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