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Patriarchy In The Bell Jar

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In The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath, the relationship between Esther and her mother is a lunar one, showing how patriarchal society expects women to act when entering a relationship with a man, someone who has a more solar role in society. Esther’s relationship with Joan displays what happens to women in the 1950s if found to be fluctuating between what society expects of them, white pureness, and the darkness of the roles society forces women to adhere to. Her mother gives up all her light to her father, all of her job and career aspirations, so that he could be the primary breadwinner of the house and she could stay home, even though Esther’s mother has a college degree and is capable of providing for her family (Plath 140), making money through …show more content…

Upon entering this institution, Esther is confronted by white like “a white blouse” (208), of Dr. Nolan’s and the white hair of a another doctor (209). These doctors represent a part of the patriarchy in their depiction of whiteness, trying to make women less ill and better able to fit into the mold society has prepared for them. The whiteness portrayed here is nothing but a blanket to cover up the real issues of women like Esther, to hide the darkness and implement the ideals of patriarchy like purity. This is why “the thick white blanket,” is repeatedly mentioned throughout Esther’s stay at this institution (209). It promotes wellness as accepted by society. This white blanket is also present in other patients’ rooms at this institution, like in Joan’s room (218). Both women are under the same pressures of the patriarchy like the shadow of the earth covering the moon, creating the phases humans see. These shadows represent encroaching darkness for some women, a new moon they can not come back

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Extended out to most children is the hand of a parent offering a warm hug along with warnings of danger to their children. This is what any fit parent would do. However this is not always the case with all parents. For example in the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Rose Mary and Rex Walls are not fit to be parents because they don’t give their children what they need and have an unstable relationship. Jeannette and her siblings live off of what their parents can afford when they have sufficient money but they don’t use it to give them what they need.

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Burak defines gender socialization as “the process of interaction through which we learn the gender norms of our culture and acquire a sense of ourselves as feminine, masculine, or even androgynous” (Burack, 1). According to Burack, people of different genders behave differently not due to biological factors, but due to socialization that teaches individuals to behave in a particular way in order to belong to a certain gender. For example, women may tend to be nurturing, not because they are biologically programed to be caretakers, but as a result of society teaching them through toys and media to act as mothers. In this way, gender becomes a performance based on expectations rather than natural behaviors or biology, a phenomenon called “doing

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During the 19th century, women were overshadowed by the men of their household, therefore they had no sense of independence nor dominance. In Mary Freeman’s short story, “The Revolt of Mother,” the author presents Sarah Penn, a woman who takes a stand against her husband. In the beginning, the reader learns that Sarah is a hardworking mother and wife. She maintains the household work and meets her children needs. She is suddenly confused of her husband’s actions concerning their future.

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The Cult of True Womanhood in “The Yellow Wallpaper” In her essay “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860”, Barbara Welter discusses the expected roles and characteristics that women were supposed to exhibit in accordance with the extreme patriarchy of the nineteenth-century America. The unnamed narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is seen to conform and ultimately suffer from this patriarchal construct that Welter labels the Cult of True Womanhood. The narrator falls victim to this life of captivity by exhibiting several of the fundamental characteristics that Welter claims define what a woman was told she ought to be.

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However, the moon also carries “the first few stars,” showing that in the midst of darkness their is a glimpse of light. Although the speaker is always left sad when mother visits, the speaker also feels a little love that a mother rightfully possess. The moon came only to visit with no intention to stay. It comes and go and is headed to the “northern sky”. The moon passes the room as path to her intended destination.

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Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, argues that women are instruments of the patriarchy, that women know this, and that women allow the system of oppression to live on. Her fictions ask, “What stories do women tell about themselves? What happens when their stories run counter to literary conventions or society’s expectations?” (Lecker 1). The Handmaid’s Tale is told through the protagonist, Offred, and allows readers to follow through her life as a handmaid while looking back on how life used to be prior to the societal changes.

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The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is a semi-autobiographical novel in which Plath relays her own experiences through protagonist Esther Greenwood by highlighting the struggles she faced in navigating societal expectations, depression, and her own desires. Having spent time in college and later in multiple mental health institutions, Plath tells her story through Esther in a way that blends fiction and reality. Through Esther, we see Plath’s own interpretations of her triumphs, failures, values, and the slow but seemingly inevitable diminishment of her mental health. The story starts with Esther Greenwood in New York City, where she is spending a month working at a magazine because she won a scholarship to a special summer program for female writers.

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The time when this story took place was a time when women were viewed as second class citizens. Mothers had traditional roles, which usually left them in the house, while men also had their roles, outside of the

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In the novel, The Bell Jar, the protagonist Esther Greenwood, struggles to reach her own personal goals in a male-dominant society. The main character, Esther was expected to marry a man to become a housewife that will clean the house, support him, and nurture him. Esther has always nurtured her goals of her own and has never wanted to simply help a husband. In the novel, The Bell Jar, Mrs. Willard educates his son Buddy the way society views femininity and the roles of women. As Mrs. Willard explains to Buddy, “What a man is is an arrow into the future, and what a woman is the place the arrow shoots off from” (Plath 67).

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This novel is also autobiographical. Throughout history, women have been locked in a struggle to free themselves from the borderline that separates and differentiate themselves from men. In many circles, it is agreed that the battleground for this struggle and fight exists in literature. In a

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