Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar

According to Oxford Dictionary, bell jar is defined as, “An environment in which someone is protected or cut off from the outside world”. The Bell Jar written by Sylvia Plath is quite the extraordinary book with tantalizing twist and turns. The author, Sylvia Plath, had other books filled with poetry, however The Bell Jar was her only novel. Sylvia’s works were often based off her early life, included the central themes for The Bell Jar. In this glance at the work of Sylvia Plath, the lead up and outcomes will be the highlight. The Bell Jar tells the story of 19-year-old Esther Greenwood living in the year 1953, and the fight she takes to recover from breaking down. The story starts with Esther in New York for a one-month paid internship

She stays in the same outfit for several weeks without showering or bathing. Along with that she attempts to accomplish tasks like writing, reading, and sleeping, just to discover she is unable. One appointment with her family doctor to receive more sleeping pills takes an unexpected turn as she is recommend to a psychiatrist by the name of Dr.Gordon. Esther relations with him start off rocky with her feeling as though she is not actually being heard. After a few failed trips to Dr. Gordon, he ends up recommending to Esther’s mother, that she receive electroshock therapy. The electroshock therapy leaves her terrified of the procedure, for it was a harrowingly painful experience. Esthers reasoning scatters, pushing her farther away from recovery as she becomes obsessed with ideas of suicide. Esther makes several unsuccessful or aborted attempts before she successful wedges herself into a crawlspace at her home and swallows dozens of sleeping pills. It's a week later when she wakes up in a hospital and is deemed unfit for society, being moved to a state mental hospital. Esther remains in the state mental hospital for a short period of time before being moved to a private hospital with funds from a novelist that also funded Esther’s scholarships. This brings the reader to the point of following Esther’s recovery process as she fights to be allowed back into society on her

The central outcome is whether or not Esther has meant the requirements to be allowed freedom. This freedom is represented by her life choices throughout the book and more notably during the asylum chapters. Since the book ends with Esther being judge for clearance, the reader is left to decide on their own whether the effort she put into get better was enough. The underlying message shown from all this I would say is the emptiness of conventional expectations. All throughout the book Esther is shown observing the gap between what society demands her to experience and what she does experience. As her ideas of filling this gap intensify, she is driven more and more into madness. Which helps show the readers that following the world's conventional expectations can cause some to feel lonely and unaccomplished. Driving this message forward is important, because it reminds people to do what they love without hesitating about fitting in and being led to “madness” with not having their passion in