The Bell Jar Analysis

The Bell Jar
In a time of the 1950’s housewife, Sylvia Plath tells the story of a young woman attempting to get a college degree and fight off the male dominance in her life. Told through the stream of consciousness of Esther Greenwood, a first person perspective gives the good, bad, and scary details of the young woman’s life. For someone who thinks primarily in similes, the readers learns a lot about the feelings of Esther toward the governing men in her life. Gender criticism deals with concepts that delve specifically with stereotypes between the male and female gender, and the idea of binary opposition. While some believe there are strict lines a human is naturally born with defining gender and sexuality, considered an essentialist ideal.

The first emotional relationship Esther has, is with someone she grew up with; Buddy Willard. “Of course, our mothers were good friends. They had gone to school together and then both married their professors and settled down in the same town [...]” (64). While lamenting about both her own mother and Buddy’s, Esther makes note of how both women made severe sacrifices to conform to the lifestyles expected of them. But while Buddy was born of a woman from the same path as Esther’s, he lives a simpler lifestyle built for him in a male dominated society. Esther is from the same background as Buddy, but while he is expected to build a life for himself, Esther is expected to follow the life of Buddy, and marry him to have a similar outcome. The way Esther views Buddy, a peer, versus how she views her own father differ greatly. While Esther was the favored child of Mr. Greenwood, she felt neglected for a majority of the time she had with her father. While there were hard feelings between them, Esther lost her father at a young age, and often struggled with the unknown details about him. “I had a great yearning, lately, to pay my father back for all the years of neglect, and start tending his grave. I had always been my father's favorite, and it seemed fitting I should take on a mourning my mother had never bothered with” (123). With the mention of Esther’s mother, it alludes to the idea there was a rift between the parents, although never discussed in depth. Plath may be using this as a tactic to discuss issues she had with her own father, something often speculated in biographies of Plath. Esther channels many of the same issues Sylvia dealt with, including issues with the men in her life. An unstable upbringing lead to unstable relationships that were life