The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Bell Jar
Book Review: Falls short of expectations of "brilliance"
Summary: 2 Stars
I am almost sorry to say that my reading of Sylvia Plath's novel "The Bell Jar" was not nearly as moving or thought-provoking as it seems to be for so many. In my opinion, "The Bell Jar"'s Esther Greenwood is entirely unsympathetic, to the detriment of the novel. While I recognize the necessity of emphasizing her deterioration, I found her to be overly melodramatic and weak (while still recognizing her "condition"), and I loathed her from the start. While I will allow that Plath's prose is more eloquent than her poetry I failed to find evidence of the brilliance so often extolled.Book Review: Fast shipping and great quality.
Summary: 5 Stars
The item arrived in time and wrapped well, the item is also in good shape thus I gave it a 5 out of 5, great shopping experience.Book Review: Great Expectations
Summary: 5 Stars
I think more than anything else, The Bell Jar is a book about uncertainty and failure. Like the main character, when I first entered college, I thought that anyone who encounters these two horrific obstacles is stuck forever in a trap, and nothing short of a flawless record is ever worthy of existence. I didn't realize that if you live long enough, you're certain to encounter such setbacks, and if you live even longer, you're certain to get through them as well.
The actual book title is a bit puzzling initially, but it ties in really well with the story and this theme about life being full of times when you're imprisoned in an incredible streak of depressing, non-successful ventures. Even something as simple as sleep becomes a struggle to accomplish. It's like the hand of God has abandoned you, and you just have to wait for it to come back.
The modernized world has great expectations of us all, and we have great expectations of the modernized world. But sooner or later, both parties will fall short of these expectations. We expect to have no problems getting through school, succeeding in a career, finding love, and starting a family. We don't expect setbacks and failures such as divorce, suicide, inadequate talent, infidelity, car accidents, miscarriages, and bad economic times to play enough of a factor to damage our plans. And the world doesn't expect us to fall into these things. But in truth, none of us is above a single one of these failures falling upon us.
ABC's "How To Be A Millionaire" sums up a good portion of The Bell Jar for me in the statement, "I've seen the future. I can't afford it." It's a statement I agree with. Despite our expectations, we can't afford the future. But somehow, miraculously, with a lot of hope and a lot of help, there just may be a way to get through it. So believe it or not, The Bell Jar leaves me with a strong feeling of optimism, at this, the closing of the year.
Book Review: How did I know that someday... the bell jar, with it's stifling distortions, wouldn't descend again?
Summary: 4 Stars
[3.6/5.0]
Esther is an extraordinarily gifted girl. Pretty, intelligent, and talented, she has qualities and accomplishments anyone would be proud of, anyone, that is, except her. This novel is about Esther's (and Plath's) descent into a deep, dark depression that is likened to being trapped in a bell jar that separates her from the rest of humanity and from living a normal, happy life.
Esther is a bright overachiever who made straight A's her whole life and received a full academic scholarship to college. Because of her intelligence and writing ability she is invited, with 11 other girls, to be a guest editor for a popular fashion magazine for a month. The girls are treated lavishly and get to live an opulent lifestyle only a privileged few get to enjoy. Having lived in poverty her whole life, she should be delighted at being elevated to such elegant and lavish living, in the heart of New York City no less, but she is unable to enjoy her new position. In the book Esther says "I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo." The hullabaloo being New York City, boisterous and lively, the eye of the tornado is her, empty and lonely.
During her paid internship Esther becomes very critical of herself, which is typical of depressed people. With all of her accomplishments, she acutely notices only her and other people's faults.
This novel is also a commentary on conventional society. Esther wants to be a poet, writer and a professor and feels stifled by the domestic role women are supposed to play during the 1950s. She finds it hypocritical how women are supposed to be pure while men sleep with as many women as they desire.
The first half of the book is sort of fun, but there are signs of her deteriorating mental state. The second half of the book deals almost exclusively with her mental illness and her descent into a dark, frightening world. When she returns to her mundane home after her internship the bell jar quickly descends over her, suffocating and trapping her. Cutting all social ties and future plans, Esther gives in to her overwhelming despair. Experiencing insomnia, an inability to read or write, and extreme depression, she decides suicide is her only option. After numerous suicide attempts Esther ends up in an asylum, which ultimately saves her life and returns her to a state of normalcy.
After a while I started to dislike Esther because she is selfish, cruel, and extraordinarily judgmental; but I guess she perceives the world around her "through the distorting lens of a bell jar," and it's very difficult to have a positive view of humanity when you are completely miserable. Only towards the end of the book does she begin to view the world positively and the bell jar is lifted, however temporarily that may be, since in reality Sylvia Plath tragically killed herself at the young age of 30.
The reason I gave this book 3.6 stars is because, although it is well written and poetic, I feel like Plath was holding back her talent. Later, when Plath was talking about her mental illness, shock treatments, and her experience at the asylum, she said they were "A time of darkness, despair, disillusion--so black only as the inferno of the human mind can be--symbolic death, and numb shock--then the painful agony of slow rebirth and psychic regeneration." Only very rarely, if at all, do you find any writing as beautiful and complex as that in the book. I read the above line 4 times to let its beauty and meaning sink in and only a few times in the book did I reread anything because the sentence was deep, aesthetic and complex. Another thing that bothered me was that Plath rarely described her own subjective suffering. The book was mainly just her opinions of other people, descriptions of the environment around her and her superficial reactions to events that occur. I didn't feel like Plath dove deep enough into her agonizing internal suffering. One thing one must keep in mind is, when writing an autobiography the author is constrained by the events that occur in one's life, where as in a completely fictitious story, like the last book I reviewed, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the author can create all sorts of interesting and fantastic scenarios, which really bring a story to life. I think that is one of the reasons why I grew bored and impatient with the book at times.
Book Review: I was moved
Summary: 5 Stars
I was hesitant to pick this up, but I am so glad I did. Plath beautifully wrote her story about a woman's undefinable mental battles combined with the demands of instant perfection from others (academically, socially, career-wise, and talent-wise), her own insecurities, and her own desires to be what she wanted on her own terms (something that didn't happen in her generation.) I could really relate to Esther in many ways, and I was swept away with the beauty in which it was written. It was interesting to be someone on the outside looking in on someone who was on the inside looking out. It was also interesting to get a glimpse of the struggle professional and intellectual women faced with the demands of 1950's housewife society. This was an amazing read.