The book, The Bell Jar, opens in the time recently
after the execution of the Rosenbergs, in New York City during the summer time.
In the opening the book is being narrated by an unnamed narrator who is
obviously the main character. After a few chapters we learn that her name is
Esther Greenwood. Esther is in New York City for a trip that she earned while
in college, to work for a fashion magazine and experience new fashion, and
fashion shows. The book seems that it will be focused on the narrator’s life
while in New York City but instead the venue shifts back to the narrator’s home
town nearly a quarter of the way through the book. The shift in location is
accompanied by the change in the book’s plot and makeup. Originally starting as
a book about the struggles of the women at the fashion shows and in the big
city, the book turns into a book all about the emotional stress of one woman
and her fight with her self and those around her.
Sylvia Plath
depicts her main character as a strong woman, a theme which seems to preside
throughout the entire novel. Esther Greenwood finds herself in many situations
she does not wish to be in, but she handles herself with great self will. While
in New York City Esther goes on multiple dates, all of which end poorly for
her—particularly the last date in which her date attempts to either beat her or
rape her. While on these dates Esther battles the social expectations of a
woman to be sexually active, and submit to the idea of becoming a wife and
eventually just a child bearing device. When Esther goes home to her small town
in suburban Massachusetts, she begins having emotional set backs which spark
remembrance of other emotional tragedies which lead her to where she is in
life. Upon returning home she finds that she has not been accepted into any of
the schools for writing she had applied to before she had left for New York
City. The climax of Esther’s emotional roller-coaster is marked by her multiple
attempts at suicide, leading to her eventual placement in a mental hospital.
The breaking point for Esther was her recount of the time in which her steady
boyfriend admitted to having sexual relations with a random girl multiple times
while Esther and he were becoming acquainted. This flashback sparks Esther’s
new behavior in which she searches for a man to give her virginity to, which in
turn leads to some very uncomfortable scenes for the reader.
From the viewpoint
of a senior boy in high school, I would tell anyone not to read this book. The
book has value in that it gives an interesting look into the mind of a young
woman living in a society which has pressured her to be promiscuous and loose
in her sexual morality. However, the book is uncomfortable for that very reason;
sex is very prevalent throughout the book. Plath did have validity in her
presentation of some of the ways men have come to treat women, but overall her
bias was near unbearable and downright annoying to a male. Her depiction of
dating was skewed, the man purpose of relationships was plainly sex, with the
ultimate goal for a male to marry this woman and control her. This idea of
dating seems to be accurate from the examples Plath gives, but in reality her
examples were incredibly biased and inaccurate in most regards. The most
asinine aspect of the book was Plath’s representation of marriage. Marriage to
Plath consisted of males essentially capturing women with which to breed with,
and after the capture through romantic enticement, romance would then die.
Women seemed to dread this idea of marriage, which seemed to be a greatly
exaggerated and off base idea of what marriage truly is. In the same theme as
marriage, the author goes to another level when she describes being a mother as
something repulsive and impersonal. The author tells the reader that women are
just tools to push babies out for men and that’s it.
I submit that the
worst part about this book is the explicit descriptions of sexual related
aspects and sex itself. Homosexuality is introduced in this book, which had no
place in the book other than to lead to presumably give the reader a look into
Plath’s frustration with women’s sexual activities in society—essentially
pointless. The loss of Esther’s virginity gets extremely graphic and detailed when
she begins hemorrhaging and must be rushed to the Emergency Room. So overall I
would never recommend this book to anyone who finds marriage and child bearing
as beautiful and respectable things, but if someone finds women’s promiscuity
as something that should be promoted, then they should read this very
uncomfortable book.
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