The Bell Jar is the story of Esther, it’s sort of a autobiographical but not all autobiographical book about a certain part of Sylvia’s life. She did do certain things Esther did and I can understand why she chose to wrote about her story like this. You know, she can tell her honest story with twists of fiction.
What I love about the Esther is her stream of consciousness, blunt honesty but also hypocritical nature at times. She is who she is, yet as much as we as readers learn to love Esther and find her humorous, at the same time she’s alienating herself from society even more. The Bell Jar is descending from above but she almost doesn’t realise – the way she sees herself is fascinating because you want to just be like, ‘aww Esther’, and hug her, but also you can’t help thinking it must be so hard to be dealing with what she’s dealing with everyday. Ironically she has no clue.
I feel like the mental illness stigma is represented well in this book. Did you know that people back then really had no understanding, thinking it was a choice? Some of the doctors and nurses even in certain points belittled Esther in a sense. The beauty of the narration of Esther is that, as heavy as some of the things you read about are, her way of recounting her story is so lighthearted that it’s easy. How clever!
So yeah, maybe people may think, ‘oh Sylvia Plath...that’s gonna be deep’. Yes parts are, but you don’t get that. It’s quite sweet and sarcastic, yet poignant and sad. You can’t ignore the fact that life isn’t easy, and there’s no way of telling how our lives will end up.
Oh, and if you’re a language/literature obsessor, in the Bell Jar you get: metaphors, similes, pathetic fallacy, motifs, unreliable narration, images...everything! I truly believe it’s one of the best books out there! ‘Our Sylvia’, as we say in my A2 Lit class. There’s mutual love for her all round.
Characters in this book each represent something, honestly. Buddy, oh Buddy, typically a training doctor that loves himself (even if he thinks he doesn’t). Dodo Clarke, that typical bouncy, stereotypical ‘normal’ housewife (who has about 600 children). Then Joan who is quirky and slightly strange, but you learn to love her just like Esther.
I could go on forever and ever and ever. Let me stop. All I want to say to you – that’s right, you! The one who HAS NOT read any Sylvia? Don’t miss out! Her life, her poetry, journals and writing is just breathtakingly wonderful. In ways her story is so tragic but I don’t think we should dwell on it. Rather, we should appreciate the creativity she gave us and the words she put on pages that will live forever. We love you Sylvia! Always in our minds and hearts.
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