The Bell Jar

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Overview

Esther Greenwood is brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. In her acclaimed and enduring masterwork, Sylvia Plath brilliantly draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that her insanity becomes palpably real, even rational—as accessible an experience as going to the movies. A deep penetration into the darkest and most harrowing corners of the human psyche, The Bell Jar is an extraordinary accomplishment and a haunting American classic.

Editorial Reviews

Atlantic Monthly

"An enchanting book. The author wears her scholarship with grace, and the amazing story she has to tell is recounted with humor and understanding."

More Reviews (1) Fewer Reviews

From The Critics

An enchanting book. The author wears her scholarship with grace, and the amazing story she has to tell is recounted with humor and understanding.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780060837020
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 8/2/2005
Pages: 288
Sales rank: 12,703
Series: P.S. Series
Product dimensions: 5.31 (w) x 8.00 (h) x 0.64 (d)

Meet the Author

Sylvia Plath

She appeared soft, and was known for the way her difficult, emotionally ravaged life bled itself onto the page. But Sylvia Plath was and is powerful, a fact evident in her poems, her autobiographical novel The Bell Jar, and the success of the major motion picture, Sylvia starring Gwenyth Paltrow.

Biography

"I was supposed to be having the time of my life," Sylvia Plath writes as her alter ego Esther Greenwood in The Bell Jar. Like Esther, Plath was a bright young woman who had earned scholarships and awards, and had all the talent to back them up, and saw this—but could never enjoy it. Her struggles with depression were in fact what often motivated her to write, until she committed suicide at age 30 in 1963.

Plath is among the best-known confessional poets, coming from a school (at its peak in the ‘50s and ‘60s) that left few stones unturned when it came to self-examination and revelation. Though not always bald or literal in her expression, Plath chronicled her flirtation with death—and with life—in her poems. She writes in "Lady Lazarus," a verse about a woman rising from the dead yet again, "Dying/Is an art, like everything else./I do it exceptionally well./I do it so it feels like hell./I do it so it feels real./I guess you could say I've a call." She has an ability to convey deep, almost frightening emotion, but do it in a deceptively lilting, almost-but-not-quite humorous language.

"Lady Lazarus" was published in Ariel (1965), a collection that appeared posthumously, as did other well-known collections such as Crossing the Water (1971), Winter Trees (1972) and Collected Poems (1981), for which Plath was awarded the Pulitzer. Though not all death and despair, Ariel stands out among Plath's works because it represented a departure from the first collection that was published while she was still alive, The Colossus and Other Poems, but primarily because it was such an intimate record of the end of her life. As poet Bob Hass remarked in a PBS interview, "Readers in general discovered this book [Ariel] of a young woman with two babies, whose husband had left her, living in a cold house, trying to be a mom, trying to be a writer, trying to put her life together, who didn't make it—who killed herself—and wrote poems full of rage, bravery, and it electrified people."

Plath's father died when she was eight years old, an event from which the poet never quite seemed to recover. She writes in Ariel's "Daddy": "At twenty I tried to die/And get back, back, back to you./I thought even the bones would do." Oddly (or perhaps appropriately) for a woman so devastatingly able to feel and react to people, Plath often writes about humans as objects, things that make noise, can be broken or repaired, marked in a continuum from birth to expiration. A child on the floor is like "an unstrung puppet"; cats howl "like women, or damaged instruments"; people are compared to statues. The technique provides a twisted understatement to the emotional effects Plath writes about, in a world where even the states of love and motherhood are accompanied by darkness.

Whereas Plath's poems often seem strange and dreamlike, The Bell Jar is direct and accessible. It ranks with Catcher in the Rye in both literary achievement and status. Plath gets across not only what it feels like to struggle with the most deadly and devastating emotions, but also how hapless and impotent the people around her are in coping with her. She portrays a woman at odds with the world, but does so without affect or pretension. It's no wonder the book has become a classic, particularly among young female readers. At times of despair, readers find comfort and empathy in Plath's words. All of her painfully wrought "confessions" are of us, for us.

Good To Know

Plath married fellow poet Ted Hughes, whom she met while studying in Cambridge. At the time Plath killed herself, Hughes had left her for another woman (who also eventually killed herself). He wrote about his relationship with Sylvia in Birthday Letters, an autobiographical collection of poems published just before he died in 1998.

Plath was portrayed by Gwyneth Paltrow in Sylvia (2003), a film produced by the BBC and Focus Features. The Bell Jar was adapted to the screen by director Larry Peerce in 1979.

The Colossus was Plath's literary debut in 1960, but she also published A Winter Ship that same year, anonymously. The Bell Jar was initially published under a pseudonym, Victoria Lucas.

1. Also Known As:
  
  Victoria Lucas (pseudonym)
1. Date of Birth:
  
  October 27, 1932
2. Place of Birth:
  
  Boston, Massachusetts
1. Date of Death:
  
  February 11, 1963
2. Place of Death:
  
  London, England

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. I'm stupid about executions. The idea of being electrocuted makes me sick, and that's all there was to read about in the papers--goggle-eyed headlines staring up at me on every street corner and at the fusty, peanut-smelling mouth of every subway. It had nothing to do with me, but I couldn't help wondering what it would be like, being burned alive all along your nerves.

I thought it must be the worst thing in the world.

New York was bad enough. By nine in the morning the fake, country-wet freshness that somehow seeped in overnight evaporated like the tail end of a sweet dream. Mirage-gray at the bottom of their granite canyons, the hot streets wavered in the sun, the car tops sizzled and glittered, and the dry, cindery dust blew into my eyes and down my throat.

I kept hearing about the Rosenbergs over the radio and at the office till I couldn't get them out of my mind. It was like the first time I saw a cadaver. For weeks afterward, the cadaver's head--or what there was left of it--floated up behind my eggs and bacon at breakfast and behind the face of Buddy Willard, who was responsible for my seeing it in the first place, and pretty soon I felt as though I were carrying that cadaver's head around with me on a string, like some black, noseless balloon stinking of vinegar.

(I knew something was wrong with me that summer, because all I could think about was the Rosenbergs and how stupid I'd been to buy all those uncomfortable, expensive clothes, hanging limp as fish in my closet, and how all the little successes I'dtotted up so happily at college fizzled to nothing outside the slick marble and plate-glass fronts along Madison Avenue.)

I was supposed to be having the time of my life.

I was supposed to be the envy of thousands of other college girls just like me all over America who wanted nothing more than to be tripping about in those same size-seven patent leather shoes I'd bought in Bloomingdale's one lunch hour with a black patent leather belt and black patent leather pocketbook to match. And when my picture came out in the magazine the twelve of us were working on--drinking martinis in a skimpy, imitation silver-lame bodice stuck on to a big, fat cloud of white tulle, on some Starlight Roof, in the company of several anonymous young men with all-American bone structures hired or loaned for the occasion--everybody would think I must be having a real whirl.

Look what can happen in this country, they'd say. A girl lives in some out-of-the-way town for nineteen years, so poor she can't afford a magazine, and then she gets a scholarship to college and wins a prize here and a prize there and ends up steering New York like her own private car.

Only I wasn't steering anything, not even myself. I just bumped from my hotel to work and to parties and from parties to my hotel and back to work like a numb trolleybus. I guess I should have been excited the way most of the other girls were, but I couldn't get myself to react. (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.)

There were twelve of us at the hotel.

We had all won a fashion magazine contest, by writing essays and stories and poems and fashion blurbs, and as prizes they gave us jobs in New York for a month, expenses paid, and piles and piles of free bonuses, like ballet tickets and passes to fashion shows and hair stylings at a famous expensive salon and chances to meet successful people in the field of our desire and advice about what to do with our particular complexions.

I still have the makeup kit they gave me, fitted out for a person with brown eyes and brown hair: an oblong of brown mascara with a tiny brush, and a round basin of blue eye-shadow just big enough to dab the tip of your finger in, and three lipsticks ranging from red to pink, all cased in the same little gilt box with a mirror on one side. I also have a white plastic sunglasses case with colored shells and sequins and a green plastic starfish sewed onto it.

I realized we kept piling up these presents because it was as good as free advertising for the firms involved, but I couldn't be cynical. I got such a kick out of all those free gifts showering on to us. For a long time afterward I hid them away, but later, when I was all right again, I brought them out, and I still have them around the house. I use the lipsticks now and then, and last week I cut the plastic starfish off the sunglasses case for the baby to play with.

So there were twelve of us at the hotel, in the same wing on the same floor in single rooms, one after the other, and it reminded me of my dormitory at college. It wasn't a proper hotel--I mean a hotel where there are both men and women mixed about here and there on the same floor.

This hotel--the Amazon--was for women only, and they were mostly girls my age with wealthy parents who wanted to be sure their daughters would be living where men couldn't get at them and deceive them; and they were all going to posh secretarial schools like Katy Gibbs, where they had to wear hats and stockings and gloves to class, or they had just graduated from places like Katy Gibbs and were secretaries to executives and junior executives and simply hanging around in New York waiting to get married to some career man or other.

These girls looked awfully bored to me. I saw them on the sunroof, yawning and painting their nails and trying to keep up their Bermuda tans, and they seemed bored as hell. I talked with one of them, and she was bored with yachts and bored with flying around in airplanes and bored with skiing in Switzerland at Christmas and bored with the men in Brazil.

Girls like that make me sick. I'm so jealous I can't speak. Nineteen years, and I hadn't been out of New England except for this trip to New York. It was my first big chance, but here I was, sitting back and letting it run through my fingers like so much water.

I guess one of my troubles was Doreen.

I'd never known a girl like Doreen before. Doreen came from a society girls' college down South and had bright white hair standing out in a cotton candy fluff round her head and blue eyes like transparent agate marbles, hard and polished and just about indestructible, and a mouth set in a sort of perpetual sneer. I don't mean a nasty sneer, but an amused, mysterious sneer, as if all the people around her were pretty silly and she could tell some good jokes on them if she wanted to.

Doreen singled me out right away. She made me feel I was that much sharper than the others, and she really was wonderfully funny. She used to sit next to me at the conference table, and when the visiting celebrities were talking she'd whisper witty sarcastic remarks to me under her breath.

Her college was so fashion conscious, she said, that all the girls had pocketbook covers made out of the same material as their dresses, so each time they changed their clothes they had a matching pocketbook. This kind of detail impressed me. It suggested a whole life of marvelous, elaborate decadence that attracted me like a magnet.

The only thing Doreen ever bawled me out about was bothering to get my assignments in by a deadline.

"What are you sweating over that for?" Doreen lounged on my bed in a peach silk dressing gown, filing her long, nicotine-yellow nails with an emery board, while I typed up the draft of an interview with a best-selling novelist.

That was another thing--the rest of us had starched cotton summer nighties and quilted housecoats, or maybe terry-cloth robes that doubled as beachcoats, but Doreen wore these full-length nylon and lace jobs you could half see through, and dressing gowns the color of skin, that stuck to her by some kind of electricity. She had an interesting, slightly sweaty smell that reminded me of those scallopy leaves of sweet fern you break off and crush between your fingers for the musk of them.

"You know old Jay Cee won't give a damn if that story's in tomorrow or Monday." Doreen lit a cigarette and let the smoke flare slowly from her nostrils so her eyes were veiled. "Jay Cee's ugly as sin," Doreen went on coolly. "I bet that old husband of hers turns out all the lights before he gets near her or he'd puke otherwise."

Jay Cee was my boss, and I liked her a lot, in spite of what Doreen said. She wasn't one of the fashion magazine gushers with fake eyelashes and giddy jewelry. Jay Cee had brains, so her plug-ugly looks didn't seem to matter. She read a couple of languages and knew all the quality writers in the business.

I tried to imagine Jay Cee out of her strict office suit and luncheon-duty hat and in bed with her fat husband, but I just couldn't do it. I always had a terribly hard time trying to imagine people in bed together.

Jay Cee wanted to teach me something, all the old ladies I ever knew wanted to teach me something, but I suddenly didn't think they had anything to teach me. I fitted the lid on my typewriter and clicked it shut.

Doreen grinned. "Smart girl."

Somebody tapped at the door.

"Who is it?" I didn't bother to get up.

First Chapter

I thought it must be the worst thing in the world.

(I knew something was wrong with me that summer, because all I could think about was the Rosenbergs and how stupid I'd been to buy all those uncomfortable, expensive clothes, hanging limp as fish in my closet, and how all the little successes I'd totted up so happily at college fizzled to nothing outside the slick marble and plate-glass fronts along Madison Avenue.)

I was supposed to be having the time of my life.

There were twelve of us at the hotel.

I guess one of my troubles was Doreen.

The only thing Doreen ever bawled me out about was bothering to get my assignments in by a deadline.

Doreen grinned. "Smart girl."

Somebody tapped at the door.

"Who is it?" I didn't bother to get up.

Reading Group Guide

Plot Summary
"I was supposed to be having the time of my life."

As it turns out, Esther Greenwood--brilliant, talented, successful, and increasingly vulnerable and disturbed--does have an eventful summer. The Bell Jar follows Esther, step by painful step, from her New York City June as a guest editor at a fashion magazine through the following, snow-deluged January. Esther slides ever deeper into devastating depression, attempts suicide, undergoes bungled electroshock therapy, and enters a private hospital. In telling her own story--based on Plath's own summer, fall, and winter of 1953-1954--Esther introduces us to her mother, her boyfriend Buddy, her fellow student editors, college and home-town acquaintances, and fellow patients. She scrutinizes her increasingly strained relationships, her own thoughts and feelings, and society's hypocritical conventions, but is defenseless against the psychological wounds inflicted by others, by her world, and by herself. Pitting her own aspirations against the oppressive expectations of others, Esther cannot keep the airless bell jar of depression and despair from descending over her. Sylvia Plath's extraordinary novel ("witty and disturbing," said the New York Times) ends with the hope, if not the clear promise, of recovery.

Topics for Discussion
1. What factors, components, and stages of Esther Greenwood's descent into depression and madness are specified? How inevitable is that descent?

2. In a letter while at college, Plath wrote that "I've gone around for most of my life as in the rarefied atmosphere under a bell jar." Is this the primary meaning of the novel'stitular bell jar? What other meanings does "the bell jar" have?

3. What terms does Esther use to describe herself? How does she compare or contrast herself with Doreen and others in New York City, or with Joan and other patients in the hospital?

4. What instances and images of distortion occur in the novel? What are their contexts and significance? Does Esther achieve a clear, undistorted view of herself?

5. Are Esther's attitudes toward men, sex, and marriage peculiar to herself? What role do her attitudes play in her breakdown? What are we told about her society's expectations regarding men and women, sexuality, and relationships? Have those expectations changed since that time?

6. Esther more than once admits to feelings of inadequacy. Is Esther's sense of her own inadequacies consistent with reality? Against what standards does she judge herself?

7. With what specific setting, event, and person is Esther's first thought of suicide associated? Why? In what circumstances do subsequent thoughts and plans concerning suicide occur?

8. In addition to Deer Island Prison, what other images and conditions of physical and emotional imprisonment, enclosure, confinement, and punishment are presented?

9. What are the primary relationships in Esther's life? Is she consistent in her behavior and attitudes within these relationships?

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Anonymous

Posted December 11, 2009

The Bell Jar Review

The Bell Jar by Slyvia Plath is a troubling look into a young girls struggle with depression during the 1950's. The book begins with Esther, the main character, and her experience during an internship in New York. She finds herself unhappy with what is happening in her life. Her unhappiness escalates quickly and continues throughout the book. The book gives a clear depiction of how depression can consume your life.

Throughout the novel, Esther's slowly grows and pulls you as a reader in. Plath's description of Esther's decent into "the bell jar" is chilling; it almost seems that her depression is logical. The bell jar being Esther's feeling of being trapped and suffocated. Soon Esther finds herself unhappy with everything and resorting to unhealthy measures.

I thought this book was a gripping view into a girl's life. It was not action packed of filled with suspense but it was a interesting tale of how deep someone can fall into depression. I would recommend this book to others. It has great description and good attention to detail. Overall the books writing style can really grab you if you let it.

6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted April 11, 2009

I Also Recommend:

Bell Jar; Not living up to its hipe

Beginning very good. Middle was slow and becoming uninteresting. I trudge thru and it got a bit better towards to end. Will keep in my library but only recommending for a rainy days reading.

3 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
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SilverrStarr

Posted February 6, 2012

Bell Jar belongs on your shelf!

Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar" reads like a wistful poem with its intriguing voice that echoes in the reader's ears long after the last page has been turned. Esther, the main character, is living what is supposed to be the perfect life for a young woman: she is attractive, academically successful, and is on her way to a glamorous career. But beneath this perfection pops up the depression which strangles her joy and smears misery into everything she does. The most magnificent part of the story is how I felt like I was drifting into the depression and insanity myself. This story is set in the mid-1900s, and it offers a fresh break from vampires and werewolves. Perfect for personal reading, "The Bell Jar" transcends beyond the super-cheery, life-is-perfect 'girl story' and offers something memorable all young adults can at least partially relate to.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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iloverochester

Posted September 11, 2010

more from this reviewer

Don't Bother!

This book is a disappointment. It started out okay and interesting, but it descends into nothing but complete boredom. Understanding that this is tragic story, I still did not see a talent in Sylvia Plath's writting.

I would never recommend this book to any person. It's basically a waste of time, nothing learned, nothing gained, only words.

1 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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cahmstance

Posted March 13, 2010

more from this reviewer

Truly a classic.

Beautifully written, beautifully structured. Especially interesting to read now, as a contrast in time.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted September 24, 2008

AWESOME!

The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath, is an intense novel about a struggling young woman named Esther Greenwood. Esther is brilliant, beautiful and talented. Unfortunately, she starts to slip under the tight grip of insanity. As the reader, you slip with Esther into her bell jar and get a deep look into the disturbing crevices of the human mind. I thought this novel was extremely well written and it is a book that you will not want to put down! The plot is shocking and twisting on a somewhat different and new level of darkness. This is definitely a classic and a great book for all ages.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted August 8, 2007

Disappointing

I admit that I was dying to read the book once I heard of it - rushed to this store with the excuse that I needed it for school, when in reality it was a lie. I I was deeply intrigued by the beginning of the story, I couldn't leave the book alone - it joined me everywhere I went, but soon enough it lost that spark. I don't see 'her rapid downward spiral,' to me it was just her usual insane escapades, nothing more. Although it is interesting to know that this was Plath's account of her insanity, I must say I was let down by that second portion of the novel.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted June 6, 2005

worst book ever

this book was horrible. absolutely no story line. the horridness of the book is only surpassed by Hard Times by Charles Dickens

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Claudantus

Posted July 11, 2011

more from this reviewer

Not the best.

This is one of those books where you either love or hate it. I admire Plath's writing style, but the execution is muddy, you can tell the author was mad when you feel like killing yourself the more you progressed into the story. It had potential, but it's just not my taste and felt as if the book did not connect with me at all. Only read it if you can somehow relate to the author and have a ton of patience, because the plot is drawn out and has no climax.
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Elijah_Joon

Posted July 7, 2011

more from this reviewer

Julia Stiles is going to mess up the film adaptation of this...

It's a shame Sylvia Plath left the world only one completed novel. Too bad she burned the follow-up novel to this work.
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LillyParksONBooks

Posted May 7, 2011

more from this reviewer

A hidden treasure. Enjoy

A hidden treasure. Enjoy
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sneps

Posted April 4, 2011

Excellent!

Reading this book, I truly felt it was autobiographical. I could feel her pain, sense of hopelessness, and isolation she experienced. Esther is a very smart and talented young college student who goes to New York City to serve as a guest editor for a fashion magazine. She describes her relationship with Buddy and girl friends she meets while in New York. Esther dissects her relationships with those she knows and is very descriptive in her thoughts, actions, and how she views others around her. This story gives the reader an opportunity to see how mental illness can slowly unravel a person's life, their relationship with self and others, and how it invades every part of your life and perceptions.
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MissJody

Posted February 10, 2011

more from this reviewer

Captivating!

The author takes you on a picturesque journey about the unraveling of a young woman's mind. The story is glamorous, high class, emotional, and endearing. A reader can visibly see the pieces of the main character's mind falling apart. The settings are wonderfully placed, and the plot is easy to follow.
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Anonymous

Posted January 13, 2011

Worst book i have ever read

book is overall very boring i would not ever reccomend it to anyone who was thinking that they wanted to read it.
the plot was the most boring thing i had ever read. the plot had no depth to it, the plot also never had a good climax it kinda just progressed but not enough to know it.
the characters are not intersting at all. Esther is the main character she has no personality. she doesnt even have a very well thought base for herself. Buddy he is something else he is inteligent, but i feel he is a little bit of a man whore and he doesnt really care wabout what other people think of him no matter what. he is also a very boring character.
i would not recomend this to someone unless they were really desperate for a book to read no matter how bad it was.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Rachel3989

Posted January 8, 2011

A good read

I had been wanting to read this novel for awhile and finally purchased it. The cashier at the bookstore boasted about how it's a great book so I was even more intrigued. The story follows Esther Greenwood through her descent into depression as well as her idiosyncratic relationships with others. Overall, it was a good book. Not my favorite but not bad either. I thought the beginning was slow and somewhat boring but I enjoyed it a lot more toward the end. The chapters didn't leave you with suspense to read on nonstop, but I was still curious to see what happened next. I would reccommend this book to others.
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Anonymous

Posted January 5, 2011

Recommended!

I have never been a big fan of Sylvia Plath, but after reading "The Bell Jar" I have a new found respect for her. The way that Plath has written the story just sucks you in right from the beginning and keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout the entire book. The book encompasses you and makes you feel as if you are the one descending into insanity.
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EvelynnNC

Posted December 12, 2010

A Moving Piece Of Literature

I picked up this book and I could not put it down. It's the most interesting and personal book I've read in the 17 years of my life. This book changed my life forever.You peak inside Esther's life and you find a little piece of yourself in hers. You must read this book!
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Alicia24

Posted November 29, 2010

I Also Recommend:

A great work of literature!

The Bell Jar
by: Sylvia Plath
Reviewed by: Alicia Dickerson

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is an incredible realistic story of a college-aged girl named, Esther Greenwood, who ventures through the emotionally-draining stages of depression. Esther Greenwood is a young woman who desires to shine in her writing career while looking for love in her life. Her depression starts to take its toll when she finds herself in many failed love attempts, and is declined her chance in a key writing class that could have sparked her career. Her depression begins to rise which leads into suicide attempts and being admitted to an asylum where the rest of the book is set. Esther refers to her depression as being in a bell jar against the world which she can either stay in or break the glass, "To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream."

The Bell Jar's first draft was written in 1957; the story was completed in 1962, and published in January 1963, under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. I believe this story was written beautifully because even though it was written in the late 1950's early 1960's, it can still relate to people going through depression today. Sylvia Plath takes you deep into Esther's mind and makes you realize what all goes on in the world of a suicidal addict. When Esther is admitted into the asylum, she paints the realistic picture with her thoughts and words which make you feel like you are experiencing life with her.

Sylvia Plath lets you in to Esther's difficult struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts, but Sylvia is letting you into her own experiences as well. According to Frances McCullough, Sylvia Plath was also declined her admission into a university writing class and struggled with her love life. She had attempted suicide and had a bell jar summer of her own like Esther Greenwood. Unfortunately, Sylvia did commit suicide on February 11, 1963, a month after The Bell Jar was published.

The Bell Jar is a wonderfully fashioned piece of literature that allows you to feel and experience the emotions of a young woman in an asylum. Though it may be difficult to understand in some parts by the way Plath jumps back and forth from scenes, this story is a page turner that may leave you shocked in the end.
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kuhlcat

Posted August 11, 2010

more from this reviewer

creative and morbid, but good

The poet in Sylvia Plath emerged in the entire course of the novel. Her descriptions are nothing short of beautiful, and the life of Esther Greenwood plays before your mind's eye like a motion picture. The opening image of New York city is so vivid you can practically feel the heat of summer in the city: "Mirage-gray at the bottom of their granite canyons, the hot streets wavered in the sun, the car tops sizzled and glittered, and the dry, cindery dust blew into my eyes and down my throat". I love it. The words ebb and flow and just create.

It is tough following a woman down into her depression. She has this great life working as an intern for a fashion magazine in the heart of New York City, and then, she just doesn't care anymore. Her life whirls around her and it's as if she just wants to get off the ride. And the voice is very conversational, very informal. I could relate to the character; even though I'm not depressed myself, I felt sympathy and friendship with Esther. If I had known her, I would have visited her in the asylum.

Anyway, it's a good book, thought-provoking, creative, a bit morbid, but well worth the read.
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Anonymous

Posted July 30, 2010

A Haunting Insight Into Sylvia Plath's Psyche

After analyzing her poetry and seeing the many connections between her life and poetry in IB English, I was intrigued by the fact that she had written only one novel. As I read, I realized that this book is virtually an artistic autobiography. You will see dozens of connections to her real life, from the death of her father at a young age to her many prestigious yet unfulfilling accomplishments to her electroconvulsive treatment in a mental hospital to her grave depression and insomnia. It's a good read and brilliantly written. However, if you're looking for entertainment and a good plot, this isn't really the book for you. I wouldn't recommend it for kids or the deeply religious, as this book is strongly atheist.
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The Bell Jar Review

Bell Jar; Not living up to its hipe

Bell Jar belongs on your shelf!

Don't Bother!

Truly a classic.

AWESOME!

Disappointing

worst book ever

Not the best.

Julia Stiles is going to mess up the film adaptation of this...

A hidden treasure. Enjoy

Excellent!

Captivating!

Worst book i have ever read

A good read

Recommended!

A Moving Piece Of Literature

A great work of literature!

creative and morbid, but good

A Haunting Insight Into Sylvia Plath's Psyche