The bell jar is a book by American author Sylvia Plath published in 1963.. At first she was published in England this year under a pseudonym, Victoria Lucas. In 1971 the publication arrived in the United States. Plath is known as a poet and this work is the only novel she has published.
It has the particularity of being a kind of autofiction, since the protagonist of the narrative has been compared with the author's life experience. Navigating autobiographical events, in this novel Sylvia and Esther (the character of The bell jar) carry common imbalances that will define the destiny of both.
The Bell Jar: The Lives of Sylvia and Esther
When the air becomes impossible to breathe
Esther Greenwood is a young woman who has everything to be happy. At least, in appearance. In addition to a suitable boyfriend and a medical student, a life that seems resolved, and youth, he has just obtained a scholarship that will allow her to live his dream life in New York. You have the opportunity to know what a fashion publication is like from the inside and you will be able to write in it. What it is about is writing, what she had always aspired to dedicate herself to.
Inside, however, nothing is established, and this is perceived from the beginning of the narrative. He is not comfortable in the big city in an environment that he sees as hostile to women.. When Esther returns to her place of origin, everything in her is completely shaken and she will face the abyss of herself, after having experienced suffocation and anguish in a world in which she, as a woman, did not feel free. nor recognized.
The bell jar It is a quite lyrical and metaphorical text due to the poetic character and career of the author. It is framed within the feminist ideas of the time that engage with the current ideology about the position of women in society.. A bell jar is a closed chamber in which the air is not renewed and the natural act of breathing becomes dense and increasingly difficult to carry out. With the tragic end of Esther we witness the dire premonition, the desperate cry, of Sylvia Plath herself.
unfolding
Can we then speak of the existence of aalter ego in the novel? Much has been discussed about the similarities between Sylvia and Esther and in a certain way the author In his only known novel, he uses a fictional character to expand his inner world beyond poetry.. Her literature is very intimate and this novel is the last testimony of a tormented writer.
Likewise, the protagonist longs to free herself from the social conventions that trap women in the family and social, professional and sexual spheres. All this in a gridded world prepared for patriarchal continuity. In addition to the external conditions to which Sylvia Plath was subjected, there is personal trauma. The secondary characters also serve the writer to mark the distance with her own loved ones. As in the case of her mother, she is also portrayed in Esther's mother.
Added to the topics discussed is an intimate discourse that gives the novel an individual character that allows the author to emerge through the character of Esther. There is no doubt that there is a type of split between the author and her character. Plath's need to express her perspective in other ways and Her discomfort is transformed into a literary work that inevitably reveals Plath's literary talent, as well as her broken mental state, jaded and hopeless.. The result is a sometimes incoherent story that reflects the author's feelings.
Conclusions
The bell jar is a novel that can be somewhat disordered or incoherent, which makes complete sense when you understand Sylvia Plath and her alter ego, Esther. It is the only novel by the American poet in which she can give free rein to her need for expression and creation in a different way than she had been doing. After the publication of the novel, Plath commits suicide and The bell jar becomes a desperate cry, the last testimony of an author who defended feminism in her work and openly showed the scourge that is mental illness..
About the author
Sylvia Plath was born in Boston in 1932. She was a poet who also wrote short stories, essays and a single novel that is considered one of her best works.. Beside The bell jar, his poetry collections stand out The colossus, Ariel o Crossing the water. Also relevant in prose are the diaries written by the author that were published with the title The diaries of Sylvia Plath.
On the other hand, it should be noted that many of her works were published posthumously since Plath died very young after a suicide. This author suffered the early death of her father during her childhood and Coupled with her creative talent was also the depression that accompanied her throughout her life.. She obtained a scholarship that would take her to England; and there she met her husband, the famous English poet Ted Hughes, from whom she would separate not long after.
Diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she committed suicide a month after the publication of The bell jarIn the year 1963. He posthumously received the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1982..