The+bell+jar+by+sylvia+plath

//Sour Air: Life from a Bell Jar (The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath)//

 * Sylvia Plath. The Bell Jar. New York, New York: Harper & Row, 1971.**

//“You know, Esther, you’ve got the perfect setup of a true neurotic. You’ll never get anywhere like that, you’ll never get anywhere like that, you’ll never get anywhere like that” (Plath, 146).//

Most college students have their own coming of age story consisting of untried relationships, disputes with parents and dreams for the future. Journalism student Esther Greenwood is no different, however, her story also includes her own mental breakdown

//The Bell Jar// leads the reader down a path of destruction; a road with twists and turns that are so subtle in their changing ways that one would be oblivious to the sharp edges of the turn or the uneasiness of the earth. Esther is an accomplished intellect and successful young woman who portrays a life that goes from orderly and sensible to completely destroyed and disheveled. Plath evokes as sense of normalcy to the depiction of Esther's madness in such a way as to make the reader sympathize, if not justify this mental breakdown. The connection between the reader and Esther becomes so in twined that the madness seems to make sense and her recovery feels real. In this brilliantly written novel, insanity becomes something less of a foreign sate of mind of which few ever experience; rather, Esther's madness becomes something tangible for the reader to experience and feel.

Spending a month as a guest editor at a fashion magazine in New York City, Esther has the experience most girls her age would envy. Her life consists of free clothes, expensive food and fancy parties, but Esther isn’t impressed. Not only is she insensitive of the world around her, she’s confused of her future, torn by her mothers pressures to domesticate and her own aspirations of travel and poetry. “I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree… From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked… I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest.” (Plath, 77).

After the semester comes to a close, Esther goes back home to Boston to spend the summer with her mother. She decides to write a book, but with no experience in love or travel, decides she can’t. She tries to write her college thesis, but can’t get the words down. She tries to read, but the pros are jumbled. She can’t eat, hadn’t slept in a week, hadn’t bathed in three. It seemed as though electroshock therapy was the cure...

Plath seamlessly writes Esther’s transition from sanity to psychosis in a logical and sympathetic manner. After the therapy, Esther’s state of mental health slowly declines as she tries to commit suicide several times, but ultimately cannot complete the task. She finally closes herself off in the basement with a bottle of sleeping pills and wakes up in the hospital.

Esther lives out the rest of the novel in an institution, completely aware of her “incurable” (Plath, 159) case and her deterioration “… because wherever I sat- on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok- I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air” (Plath, 185).

Esther bounces from achieving student to mental instability and finally trying simply to survive. Like most girls her age, the hardships and pressures from the world around her create a demanding atmosphere but unlike most, she’s suffocating. But, through the support of others, the increase in strength and belief in herself, she slowly transitions back into a state of a clear and understandable self.


 * Recommendations for Teachers**

“A bad dream. To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream” (Plath 193).

“So I told him again, in the same dull, flat voice, only it was angrier this time, because he seemed so slow to understand, how I hadn’t slept for fourteen nights and how I couldn’t read or write or swallow very well” (Plath 110).

“It would take two motions. One wrist, then the other wrist. Three motions, if you counted changing the razor from hand to hand. Then I would step into the tub and lie down” (Plath 121).

Depression is a serious topic throughout the world. We all have had those days where you feel as if the world hates you and you question why you would even drag yourself out of bed. We all have experienced our off days where our emotions hit rock bottom and we just want to sleep till everything is better. Although we have all felt and experienced these emotions, we cannot possibly imagine what it’s like to suffer major depression and have these emotions day in and day out. The book, //The Bell Jar//, can help you see what depression is like for someone and what sort of thoughts and actions they take when they just want their world to end.

Although the subject matter of //The Bell Jar// is extremely mature, and is written in an elevated language that would be almost impossible for young adults to immerse themselves in, depression and language of this manner are not exclusive to people eighteen years old and up. This book misses the mark for it to be considered "young adult fiction" by certain standards (i.e date of publication, language, subject matter, etc) yet; this exclusion of literature categorization does not exclude it from applying to young adults. People of all ages experience saddness, apathy, or lonliness at some point in their lives; these emotions are practically human nature.

It’s important as a teacher to know your students. We don’t necessarily have to be best friends with each individual student but it’s important to shower your students with care. Show your students that they matter to you and that you’re there for them whether it’s because they just broke up with their boyfriend, or they’re upset by a grade you gave them. Students need to feel as though you care about them personally. You want them to achieve their goals and be happy. It’s important that students know this so if they are having those off days, they can come to you or someone and get help immediately.

Depression can result in the feeling as though no one cares about you. Though there isn’t a direct cause for depression, in adolescents, depression can be brought on by the maturing process, stress from a traumatic or disturbing event such as a death, a breakup or even a failure in some sort. These are all things that students will be going through and it’s important that you are there for your students to help them deal with these problems. It's been so long since we've dealt with the same problems as our students have so recognizing what depression looks like is a beneficial factor for you as a teacher.

Even though we all may not have experienced these emotions of such an intense nature or events that mirror these exactly, it’s important that we are familiar with them. 15% of suicide deaths are a result from major depression. We can familiarize ourselves with the symptoms so that if we are needed to help a student in any way, we have some background knowledge. //The Bell Jar// by Sylvia Plath is an autobiographical book that speaks on her own depression and attempts of suicide. Though this book is a great book to teach students the importance of getting help when needed and to teach them about depression and suicide, this is a highly graphic book with details of her attempts of suicide. This book shows students what major depression looks like and this may be able to help them recognize it and maybe help someone who is depressed. //The Bell Jar// may be that shocking book that gets students to think about their lives. Reading and discussing the events of this book may be the thing that gets through to students. This book may be best suited for seniors in high school and possibly a psychology class rather than an English class. As an academic lesson, this novel is dangerously accurate to the experiences of the mind undergoing depression. Excerpts from the text could be used to display such a depiction. On a personal level or teaching with a "bigger picture" in mind, this may also be a good time to talk about depression with students considering their possible experiences with the pressures of college mounting on their shoulders. Though this may be best suited for seniors, this would still need the permission from the school board, faculty and parents.

This book would benefit teachers by having this read. This book provides the experiences of a woman who would rather end her life than live another day. This can show you as a teacher what someone who has major depression acts like, looks like, what they think about, what they do, etc. You don’t have the same mentality as someone who does have depression but with this book, it can give you an insight to what it might possibly look like.

Although this is a great book that touches on the topics of depression and suicide, it may not be best suited in certain classrooms. This still is a great book for you as a teacher to read and keep in your library of books to look back on if needed.

= = Plath was born during the Great Depression on October 27th 1932. The fact that she was born during the Great Depression is foreshadowing of the state in which she would live most of her life, and subsequently, the tone in which she would write. When she was eight years old, her father died. His untimely death and his authoritarian attitudes defined the relationships she had and her writings. From a very young age she was extremely talented and driven; publishing works from the age of eleven. In college she went through a deep depression and attempted suicide. Despite this, she graduated at the top of her class. Pressing through her life, she went on to get married and had two kids. The winter after her husband left fer for another woman, in 1962, she fell into a deep depression. "In 1963, Plath published a semi-autobiographical novel, //The Bell Jar //, under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. Then, on February 11, 1963, during one of the worst English winters on record, Plath wrote a note to her downstairs neighbor instructing him to call the doctor, then she committed suicide using her gas oven" (poets.org). After she died more of her work was published, and with her book of //Collected Poems,// she became the first poet to win a Pulitzer Prize after death in 1982; and her work continues to be admired today.
 * About Sylvia Plath**


 * Interview with Plath**

Here is an interview with Sylvia Plath discussing how she got started writing and how her interests changed over time. She discusses her interest in psychology and human emotion as well as her interest in historical events such as Hiroshima and the Holocaust. Plath says that personal experience always leads her poems but it isn't a shut box that is not enhanced by her knowledge of the world. She also expresses her dislike of British poetry in comparison to American poetry and gives her opinion of the university in both Britain and the United States. media type="youtube" key="k6RRWf8woPM" height="344" width="425"

--//Melanie Rabine --Rebekka Olson -Jamie Linari//
 * Additional Resources:**
 * //[|The Bell Jar]-// Check out the Google Books version of the text.
 * [|Interesting Quotes] - Check out some quotes from Sylvia Plath's //The Bell Jar.//
 * [|Study Guide] - a study guide for teaching the novel //The Bell Jar//.
 * [|Interview with Sylvia Plath] - part 2 of the interview that is above.
 * [|Other Works] - this is a link to a site that has collected many of Plath's other works and left commentary and study tools to help in teaching Sylvia Plath.
 * [|About the Author] - This site offers the history of Plath's life and her works.
 * [|Analysis of Literature] - This site includes chapter summaries, character analysis, and themes of the story.
 * [|1979 Film] - This site goes into detail on the Hollywood film //The Bell Jar.//
 * [|New Movie in the Making] - This is a site that gives the limited information on the new film //The Bell Jar// starring Julia Stiles.
 * [|Sylvia Plath] - This is site that goes through Plath's life, her works, her husband and more.