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The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath

Start date: July 1, 2014

Finish date: July 31, 2014

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What Members Thought

Nov 20, 2011 ij rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001, 1001-read, group-read, fiction, classics, psychology, mental-illness, 2015, the-year-of-reading-women

2015: The Year of Reading Women

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Oct 15, 2013 Charlotte rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, social-commentary, authors-female, 5-star-books, read-again, set-in-usa, books-of-the-year

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Apparently when Sylvia Plath died, she was not the recognised name that she is today. Her poetry was little known, and 'The Bell Jar' had been published a matter of weeks before her suicide. This made me wonder what was going through her head when she wrote it. As 'The Bell Jar' is supposed to be heavily autobiographical - Esther Greenwood representing a thinly-veiled Plath - one can perhaps assume that Esther's feelings of depression, bewilderment and despair reflect Plath's own emotions?
Set i Apparently when Sylvia Plath died, she was not the recognised name that she is today. Her poetry was little known, and 'The Bell Jar' had been published a matter of weeks before her suicide. This made me wonder what was going through her head when she wrote it. As 'The Bell Jar' is supposed to be heavily autobiographical - Esther Greenwood representing a thinly-veiled Plath - one can perhaps assume that Esther's feelings of depression, bewilderment and despair reflect Plath's own emotions?
Set in 1953, 10 years before it was written, we follow Esther/Sylvia over several months, learning about her attempts to carve out a career and a fulfilling life while battling with crippling depression. We witness her losing the ability to write, giving up her prestigious scholarship, and attempting suicide. Knowing that Plath committed suicide herself so soon afterwards, I wonder whether this book describes Esther/Sylvia as she really was in 1953, or is it closer to her self in 1963?
The lines between fiction and reality are constantly blurred. Not only is the book marketed as autobiographical, and many of the characters were so recognisable that the marriage of one of its real-life counterparts broke down as a result, but from the very start it is set in a real-world time and place ('the summer they executed the Rosenburgs.') Add to this the fact that Plath originally published under a pseudonym, and it begins to be difficult to distinguish fact from fiction.
I also found the foreshadowing of things to come to be subtle but clearly drawn. From the first page, the first sentence even, referring to electrocution, we are drawn into a world where society entraps us in its code. The fact that Plath chose to mention electrocution is surely no coincidence. The positive note to the ending may give readers hope, but knowing that Esther is Sylvia Plath, and knowing Sylvia Plath's eventual fate, lends a darker tone.
As a feminist book, it is excellent, but as a book about life, living and mental health, it is essential. ...more

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Nov 20, 2011 H rated it really liked it

I really really liked this book. I think I have a current obsession with mental health books but this one was good. I don't really see how people compare it with Catcher in the Rye. I hated that book I felt like the main character in that book was way more self indulgent than in Bell Jar. You could feel her losing her mind. ...more

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