Sylvia Plath s The Bell Jar - 1758 Words

According to The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, â€Å"There was much debate concerning the proper place of women and the ideal characteristics of femininity throughout the nineteenth century† (610). The Victorian Era formally followed the reign of Queen Victoria in England from 1837 to 1901, but the era is not so rigidly set. The ideologies, values, and mores associated with the Victorian Era were present before Queen Victoria, and then followed into America and also lived sixty years past its recorded date of death. In the United States during the 1950s and 60s, the idea of femininity was still being explored, just as it was a century prior in another country. Women in the Victorian Era and in 1950s and 1960s America experienced†¦show more content†¦In the Victorian Era, men served as the head and face of all laws; therefore, women were tyrannized by men through the law because man and law were inextricably linked together. All women were expected to marr y, so most oppressions took place within the marriage. Once a woman married a man, she abandoned a part of herself. According to the Broadview Anthology of British Literature, â€Å"The common law doctrine of overture ensured that a woman’s legal identity was subsumed in that of her husbands upon marriage. In effect, the law of coverture regarded the husband and wife as ‘one person:’ the husband† (508). Women had no identity or purpose beyond that of her husband. After marriage, she was stripped of her former self only to then function as an add-on to his more â€Å"superior† person. Additionally, with the power that deemed the male as the dominant counterpart, men were granted â€Å"full control of his wife’s personal property and any earnings she acquired during the marriage† (Broadview Anthology 508). For a Victorian woman, to join a man in holy matrimony was to sign away all autonomy. Moreover, women received pressures from the law and from society: â€Å"The idea that women ought to be subordinate to her husband was not only a matter of social expectation; it was alsoShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Sylvia Plath s The Bell Jar 2248 Words   |  9 PagesTara Cameron Ms. Frega English 2.1 May 8, 2015 Sylvia Plath and Depression Sylvia Plath was a young and talented writer with the potential to exceed literary expectations. She was able to write a semi-autobiographical book about her struggle with depression and suicide, putting her personal story into the character of Esther Greenwood. The Bell Jar is the story of the hardships of a young woman named Esther who is clinically depressed and who struggles to keep up with the world around her. EstherRead MoreAnalysis Of Sylvia Plath s The Bell Jar 1573 Words   |  7 Pages How Sylvia Plath represent madness in the Bell Jar The book shows us a young girl who wants to be totally in charge of her own life where females were expected to be interesting and educated but only marry and be a good wife for ambitious men. She wants to enjoy life and experience every bit of it as she wants it to be. This would never work and in some ways she is born early. She would have been better in the ‘women s lib’ age ready for independence and happy of going places. Always able toRead MoreSylvia Plath s The Bell Jar1130 Words   |  5 PagesSylvia Plath is known as a profound writer, depicted by her lasting works of literature and her suicide which put her poems and novel of debilitating depression into a new perspective. In her poem â€Å"Lady Lazarus,† written in 1962, her mental illness is portrayed in a means to convey to her readers the everyday struggle of depression, and how it affects her view of her world, herself, and even those who attempt to tackle her battle with her. This poem, among ot her poetry pieces and her novel The BellRead MoreSylvia Plath s The Bell Jar960 Words   |  4 PagesIn Sylvia Plath’s novel, The Bell Jar, Plath expresses her opposition to the idea of men having complete control over every aspect of women’s lives by utilizing the narrator Esther; a radical feminist, to speak out against conformity in a society run by men. Esther represents everything controversial about domesticity in the twentieth century. Throughout the novel she touches on taboo subjects such as radical feminism, rape, and resistance of patriarchal dictates, all of which were touchy topicsRead MorePersonal Growth Sylvia Plath s The Bell Jar1177 Words   |  5 PagesPersonal Growth in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath uses this quote in The Bell Jar to show the main character Esther Greenwood struggles. The quote states as followed,â€Å"There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room. It s like watching Paris from an express caboose heading in the opposite direction--every second the city gets smaller and smaller, only you feel it s really you gettingRead MoreSylvia Plath s The Bell Jar2369 Words   |  10 Pageshowever, Sylvia Plath may be one of the most iconic. Many believe living with debilitating mental illness can aid in creativity. Throughout Sylvia’s short life, she produced brilliant yet immensely troubled writing. Sylvia Plath’s struggle with both Bipolar Disorder and Depression is communicated within her writing through her use of creativity, visceral language, and emotional rawness. Her inner turmoil can be interpreted in her brilliant and vehemen ce evoking poetry as well as her novel, The Bell JarRead MoreSylvia Plath s The Bell Jar, And Her Other Works1413 Words   |  6 Pagesend† (Goodreads). In Sylvia Plath’s final days, the things she desired, did in fact annihilate her. Sylvia Plath desired perfectionism and the need to feel like she acquired a meaning. As interpreted in the novel, The Bell Jar, and her other works; Sylvia Plath parallels her own traumatic path throughout her life and her downward spiral during the 1950s, explaining her struggle with her mental suffocation and the inexorable depression that contaminated her mind. Sylvia Plath’s emotional turmoilRead MoreWomen s Sexual Experience By Sylvia Plath s The Bell Jar 918 Words   |  4 Pagesfaced in terms of their sexual experience. Through the eyes of the main character, Ester Greenwood, the novel focuses on the struggle between what women were beginning to gain and the antiquated notions of female purity and innocence. Ultimately, The Bell Jar critiques the gendered double standard women faced regarding sex in the mid-twenty-first century in its exploration of purity, equality, and freedom. The novel begins when Ester is nineteen and â€Å"pureness was the great issue† (82). She is encumberedRead MoreThe Cause Of Sylvia Plath s Depression1447 Words   |  6 PagesThe Causes of Sylvia Plath’s Depression When reading any works by Sylvia Plath, it is easy to focus on the depression of her writing. However, it is important to understand why she wrote most her works about depression. Plath based her works on her own life experiences. Sylvia Plath’s most commonly known book, The Bell Jar, is thought to be an autobiography. Aurelia Plath, Sylvia’s mother, published the book Letters Home, a collection of all the letters Sylvia wrote to her mother. The letters sheRead MoreThe Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath1211 Words   |  5 PagesSylvia Plath Research Paper Title The Bell Jar place[s] [the] turbulent months[of an adolescent’s life] in[to] mature perspective (Hall, 30). In The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath uses parallelism, stream of consciousness, the motif of renewal and rebirth, symbolism of the boundary-driven entrapped mentally ill, and auto-biographical details to epitomize the mental downfall of protagonist, Esther Greenwood. Plath also explores the idea of how grave these timeless and poignant issues can affect a fragile