Why You Should Read ‘The Bell Jar’
It haunts, it resonates, it explains
I was scared to pick up The Bell Jar.
Scared that my expectations would be dashed. Scared that mental health would be portrayed superficially. Scared that this topic wouldn’t be served justice.
Even thinking about reading this book signifies that you’re in a deep crisis.
In my defence, I have suffered from mental health issues from the beginning of adolescence, and still, now and then, circumstances put me on the verge of falling back into that hole again.
I was desperate to get into the perspective of a woman on a similar footing.
I was desperate to be understood.
Safe to say, Sylvia Plath’s masterpiece did not disappoint me. It hit home so hard that my eyes were on the verge of tearing up.
What is this book about?
Esther is a young, brilliant, and talented woman who finds herself unable to find happiness. She is an aspiring poet, but how her life turns out can be turned into the greatest poem of all times.
Sylvia Plath traces her journey from achieving success early in her life and not knowing what to do with it to her mind breaking down through the years that follow.
To understand this semi-biographical account, we have to understand Plath’s life.
Plath had a creative and brilliant streak since childhood, writing journals, publishing poems, and painting scenes, with an IQ of 160.
Plath attended Smith College, a private women’s liberal arts college in Massachusetts. She excelled academically.
Plath was awarded a coveted position as a guest editor at Mademoiselle magazine, during which she spent a month in New York City.
This experience was what served as the inspiration for her only novel.
Tragedy after tragedy struck soon. After an upheaval concerning romance there, Plath slashed her legs to see if she had enough “courage” to kill herself. Next, she couldn’t get admission to the Harvard writing seminar.
Another thing weighing on her was the loss of her father at a tender age.
Following electroconvulsive therapy for depression, Plath made her first medically documented suicide attempt by crawling under the front porch and taking her mother’s sleeping pills.
Esther’s journey is similar.
From a hugely successful start, her condition begins to deteriorate terribly, self-doubt filling her. Circumstances, such as the loss of her parent, the unfaithfulness of her partner, and a rape attempt on her, play a role.
Esther finds trouble in basic activities like sleeping, eating, reading, and even filling a page with words!
It led to self-harm. It led to half-hearted suicide attempts. It led to insanity.
It led to the Bell Jar enveloping her mind.
The book used beautiful metaphors and terms to explain the condition to people unaware. One example is The Bell Jar itself; another is the metaphor using a fig tree.
People usually complain that Plath wrote with an egoistic perspective.
The voice did not come as self-aggrandizing or absolutely depressing. Instead, it was filled with witty comments, hilarious liners and shrewd observations Esther makes.
Even though published in the 1960s, this book won’t ever cease to be relevant.
The book is well ahead of its time
We can link Sylvia Plath’s depression to misogyny.
Sylvia Plath alleged Ted Hughes, her husband, beat her two days before she miscarried their second child. He wanted her dead. Hughes left Plath for another woman in 1962 and even burned her journals after her death.
Esther loathes marriage and childbirth in the book. It is a curse for the woman.
Her views are amazingly modern and blunt as compared to the times Plath lived in.
She’s a complex and incisive woman, who sees through society and points out its flaws.
“So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about as numb as a slave in a totalitarian state.” — The Bell Jar
There are several pages where Esther analyses how marriage is a trap for women and how gruesome and cruel childbirth is.
I found her points justified. The feminist inside me was proud.
While this novel has a hopeful end, her life doesn’t.
Sylvia Plath committed suicide on February 11, 1963, at the young age of 30. Even if her life was cut short, her book continues to apprise the masses about this terrible, horrendous illness and gives hope to people in shoes similar to hers.
May this book be a blessing to you as well.
You will laugh. You will cry. And above all, you will feel that you’re not alone in this, and you can always rebound.
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