How Does Sylvia Plath Use Simple Language In The Bell Jar
The key to understanding a writer’s concerns is in their use of simple and straightforward language.
Simple and straightforward language is not necessarily one with no figurative or deeper meaning, but is language that does not require extensive analysis to seek out its meaning. In her confessional novel, The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath describes Esther Greenwood’s journey of overcoming her mental illness, and through Esther, demonstrates her concerns about mental illness, the flawed treatments of the 1950s, and the stigmas regarding it. I strongly agree that in the case of The Bell Jar, simple and straightforward language is very important when understanding Plath’s concerns, as mental illness is a largely misunderstood subject, hence requires
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In the novel, Esther’s mother represents the social stigmas present in the 1950s and even today. After Esther’s mental health improves, her mother advises her to “act as if this were all a bad dream”. Esther’s mother trivialises mental illness and treats it as a passing phase. Through this simplistic ‘advice’ Plath demonstrates the stigma that mental illness is something to be belittled and something that can be easily forgotten about. Esther responds with the simple sentence “I remembered everything” to immediately refute this stigma. Also, through Esther’s uncertainty, “How did I know that someday the bell jar wouldn’t descend again?”, the author sheds light on the persisting nature of mental illness –she suggests that recovering from a mental illness is a continuous feat. According to Keller (1985), “between 50 and 85% of patients with one major episode who seek treatment will have at least one additional episode”. This statistic is supported by Plath herself, as her depression came back and led to her suicide in 1963, a few weeks after The Bell Jar was published. We can therefore see how dangerous it is for people to brush mental illness aside and, like Esther’s mother, treat it as a passing phase. The author, both through Esther’s worries and her own life, warns us against trivialising mental illness and disregarding its potentially devastating
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