Mental Illness In Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar

This quote shows that even though Mairs sometimes has difficulty accepting her illness, she knows that there is a growing acceptance of people who must deal with the difficulties that she faces. This ultimately lends a hopeful and positive tone to an otherwise serious and depressing section of her essay. This contrast in tone, but general feeling of hope is key to the type of emotions that Nancy Mairs is trying to educate her readers about. Mair is successful in using multiple rhetorical strategies to connect with the reader.

Ken Kesey’s book titled “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” encapsulates the theme of insanity. The book questions not only the reader, but humanity on “What is insanity?” and therefore “What makes a person insane?”. An example of these moral questions is best displayed in the quote “Tell me why. You gripe, you bitch for weeks on end about how you can’t stand this place, can’t stand the nurse or anything about her, and all the time you ain’t committed. I can understand it with some of those old guys on the ward. They’re nuts. But you, you’re not exactly the everyday man on the street, but you’re not nuts.” [McMurphy pg.195]. Throughout the book, we, as the reader, can see that there is a fine line between normality and insanity. In fact, the

While Plath fictionalised the account of her time in the mental institution in The Bell Jar, Sussana Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, set in 1967, is a memoir of Kaysen’s experience in the mental institution. There is a sense of ambivalence in the mental institution that seems to be oppressive yet liberating for Kaysen. In the beginning Kaysen describes a “parallel universe” which is a metaphor for mental illness and how easily one can slip into this universe that separates the sane and the insane, which is very strange. She highlights how this universe has a different set of rules and there is a cruel irony of how a person is aware that they have left reality behind and are aware of what is happening. When Kaysen is sent to the doctor for her failed

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, considers the qualities in which society determines sanity. The label of insanity is given when someone is different from the perceived norm. Conversely, a person is perceived as sane when their behavior is consistent with the beliefs of the majority. Although the characters of this novel are patients of a mental institution, they all show qualities of sanity. The book is narrated by Chief Brodmen, an observant chronic psychiatric patient, who many believe to be deaf and dumb. The question of sanity becomes apparent when McMurphy, a confident gambler, who might have faked psychosis in order to get out of the work farm, is assigned to the mental hospital. He quickly stirs up tension in the ward for Nurse Ratched by encouraging the men to have fun and rebel against her rules.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is a semi-autobiographical novel in which Plath relays her own experiences through protagonist Esther Greenwood by highlighting the struggles she faced in navigating societal expectations, depression, and her own desires. Having spent time in college and later in multiple mental health institutions, Plath tells her story through Esther in a way that blends fiction and reality. Through Esther, we see Plath’s own interpretations of her triumphs, failures, values, and the slow but seemingly inevitable diminishment of her mental health.

In the book Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen, one of the biggest focal points is mental illness. Mental illness can be tough to talk about, simply because the phrase “mental illness” encompasses such a wide range of conditions and conjures up images of deranged people, but it is very important, especially in this book. There is a certain stigma that people who are put into mental hospitals because they have medical problems or are insane and a possible danger to society. While this is sometimes true, it is far more common for patients to need help for a disorder, but just don’t know where to go or what to do, and can end up putting themselves or someone else in danger.

This happened only five years before the antibiotic that could have treated him and prevented his death came to be. In illustrating this story, she describes the event as one that “scarred his family with a grief they never recovered from.” (188) Through this story, as a reader, it is almost impossible not to imagine yourself in her shoes. That, along with the use of these very emotionally provoking words, she captures the audience from the beginning with this pathetic appeal that carries on throughout the essay. She goes on to appeal to logics as well.

“Having anxiety and depression is like being scared and tired at the same time. It 's the fear of failure but no urge to be productive. It 's wanting friends but not socializing. It 's wanting to be alone but not wanting to be lonely. It 's caring about everything then caring about nothing. It 's feeling everything at once than feeling paralysingly numb,” writes Maria Henriksson. Mental illness refers to many conditions that individuals could go through. For example depression, addictive behaviors, and eating disorder have effects that could indicate whether or not an individual has a mental illness. In the novel The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger, Holden faces many hardships after his brother 's death. Holden 's mental illness is inferred through his lack of control, isolating himself from others, and relieving the past which caused him to not move

During the Vietnam War the soldiers, whether or not they wanted to be there, many of them developed mental illnesses. The things they would experience would cause burdens on them for the rest of their lives. “Ted Lavender, who was scared, carried tranquilizers until he was shot in the head outside the village of Than Khe in mid-April.” (The Things They Carried) Lavender carried tranquilizers until he died, because he was scared. This is one the effects war had on people. Due to cultural aspects these soldiers were burdened by drugs, the environment and social pressure to perform well, ultimately effecting their state of mind.

Ken Kesey uses his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, to describe the lives of patients in a mental institution, and their struggle to overcome the oppressive authority under which they are living. Told from the point of view of a supposedly mute schizophrenic, the novel also shines a light on the many disorders present in the patients, as well as how their illnesses affect their lives during a time when little known about these disorders, and when patients living with these illnesses were seen as an extreme threat. Chief Bromden, the narrator of the novel, has many mental illnesses, but he learns to accept himself and embrace his differences. Through the heroism introduced through Randle McMurphy, Chief becomes confident in himself, and is ultimately able to escape from the toxic environment Nurse Ratched has created on the ward. Chief has many disorders including schizophrenia, paranoia, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, and, in addition to these illnesses, he pretends to be deaf and dumb. This combination of many mind and life altering diagnoses leads to an interesting point of view, and a deeper look into the lives of people living with the

2. Insanity One of the most important symbols of insanity in Sylvia Plath’s novel is the bell jar. Given the fact that this is also the title of the book, it is surprising to find that the bell jar only recurs at the beginning of chapter fifteen when Esther, after being ‘rescued’ from the city hospital, reflects on how indifferent she is to where exactly she is at the moment.

In this book it makes you think and wonder what was going on

Being a woman in the early twentieth century, she simply followed what her husband told her. She did not have her own voice and kept her thoughts to herself. With that being said, it is as if her identity is simply that of the average woman during her time. However, the days she spends in confinement go by, the identity of that woman drifts away and she is overtaken by the identity of her own mental illness. As said in Diana Martin’s journal on “Images in Psychiatry”, while the narrator in isolation she becomes “increasingly despondent and nervous”.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest The film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, prompts very important aspect of the human condition. In the movie, the protagonist, Mac McMurphy, is deemed dangerous, so the mental institute tries to suppress him (Kesey). The film highlights various aspects of human conditions like psychology, sociology and philosophy. The mental institute tries to suppress the mentally challenged people rather than to try to communicate with them.

Even when she realized the reality of her father, she still tries to go back to him. In lines 58-61 “At twenty I tried to die…………… /And they stuck me together with glue” Plath uses imagery to show that even as bad as Hitler, she will always look up to her