The Bell Jar Analysis

The Bell Jar is the only novel published by Sylvia Plath, an American writer and poet. It was originally published under the pseudonym “Victoria Lucas” in 1963 and was claimed to be semi-autobiographical, with only the difference in names and places. Robert Scholes from the New York Times Book Review on The Bell Jar- ‘It is a fine novel, as bitter and remorseless as her last poems… The world in which the events of the novel take place is a world bounded by the Cold War on one side and the sexual war on the other… This novel is not political or historical in any narrow sense, but in looking at the madness of the world and the world of madness it forces us to consider the great question posed by all truly realistic fiction: What is reality and how can it be confronted? … Esther Greenwood’s account of her year in the bell jar is as clear and readable as it is witty and disturbing.’ Simply put, Sylvia Plath’s novel is an appalling, realistic, and intensely emotional novel about a woman falling into the grip of insanity. The Bell Jar conforms very closely to Plath’s events in life. This is such that the protagonist’s descent into mental illness parallels with Plath’s possible clinical depression. A month after The Bell Jar’s first UK publication, Plath committed suicide. In her famous and persevering masterwork, Sylvia Plath has successfully and intelligently draws the reader into Esther’s breakdown with such force that her insanity becomes palpably real, even discerning. A deep