Reviews

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

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nerdie_kitten's review against another edition

4.0

The Bell Jar tells the story of the gifted young woman's mental breakdown beginning during a summer internship as a junior editor at a magazine in New York City in the early 1950s. The real Plath committed suicide in early '60s and left behind this scathingly sad, honest and well-written book, whivh remains one of the best-told tales of a women's descent into insanity!

In the bell Jar Esther describes the relationship between mind and body as one in which each imprisons the other. The mind traps the body literally: it gets Esther locked in a psychiatric hospital. But at the same time, the body traps the mind. It has "little tricks" for preventing her from killing herself. She calls the body a "cage" that prevents the mind from extinguishing itself. "If only there were something wrong with my body"' she wants to tell the nurses. She would prefer it if something were wrong with her body. But to Esther, the mind is entirely different question. problems with the nind are separate from those of body and, in her views are much worse. Esther's description of psychological and physical life as a dichotomous will continue to lend us a better understanding of ourselves.

hsteggy's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

djenkin96's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

discombobulate's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

lazyliterature's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I have mixed opinions on this book, the amount of racist language in this book threw me off a lot, sure the book was written 70 something years ago but the discrimination in this book is disappointing.

Excluding the racist actions, I feel for Esther. No amount of partying, drinking and everything else she could to fill that whole, it never worked. You can tell throughout the book just how much of her sanity is gone through her actions of overdosing, attempting hanging herself and over suicide attempts. She is the epitome of young womanhood, a sense of not knowing what you want to with your life while also carrying the traditional wife and babymaker above your head.

What I do absolutely adore is the Fig Tree paragraph. It fully represents the anxiety we all carry with us in life, everyone wants to pick the right fig and don’t want to starve.

But what absolutely kills me the most is how this book is mostly based on Sylvia’s life. She saw a happy ending for Esther but not for herself. If Sylvia never wrote this book, feminist literature would be severly behind