Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - The Bell Jar

I did not know what to expect before reading this book but I was surprised to say the least. I do not see how it is an esteemed piece of literature nor do I see the value in reading it for any demographic. Sylvia Plath's thoughts are only interesting out of context (if ever) and I can hardly believe her works are considered feminist literature. She has no respect for anyone (women included) and would have not cared about the rights and fate of any marginalized group. This book was moreso an insight to a narcissistic person's mind who provokes no emotions or sympathy from the reader. And becau e there's so many 5 star reviews I'd like to pull some of my "favourite" quotes from the book:

Then my ears went funny, and I noticed a big, smudgy-eyed Chinese woman staring idiotically into my face. It was only me, of course.

I'm not sure why it is, but I love food more than just about anything else. No matter how much I eat, I never put on weight.

Avocados are my favourite fruit.

I hate technicolour. Everybody in a technicolour movie seems to feel obliged to wear a lurid new costume in each new scene and to stand around like a clothes-horse with a lot of very green trees or very yellow wheat or very blue ocean rolling away for miles and miles in every direction.

I was so busy thinking how very fat he was and how unfortunate it must be for a man and especially a young man to be fat, because what woman could stand leaning over that big stomach to kiss him, that it didn't immediately realize what this student had said to me was an insult.

'Well what do you say?'
' I said Gladys was free, white and twenty-one.'

I thought the TB (tuberculosis) might just be a punishment for living the kind of double life Buddy lived and feeling so superior to people.

He could almost have been an American, he was so tan and had such good teeth, but I could tell straight away that he wasn't.

I'd always spoil what I did so nobody would ask me to do it again.

She was a fat, middle-aged woman with dyed red hair and suspiciously thick lips and rat-coloured skin

But everything concave about Buddy had suddenly turned convex. A pot belly swelled under the thight white nylon shirt and his cheeks were round and ruddy as marzipan fruit. Even his laugh sounded plump.

'He's from Peru.'
'They're squat,' I said. 'They're ugly as aztecs.'

The face in the mirror looked like a sick Indian.

My grey suitcase rode on the rack over my head, empty except for The Thirty Best Short Stories of the Year, a white plastic sunglasses case and two dozen avocado pears, a parting present from Doreen.

I peered at him from the corner of my eye. He didn't look a day over sixteen.
'Do you know how old I am?' I said accusingly. The sailor grinned at me. 'Nope, and I don't care either.' It occurred to me that this sailor was really remarkably handsome. He looked Nordic and virginal.

Once, on a hot summer night, I had spent an hour kissing a hairy, ape-shaped law student form Yale because I felt sorry for him, he was so ugly.

His name was Cal, which I thought must be short for something, but I couldn't think what it would be short for, unless it was California.

Then I rode from the table, passing round to the side where the nurse couldn't see me below the waist, and behind the negro, who was clearing the dirty plates. I drew my foot back and gave him a sharp, hard kick on the calf of the leg.

Content Warnings

jastasticxoxo's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This book is excellent. I see why it is a modern classic. I connect so deeply with Esther and Sylvia Plath has always spoken to me in a way no other author or poet has. Esther is such a deeply timeless and relatable character and I love the frankness, honesty and bluntness Sylvia Plath wrote with. Men have been acting with the same violent wilful idiocy for all of time and it’s insane how many of the experiences plath writes about here I and every single afab person I know have experienced. I love this book so much.

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satvrnreads's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

4.0

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booksandmoe's review

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4.0

This is a complicated rating for me as in one hand I was not fully invested in the plot and didn’t really care about any of the characters, but in the other hand it was fascinating to read of Esther’s descent into depression and eventually being institutionalised.

It’s beautifully written, and some passages are among the most moving I’ve ever read, however it’s also a novel of its time and has some very misogynistic, racist and homophobic rhetoric.

Additionally, there are some graphic references to SA, suicidal thoughts and acts of suicide , if you are sensitive to any of those topics I would approach this one with caution.

All in all I can see why this is a modern classic and is definitely a great novel to analyse and dissect

Content Warnings

marie_reads16's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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sukidookie's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, originally written under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, is a rapid and unhinged descent into madness. From the very start of the novel, something was off about Esther’s internal monologue. It was like there was a deep undercurrent of sadness and bitterness, mainly directed at her college friends, but also at herself and what was expected of her. Esther craved academic validation, as well as social validation, but in a very abnormal way, as if she was trying to capture something that was constantly eluding her — something that would make her finally, truly, happy.

Unfortunately, many things were not on Esther’s side — the patriarchal social system of the early 1960s, and the barbarian way they treated mental health patients (inducing lobotomies, and inducing a seizure through electric shock therapy; I can’t believe they still do that today, and it supposedly is effective?) It was sad, and strangely communal, to watch Esther buckle and cripple under the weight of her social injustices. I thought it was masterful how Sylvia portrayed women’s issues in the early 1960s. The presence of the woman-hater, the hypocritical way Buddy spoke to her about marriage and purity, her bitter insights into how her friends acted around other men, (Doreen and Lenny, for example), and watching her female friends go through the same things as her (Joan’s suicide). No wonder Esther could not choose a fig from the tree; how could she, when the shape of her body would not let her even reach the branches?

At the end of the novel, and after many suicide attempts, Esther must be put on trial before a team of doctors to determine if she is fit to return to society. It’s not written what happens, whether she is cured or not, and in my particular copy of The Bell Jar, the following 10 pages were completely blank. I didn’t know if this was on purpose or not, but I thought it very poetic and fitting. I learned that Sylvia Plath, just a few weeks after publishing The Bell Jar — her only novel — committed suicide by sticking her head in an oven. I wonder if she planned on killing herself all along, while writing the book, and The Bell Jar is both a cry for help and her suicide note.

Sylvia’s death is a testament to ongoing women’s issues in America, even today, 60 years later. I am so very sorry, Sylvia Plath, that you and many other women like you did not get the help you needed. Rest in peace.

Content Warnings

carpethatdiem2's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny reflective slow-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? Yes

5.0

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