Author: Sylvia Plath

Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics

Pub. in: August, 2005

ISBN: 0060837020

Pages: 288

Measurements: 8.0 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches

Origin of product: USA

Order code: BA00425

Other information:  

Sylvia Plath made a name for herself with her poetry and this, her only novel. She was one of the confessionalist poets, along with Anne Sexton, she studied with Robert Lowell. The Bell Jar carries her confessionalistic work into fiction. This is based pretty heavily on her life. The Bell Jar is like A Catcher in the Rye for girls. It's pretty well written, though you can tell it is an inexperienced novelist. It is a shame she killed herself so young, because not only was she a great poet, but she had such potential to become a great fiction writer. Plath successfully carries us down into insanity with her protagonist. The narration works very well in keeping the reader as disjointed as our heroin. We never get a good idea as to why the breakdown occurs, but as in real life, these matters are often confusing.

Similar to many great American writers, her prose style is deceptively simple. Plath's writing is extraordinarily translucent, enabling the reader to vicerally connect with her inner most thoughts and feelings. This aspect of the novel was highly enjoyable rather than the actual story itself. Sometimes reality is difficult to look at... As a poet, Plath is acutely sensitive to the world, and as sensitive people are forced to do, they create social masks as a defence mechanism against the vulgarities of existence. This reminded me of the Aestheticism of the Irish writer and poet, Oscar Wilde: the poet's task in life is to be a seeker of beauty - the art of life, or the life of art, the aesthete or poet equates with a form of purified ecstasy that can flourish only when removed from the vulgarities and stereotyped world of actuality. In the case of the novel's protagonist, Esther Greenwood, it was a confrontation and eventual withdrawal from the vulgarities of 'male culture'. The mask she created revealed itself as an unkind, almost flippant attitude to the people around her. Because she must be true to herself, (as poets must be) her actions or inactions with the people around her caused tremendous guilt, thus the vicious circle begins: an acute sensitivity to the world and self; the creation of a false mask as defense; the inevitable guilt for not being true to oneself, leading to eventual self destruction.

Widely perceived as a work of art, The Bell Jar is an important book for many reasons, least of which is its literary contribution to American letters.

Target readers: General readers

Better with The Catcher in the Rye :

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