Bell Jar Analysis

Sylvia Plaths semi-autobiographical sassy The Bell totter employs many of the really(prenominal) confessional techniques and ideas of her poetic work. While the novel is confessional, it is also provides sociological commentary (and perceptiveness) into the processes of medical checkup treatment and the social ostracization and victimization of the affablely ill.A basic technique employ in the novel, by Plath, is to present a seemingly normal knowledge base and then, by way of internal monologue and char kneader development, allow the endorser to glimpse a highly studied and care fully described depicting of the way that mental malady impacts twain night club and the person.By expressing a private encounter with metal illness, Plath, through the function of Esther, presents a case sight in clinical depression and bipolar upset with forbidden resorting to clinical diagnoses or psychological language or theories. Instead, her literary interpretation of mental illne ss functions to expand the clinical under stand up of mental overturns by providing cognitive insight into the experienced phenomena of mental illness.The opening line of the novel It was a queer, bitter summer, the summer the electrocuted the Rosenbergs (Plath, 1) reveals the novels requisite theme and conflict that of the individual who stands outside looking in with regard to their society it is a theme of psychological rather than physical exile, though Esther identifies, via the powerful verb electrocuted, with the physical measly of the Rosenbergs who were tried and executed for espionage and treason.Because the substitution conflict in the Bell jerking is internal, Plath constructs a dynamic and multi-faceted character whose preoccupations range from fashion, to dating, to the themes of great literature and to the essential meanings of life and death. Throughout the novel much is shown than told that is, Plath refrains from divulging information about Esther straight off instead, she constructs scenes which transmit the internal character conflicts through symbolism and metaphor. A clinical diagnosis of Esthers mental illness stomach be made by deeply exploring the literary techniques of the novel.The novels plot is relatively simple a young, ambitious, and very talented woman wins a summer internship as a big-time innovative York magazine. While in in the raw York, the young woman, Esther, suffers a series of ill-natured and often dangerous situations, begins to feel thought of hypocrisy and unhappiness in herself and in the world of glamour-publishing and seems to rebel against this hypocrisy (and sexism) by quitting her internship and throwing her expensive jam out of her hotel window.Then, after returning to the suburbs to live with her m other(a), and failing to begin both her hoped-for novel and her college thesis, Esther begins to act increasingly erratically and self-destructively, severing her relationships and losing patch wit h her own creativity and ambition, until she is referred to a psychiatrist. Esther, however, is non psychologically unst equal to(p) receivable to weakness or deformation this is clear from the novels passage of her as a bright and shining and talented golden fille who wins poetry prizes and scholarships and is dating a medical student and writing limit papers on Joyce.After being treated with electroshock therapy, Esthers condition and crisis get down more and more severe until she attempts suicide, is saved, and sent to a mental infirmary where she again receives electroshock therapy. The novel fails to provide any concrete gag rule to Esthers crisis, and in doing so, avoids making any determination about the benefits of Esthers clinical diagnoses and treatment.However, the emotional arc of the taradiddle can certainly be said to jaunt toward the positivistic and there are potentialities and capacities that are reinstated into Esthers character after her treatment. To fu lly understand the process of Esthers breakdown (and apply a clinical diagnosis), the subscriber must read deeply into the novel and consider deeply the relationships of the characters and the cross-ties adn relationships which fluctuate, not to the rhythms of a traditional novels story-arc, but to the weird rhythms of Esthers own mental illness.In fact, the narrative is structured very similarly to a poem in that nonliteral and symbolic expression convey the essential dynamics of the storys themes at a far more attenuated level than the conventional storytelling elements of plot, conflict, and resolution. Of the latter, Plath conspicuously avoids authoritative execution for example, The Bell Jar posits no clear antagonist, no externalized central conflict, and refrains from set-closure at its climax. This is a way by which the clinical diagnosis of Esthers diagnosis can be made.Her initial relationships portrayed in the novel acknowledge a mentor in New York, the editor Jaycee, an older sis friend named Doreen, a fiancee named Buddy, and a literary mentor and benefactress named Philomena dago who was is a wealthy, famous novelist. Each of the relationships reflects an aspect of the healthy reputation ambitious, creative, socially engaged, and creative. Also, Esthers erotic drive, while never posited in the novel as soluble decreases until she is able to view sex as only an oppressive act against women.As Esthers plight worsens, each of the relationships is severed. The clinical diagnosis which seems most applicable to Esther Greenwood would be that of clinical depression and a bipolar personality. Interestingly enough, bipolar disorder is often associated with creative minds and artists. read at one level, The Bell Jar describes the plight of the artistic mind in current society as well as the plight of the artistic mind gripped by clinical mental illness.The key to separating where the individualist, the artist and rebel lies in Esther Greenwood and where the madwoman, the victim of a clinical mental illness lies is to apply rigorous methodology to the explication of the novel as a piece of literature. One such scene, which is representative of this technique used throughout The Bell Jar, is the scene when Esther, having traveled to new York upon fetching an internship at a famous fashion magazine, throws her expensive wardrobe out of her hotel window.The wind made an effort, but failed, and a batlike shadow sank toward the roof tend of the opposite penthouse (Plath, 90). Such compressed and highly symbolic language forwards both character development (Esther is mentally unstable) as well as foreshadowing with the bat representing death and Esthers ultimate plunge into try suicide. There is no gaiety in the scene, which if in evidence would hint a triumphant rejection of the superficialities described in the novel about the fashion-district of New York and Esthers experiences there.Instead, a sens of doom pervades, along wi th a sense of self-destruction and psychological instability Piece by piece, I feed my wardrobe to the night wind, and flutteringly, like a loved ones ashes, the gray scraps were ferried off, to settle here, there, exactly where I would never know, in the dark hart of New York. (Plath 91). This single scene stands as representative of Esthers (and Plaths) essential plight that of the bipolar personality and the track toward act suicide.The scene also represents the symptomatic progression of full-blown bipolar personality disorder which is characterized by depressive episodes and suicidal obsessions. The combination of high-achievement, goal-setting, ambition, creativity, task-setting, and personal expression with an equally profound sense of purposelessness, meaninglessness, lack of energy, lack of sex drive, and plummeting self personal identity and a plummeting sense of self-esteem are compressed brilliantly into the above-described scene. By explicating the symbolism deepl y, the bipolar disorder is easily uncovered.The feelings Esther has of not being able to connect with her life, of not comprehending her society or valuing her interpersonal relationships are aspects of the slap-up depressive crisis which marks the depressive extreme of the bipolar disorder. The novel describes how an acute depressive episode can lead to suicide til now when treatment is being administered. The treatment which would seem most applicable for Esther Greenwood by modern diagnostic processes is not that which is provided for her in the novel electroshock therapy.Rather, what is indicated is that Esther should be treated with psycho therapy, primarily, with perhaps the inclusion of certain, limited medicinal drug. The inclusion of family-centered therapy, social rhythm therapy, and cognitive therapy along with medication would provide the best hope for Esthers clinical recovery. However, the process of metal disorder described in the novel is mush wider, much more e ncompassing than even modern therapies would seem to be an adequate redress for although even a slight improvement in prognosis would probably attain saved Esther from suicide.In order to restore and strengthen hern creative gifts and reinstate her standing in society, the clinical treatments might at least give Esther an neural impulse toward a healthy rather than self-destructive life. So carefully designed is Esthers characterization in The Bell Jar, that the reader stands an ever-increasing chance of identifying as deeply with Esthers plight as Esther herself seems to identify with the plight of the Rosenbergs.In other words, the last thing which is intimated in the novel is that Esther bears any personal province for her mental illness or the social stigmas that are attached to it. In fact, I personally do not belive that there was anything Esther could have make or should have done to prevent her collapse. From rape to institutionalized male chauvinism and the saint-who re syndrome, Esther experiences a multitude of the sociological injuries borne against women in America.She also, as a poet, stands for the sociological persecution of artists and the cultural misunderstanding of their sensitivities. Throughout the novel, Esthers internal dialogue and descriptions of situations stands in bold contrast to the mundane and often mean or illiterate dialogue and observations of the novels minor characters. In addition to these deeper, more socially and politically inspired themes, The Bell Jar captures intimate dilate of middle-class adolescence the struggle to succeed, the position often social outcast, and the cruelties and injustices of love and eroticism.This is wherefore The Bell Jar is such an important novel because it places an intimately personal, to date universal, protagonist in the grip of what modern psychology and modern psychiatry understand as a clinical mental illness. Rather than nestle the topic clinically, Plath approaches the theme poetically and confessionally and draws the reader into a closes identification with Esther Greenwood. The impart is that the alert reader, even one who is familiar with the clinical processes of bipolar disorder, go out recognize a personal plight beneath the level which is clinically descriptive.The readers identification with Esther then takes the form of first hope, then skepticism, about the clinical treatments (and practitioners) which are engaged ostensibly in working for Esthers recovery. Whether one reads the central theme of The Bell Jar as one of individuality and the monomania from modern society or as a literary portrayal of a clinically defined mental disorder, the conclusion that individuals who suffer from mental illness are both victimized and stigmatized in modern society is clear.My personal feeling is that Esther Greenwood is far more of a universal character than many would like to belive and that her portrayal in The Bell Jar indicates both the destruc tive influence of mental illness and the destructive influence of modern society which is revealed to be both widespread and institutionalized. References Plath, Sylvia The Bell Jar picayune Books New York NY 1971.