Her doctor in the US had told her not to take it, but it was labeled differently in the UK. Cambridge, Mass. The bell jar symbolizes Esther's suffocation, for the jar intends to preserve its ornamental contents but instead traps them in stale air. Between her stays in different mental asylums and the consequent electro-shock therapies, she spends her time writing a novel and planning her suicide. The Bell Jar is the story of 19-year-old Esther Greenwood, the breakdown she experiences, and the beginnings of her recovery. Seeing life as it comes full circle. The bell jar could mean the society [s stifling constraints and befuddling mixed messages that trap Esther. It also serves as a metaphor for her. It ended positively, yea. The Bell Jar is a novel about a young woman, Esther Greenwood, who is in a downward spiral that ends in an attempted suicide and her challenge to get well again. That was the same year in which she committed suicide. (433 From 1001 Books) - Victoria Lucas = The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar is the only novel written by the American writer and poet Sylvia Plath. The character Esther represents her and her life, so if we were to answer based on Ms. Plath, then no, it's not possible to be cured from clinical depression, which is something she suffered from for the rest of her life until she eventually committed suicide in her mid-thirties. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. Last year, my husband and I decided to end the marriage we struggled to hold together. In this more enlightened … The Bell Jar, p. 227 What I love, is not only how Esther sees herself and the other patients as normal, but how she also sees people in the outside world as similarly afflicted. They would actually take homeless people off the street and test amounts of shock out on them. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. In what point of view is The Poisonwood Bible... What is the conflict in The Poisonwood... What happens to Nathan Price in The Poisonwood... What happened to the father in The Poisonwood... What does the snake represent in The Poisonwood... What does Ruth May represent in The Poisonwood... What disease does Adah have in The Poisonwood... What did Adah do in The Poisonwood Bible? The Bell Jar takes the reader inside the experience of severe mental illness like very few books before or since. The metaphorical denotation of the physical and mental suffocation caused by bell jar is a direct representation of Esthers mental suffocation by the unavoidable I was 19 at the time and wanted to know all about her. Still, Plath leaves Esther rejuvenated at the end of the novel but with her major problems unresolved. The above quote achieves what so many of us are fighting for now – the abolishment of black and white views over mental health (amongst most other things in life). This recap of Netflix’s Bombay Begums season 1, episode 4, “The Bell Jar” contains significant spoilers. Suggestions. It gives hope to depressed people I think. I found myself identifying with Esther’s personality on every page; from her ambitious nature to the chaos and confusion over what she should pursue in life. She stressed that personal experience should be made "relevant, and relevant to the larger things, the bigger things such as Hiroshima and Dachau and so on" (). Plath still concedes that Esther may never fully be cured, as when Esther wonders whether she may be trapped again by the bell jar, but includes this only as a vague conjecture. It isn't as taboo as it was when she was growing up. Plath includes several instances in which Esther imagines herself as confined, including when she compares herself to a character in a short story and imagines herself trapped up in a tree unable to decide which fig (each representing a different career path) to choose. Every decade has its unique challenges, and in 1950s America, many of those challenges were especially hard on the middle class. like for example when esther says " I got, i believe esther (esther greenwood and not plath herself) was able to get better and eventually have a baby. Esther understands that she is not cured. The Bell Jar, novel by Sylvia Plath, first published in January 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas and later released posthumously under her real name. In the end Esther realizes that she can choose the path she decides to go on only if she is strong enough; Esther has to take the initiative. Well, The Bell Jar is an autobiographical novel about Silvia Plath. 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