The Bell Jar | Lack of Choices in 1950
In the following essay, this author notes that while The Bell Jar has been interpreted as representing the lack of choices facing women in the 1950s, the portrayal of protagonist Esther Greenwood shows her as alienated even from other women who might be in her position. The critic also examines the possibilities created by looking at the poetic aspects of the novel.
Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar (1963) was first published in England under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, a few weeks before Plath's suicide. It was published under her own name in England in 1966, and not published in the United States until 1971. Much of the novel is based on Plath's life. Her father died when she was eight-years-old and at that time her family moved to Wellesley, Massachusetts, outside Boston. She attended Smith College, and during the summer of 1953 worked at Mademoiselle magazine in New York. Later that summer Plath suffered from depression, underwent...
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