The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath Book Review

                When I first read The Bell Jar, I was about eighteen or nineteen years old, and I remember thinking that the book was good. So good that I picked up a biography about Sylvia Plath from the library and found out that some of what happens to Esther in The Bell Jar, happened to Plath. I did not remember most of the details from the book from my first reading and reading it again I was devastated.

                To watch a brilliant young woman descend into a disorganized mind and wanting to kill herself was hard to read.  Esther Greenwood, the main character, in The Bell Jar, is in New York when the book opens and is on the brink of an amazing future, but stuff starts to go wrong. Most of the men in the book are clueless and damaging to Esther’s psyche, and she is left vulnerable to figure things out on her own. By the time Esther leaves New York she is broken, and her only hope is that she gets into a writing workshop, which she finds out that she does not get into.

                At home she is unable to sleep, read, or write and starts thinking about killing herself which she eventually attempts and that lands her in an asylum.  The Bell Jar was published in 1963 and is Plath’s only novel. Plath killed herself a few weeks after it was published. Known as a poet, the pleasure of reading The Bell Jar is the imagery in the book. From Esther trailing her fingers across a New York building, or the image of a bell jar covering and suffocating her.

                The title of the book had me Googling, ‘what is a bell jar?” It is a bell-shaped usually glass vessel designed to cover objects or to contain gases or a vacuum. The novel moves back and forth from the past to the present without too many transitions, so you must pay attention.  What made the book so devastating to me was that Plath killed herself after the book was published, and I could not help but think that the book was a cry for help.

                The Bell Jar ends on a note of hope that Esther can resume her life. As with classic literature the portrayal of people of other races could make one feel uncomfortable. There is a scene in the book where Esther is in an asylum and her food is delivered to her by a black man. The scene with the black man is funny, but also could make readers feel uncomfortable.

                The book is written in the first person, and it allows readers to get intimately inside of Esther’s head which gives them a chance to witness her descent into madness.

                So, should you read this book? I think The Bell Jar is worth reading, but it was really disturbing to me, and it might be the same for you. Also, read some of Plath’s poetry. It really is something.

Sincerely,

Avis Yarbrough