The Bell Jar review

Akhil Kumbum, Opinion/Column Editor

The Bell Jar is, in a word, haunting. Sylvia Plath weaves a piercing portrayal of one woman’s descent into suicidal depression. Every word of this two-hundred and thirty page novel packs a real punch, with its scathing depictions of American society and its oddly lucid, tangible narration of the protagonist’s insanity. It’s accessible, clever, and deeply insightful. Long after it ends, thoughts about the plot, about its characters, will linger in your mind. It is not a novel that offers its readers much reprieve — instead thrusting us constantly into the experience, the stale and oppressive air of Esther’s “bell jar.”

 

The novel follows a young, beautiful, intelligent and successful young woman, Esther Greenwood, currently studying at a state university in Massachusetts. At the novel’s outset, she is interning in the summer for a fashion magazine in New York City, on a path that most girls of the era could only dream about. And yet, it’s clear from the very beginning that she’s not happy — instead, she feels directionless, melancholy, and “very still and empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.” Esther’s emotional state decays as her month-long internship comes to a close, dragged down by a series of failed dates that nearly end in an assault, and constant admonishment from Jay Cee, the editor of the magazine. The final blow is dealt when Esther finds that she has not received admission into an incredibly selective creative writing program in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From there, her depression deepens, until eventually she has no recourse but psychiatric help.

 

Perhaps what makes this novel so accessible and impactful is its first-person narration. Esther is a charming, relatable narrator with whom it is easy to empathize. Even as her insanity worsens and she begins to contemplate suicide, she never deserts the conversational tone she has with the reader, casually recalling moments of dysfunction and dread as if they were perfectly natural — normal, even. It’s subtle, and when you pick up on it, it’s quite frankly jarring. You’ll find yourself agreeing with what seems like a rational thought at the time, only to realize a few moments later just how irrational the thought is. The book doesn’t otherize Esther by making her insanity her defining characteristic. Instead, it humanizes her, by making her so easy to understand, and gives the reader insight they might not otherwise receive.

 

Overall, it’s a highly interesting, if not necessarily amusing read. It’s rather dark and depressing, in fact. But there’s insight to be gained from the experience — Plath constructs a picture of the human psyche that is hard to deny in its accuracy.