The Bell Jar :: essays research papers

Sylvia Plaths autobiography, The Bell Jar, tells the story of Plaths own mental breakdown and suicide attempt, as well as her recovery and eventual reentrance into the outside world. The Bell Jar shows the transition of Plath as a young, hopeful girl into a cynical, suicidal woman. The main parting whom represents Plath, Esther Greenwood, is first shown as an aspiring writer who is full of dreams and whose life is feature with opportunities. As Esther becomes more and more depressed, Plath then shows a very divergent picture of a woman who has lost hope and no bimestrial wishes to live. Plath conveys this deterioration through effective use of rhetorical devices such as imagery, alliteration, and point of view.     From the very beginning, Plath lets the reader know that all is not as well as it seems. Esther has won a fashion magazine contest. As her prize, she was given a job and accommodations in New York City. While this seems handle a dream come true, E sther says, I guess I should be in possession of been excited the path most of the other girls were, but I couldnt get myself to react. I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo. This use of metaphor helps the reader to dampen understand how Esther felt. Right from the start, there is something different about Esther, and her unhappiness continues to heighten throughout the story. Esther takes to hanging out with another one of the girls, Doreen. Doreen has a robes of blowing off deadlines in favor of men and alcohol. Esther follows her around one night, and upon go to her room comments, The silence depressed me. It wasnt the silence of silence. It was my own silence. This statement, do more effective by the first person point of view, conveys Esthers growing sense of unhappiness.     As Esther descends further into madness, a very magnificent picture is painted . The once healthy young woman can no longer sleep, eat, or read. Stunning imagery is used when describing Esthers unfitness to sleep. even my eyelids didnt shut out the light. They hung the raw, red screen of their niggling vessels in front of me like a wound. This description emphasizes the pain that Esthers mental illness is inflicting upon her, through use of such words as raw, red, and wound.