Nichole Oxford

I have wanted to read The Bell Jar ever since I saw Kat Stratford reading it in the best movie ever made, 10 Thing I Hate About You. I didn't know anything about what this book entailed going into it, and was pleasantly surprised.

The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath's semi-autobiographical novel about a young woman's descent into mental illness. It was published in 1963 under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" just a month before her Plath's suicide.

The morning of February 11, 1963, Plath got up around 7am and put milk, bread, butter, and extra blankets in the room of her two children, Freida Hughes (2 years) and Nicholas Hughes (1 year), and carefully taped the edges of their door. Then she went into the kitchen, turned on the gas, and laid down on the floor. Carbon monoxide filled the room and Sylvia Plath died at the age of 30 years.

Like her parents, Frieda became a poet and artist. She has also decided to train as a bereavement counsellor following a series of losses.

Nicholas went along to pursue a scientific path, becoming an evolutionary biologist and professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, specializing in salmon ecology. Unfortunately, he followed in his mother footsteps and died by suicide in 2009 at the age of 47.

The Bell Jar is a story about a brilliant protagonist, Esther Greenwood. Esther navigates social pressures and her own ambitions in 1950's America, feeling trapped in a metaphorical "bell jar" that isolates her from the world. It's a classic exploration of female identity, mental health, and the stifling expectations of the era.

My Review:

4.5 stars

I really enjoyed the writing of this book - it was easy to read and follow, which I appreciate. As someone who has struggled with depression their whole life, this was a nice story to feel not so alone. SPOILER ALERT - GO TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW HOW IT ENDS - I loved how it ended, ending at her hearing made the rest of her life up for interpretation. Did the depression come back? Did living through her friend committing suicide change the option for her?

We all know what happened in real life though for Sylvia Plath, unfortunately. I don’t agree with this fig theory, though.

If you don’t know, Sylvia Plath’s “fig theory,” uses a fig tree to represent the overwhelming choices of life, where each fig is a potential future (career, marriage, travel, etc.). Esther, feels paralyzed by the abundance of options, fearing that choosing one means letting all others rot and be lost, symbolizing anxiety, the pressure of expectation, and the agony of indecision in early adulthood.

“From the tip of every branch, like a fat, purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet, and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe in Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantine and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names in offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew, champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more fixed. I couldn’t quite make out.”

I think if one fig was Europe and it rotted off and fell, there would always be another fig representing Europe growing again. It’s never too late to do anything. As someone that went back to college at 39 years old, you can do anything at any age. Just because you miss out on an opportunity once, doesn’t mean that it’s gone forever, or that you can’t have the other things. I understand it probably wasn’t that easy for women back then though, as they were expected to get married and become mothers, and homemakers.

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