Misplaced Pages

#387612

96-527: The Bell Jar is the only novel written by the American writer and poet Sylvia Plath . Originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963, the novel is supposedly semi-autobiographical with the names of places and people changed. The book is often regarded as a roman à clef because the protagonist's descent into mental illness parallels Plath's experiences with what may have been clinical depression or bipolar II disorder . Plath died by suicide

192-566: A Fulbright Scholarship to study at Newnham College , one of the two women-only colleges of the University of Cambridge in England, where she continued actively writing poetry and publishing her work in the student newspaper Varsity . At Newnham, she studied with Dorothea Krook , whom she held in high regard. She spent her first-year winter and spring holidays traveling around Europe. Plath met poet Ted Hughes on February 25, 1956. In

288-657: A Unitarian , Plath experienced a loss of faith after her father's death and remained ambivalent about religion throughout her life. Her father was buried in Winthrop Cemetery in Massachusetts. A visit to her father's grave later prompted Plath to write the poem "Electra on Azalea Path". After Otto's death, Aurelia moved her children and her parents to 26 Elmwood Road, Wellesley, Massachusetts , in 1942. Plath commented in "Ocean 1212-W", one of her final works, that her first nine years "sealed themselves off like

384-483: A 19-year-old undergraduate student from the suburbs of Boston, is awarded a summer internship at the fictional Ladies' Day magazine in New York City. During the internship, Esther feels neither stimulated nor excited by the work, fashion, and big-city lifestyle that her peers in the program seem to adore. She finds herself struggling to feel anything at all aside from anxiety and disorientation. Esther appreciates

480-574: A 1961 BBC interview now held by the British Library Sound Archive , Plath describes how she met Hughes: I'd read some of Ted's poems in this magazine and I was very impressed and I wanted to meet him. I went to this little celebration and that's actually where we met... Then we saw a great deal of each other. Ted came back to Cambridge and suddenly we found ourselves getting married a few months later... We kept writing poems to each other. Then it just grew out of that, I guess,

576-596: A bell jar chamber having an effective pump and low leak rate. Some of the first scientific experiments using a bell jar to provide a vacuum were reported by Robert Boyle . In his book, New Experiments Physico-Mechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air, and its Effects, (Made, for the Most Part, in a New Pneumatical Engine), he described 43 separate experiments, some of which were carried out with Robert Hooke , investigating

672-458: A conference with her doctors, who will decide whether she can leave the hospital and return to school. According to her husband, Plath began writing the novel in 1961, after publishing The Colossus , her first collection of poetry. Plath may have finished writing the novel in August 1961, although subsequent changes were made in the editing process. After she separated from Hughes, Plath moved to

768-442: A cut, a bruise, a kitchen bowl, a candlestick—everything became usable, charged with meaning, transformed. Her poems are full of references and images that seem impenetrable at this distance, but which could mostly be explained in footnotes by a scholar with full access to the details of her life." Many of Plath's later poems deal with what one critic calls the "domestic surreal" in which Plath takes everyday elements of life and twists

864-439: A departure from her earlier work into a more personal arena of poetry. Robert Lowell 's poetry may have played a part in this shift as she cited Lowell's 1959 book Life Studies as a significant influence, in an interview just before her death. The impact of Ariel was dramatic, with its dark and potentially autobiographical descriptions of mental illness in poems such as " Tulips ", " Daddy " and " Lady Lazarus ". Plath's work

960-652: A feeling that we both were writing so much and having such a fine time doing it, we decided that this should keep on. Plath described Hughes as "a singer, story-teller, lion and world-wanderer" with "a voice like the thunder of God". The couple married on June 16, 1956, at St George's, Bloomsbury , with Plath's mother as the sole witness. They spent their honeymoon in Paris and Benidorm , Spain. Plath returned to Newnham in October to begin her second year. During this time, they both became deeply interested in astrology and

1056-418: A female therapist. Along with regular psychotherapy sessions, Esther is given huge amounts of insulin to produce a "reaction" (a common – and now disproven – psychiatric treatment at the time) and again receives ECT. Dr. Nolan ensures that they are properly administered. While there, she describes her depression as a feeling of being trapped under a bell jar , struggling for breath. Eventually, Esther describes

SECTION 10

#1732788051388

1152-569: A good omen. The northern winter of 1962–1963 was one of the coldest in 100 years; the pipes froze, the children—now two years old and nine months—were often sick, and the house had no telephone. Her depression returned but she completed the rest of her poetry collection, which would be published after her death (1965 in the UK, 1966 in the US). Her only novel, The Bell Jar , was published in January 1963 under

1248-855: A hand-written note to the literary critic Keith Sagar, discovered in 2001, that the anti-depressants prescribed were a "key factor" in Plath's suicide. He said Plath had previously had an adverse reaction to a prescription she had taken when they lived in the U.S. These pills were sold in England under a different name, and although Hughes did not name the pills explicitly, he claimed a new doctor had prescribed them to Plath without realizing she had taken them before with adverse effects. Several commentators have argued that because anti-depressants may take up to three weeks to take effect, her prescription from Horder would not have taken full effect prior to her death; however, others have pointed out that adverse effects of anti-depressants can begin immediately. The live-in nurse

1344-548: A history of depression. Plath wrote poetry from the age of 8, her first poem appearing in the Boston Traveller . By the time she arrived at Smith College, she had written over 50 short stories, and her work had been published in numerous magazines. At Smith, she majored in English literature and won all the major prizes in writing and scholarship, including literary prizes for her poetry. Additionally, she received

1440-482: A location mentioned in Plath's poetry. Otto Plath died on November 5, 1940, a week and a half after Sylvia's eighth birthday, of complications following the amputation of a foot due to untreated diabetes . He had become ill shortly after a close friend died of lung cancer . Comparing the similarities between his friend's symptoms and his own, Otto became convinced that he, too, had lung cancer and did not seek treatment until his diabetes had progressed too far. Raised as

1536-439: A long walk", crawls into a well-hidden hole in the cellar, and swallows many sleeping pills that had been prescribed for her insomnia. The newspapers presume her kidnapping and death, but she is discovered alive under her house after an indeterminate amount of time. She is sent to several different mental hospitals until Philomena Guinea, her college benefactor, supports her stay at an elite treatment center where she meets Dr. Nolan,

1632-468: A month after its first United Kingdom publication. The novel was published under Plath's name for the first time in 1967. It was not published in the United States until 1971, in accordance with the wishes of both Plath's ex-husband Ted Hughes and her mother. In the U.S the book became an instant best seller, and has since been translated into nearly a dozen languages. In 1953, Esther Greenwood,

1728-884: A more serious, focused writer. At this time Plath and Hughes met the poet W.S. Merwin , who admired their work and was to remain a lifelong friend. Plath resumed psychoanalytic treatment in December, working with Ruth Beuscher. Plath and Hughes traveled across Canada and the United States, staying at the Yaddo artist colony in Saratoga Springs , New York, in late 1959. Plath stated that at Yaddo she learned "to be true to my own weirdnesses", but she remained anxious about writing confessionally, from deeply personal and private material. The couple moved back to England in December 1959 and lived in London at 3 Chalcot Square , near

1824-400: A note reading "Call Dr. Horder", including the doctor's phone number. It is argued Plath turned on the gas at a time when Thomas would have been likely to see the note, but the escaping gas seeped downstairs and also rendered Thomas unconscious while he slept. However, in her biography Giving Up: The Last Days of Sylvia Plath , Plath's friend Jillian Becker wrote, "According to Mr. Goodchild,

1920-407: A number of different animals including insects, mice, birds and fish and observed how they reacted when the air was removed. In "Experiment 40", from New Experiments Physico-Mechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air, and its Effects, (Made, for the Most Part, in a New Pneumatical Engine) he tested the ability of insects to fly under reduced air pressure, whilst in "Experiment 41," he demonstrated

2016-533: A police officer attached to the coroner's office... [Plath] had thrust her head far into the gas oven... [and] had really meant to die." Horder also believed her intention was clear. He stated that "No one who saw the care with which the kitchen was prepared could have interpreted her action as anything but an irrational compulsion." Plath had described the quality of her despair as "owl's talons clenching my heart". In his 1972 book on suicide, The Savage God , friend and critic Al Alvarez claimed that Plath's suicide

SECTION 20

#1732788051388

2112-504: A private women's liberal arts college in Massachusetts, where she excelled academically. While at Smith, she lived in Lawrence House, and a plaque can be found outside her old room. She edited The Smith Review. After her third year of college, Plath was awarded a coveted position as a guest editor at Mademoiselle magazine, during which she spent a month in New York City. The experience was not what she had hoped for, and many of

2208-485: A product, this explanation is not correct. Joseph Priestley also used a candle and a mint plant placed beneath a bell jar in an experiment reported in Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air to demonstrate the effect of photosynthesis . The candle was initially lit, and then the bell jar placed over the two items, and once the oxygen had been consumed by the candle, the flame extinguished. However,

2304-485: A response to many years of electroshock treatment and the scars it left. The Bell Jar received "warily positive reviews". The short time span between the publication of the book and Plath's suicide resulted in "few innocent readings" of the novel. The majority of early readers focused primarily on autobiographical connections from Plath to the protagonist. In response to autobiographical criticism, critic Elizabeth Hardwick urged that readers distinguish between Plath as

2400-455: A result, and Joan's suicide, provide her with a new perspective. Esther interacts with Buddy again toward the end of the novel when he visits her to ask if it was something about him that drove women to insanity, given that he dated both Joan and Esther. Buddy later wonders out loud who will marry Esther now that she has been hospitalized, effectively ending their commitment to get engaged. Esther feels relieved. The novel ends with Esther entering

2496-550: A semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her suicide in 1963. The Collected Poems was published in 1981, which included previously unpublished works. For this collection Plath was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1982, making her the fourth to receive this honor posthumously. Born in Boston , Massachusetts, Plath graduated from Smith College in Massachusetts and the University of Cambridge , England, where she

2592-491: A ship in a bottle—beautiful, inaccessible, obsolete, a fine, white flying myth". Plath published her first poem at the age of eight in the Boston Herald ' s children's section. Over the next few years, Plath published multiple poems in regional magazines and newspapers. At age 11, Plath began keeping a journal. In addition to writing, she showed early promise as an artist, winning an award for her paintings from

2688-429: A short time. However, she continued to take care of her physical appearance and did not outwardly speak of feeling guilty or unworthy. Horder prescribed her an anti-depressant, a monoamine oxidase inhibitor , a few days before her suicide. Knowing she was at risk with two young children, he made strenuous efforts to have her admitted to a hospital; when that failed, he arranged for a live-in nurse. Hughes claimed in

2784-508: A smaller flat in London, "giving her time and place to work uninterruptedly. Then at top speed and with very little revision from start to finish she wrote The Bell Jar ," he explained. Plath was writing the novel under the sponsorship of the Eugene F. Saxton Fellowship, affiliated with publisher Harper & Row , but it was disappointed by the manuscript and withdrew, calling it "disappointing, juvenile and overwrought". Early working titles of

2880-525: A summer editor position at the young women's magazine Mademoiselle . On her graduation in 1955, she won the Glascock Prize for " Two Lovers and a Beachcomber by the Real Sea ". Later, at Cambridge, she wrote for the university publication Varsity . Nights, I squat in the cornucopia Of your left ear, out of the wind, Counting the red stars and those of plum-color. The sun rises under

2976-495: A symbol for teenage angst." Larry Peerce 's The Bell Jar (1979) starred Marilyn Hassett as Esther Greenwood, and featured the tagline: "Sometimes just being a woman is an act of courage." In the film, Joan attempts to get Esther to agree to a suicide pact, which does not occur in the book. In July 2016, it was announced that Kirsten Dunst would be making her directorial debut with an adaptation of The Bell Jar starring Dakota Fanning as Esther Greenwood. In August 2019, it

The Bell Jar - Misplaced Pages Continue

3072-556: A typescript of "some 130 pages", but in 1995 he spoke of just "sixty, seventy pages". Olwyn Hughes wrote in 2003 that the typescript may have consisted of the first two chapters, and did not exceed sixty pages. And I Am the arrow, The dew that flies Suicidal, at one with the drive Into the red Eye, the cauldron of morning. from the poem " Ariel ", October 12, 1962 The posthumous publication of Ariel in 1965 precipitated Plath's rise to fame. The poems in Ariel mark

3168-489: A writer and Plath as an "event". Robert Scholes , writing for The New York Times , praised the novel's "sharp and uncanny descriptions". Mason Harris of the West Coast Review complimented the novel as using "the 'distorted lens' of madness [to give] an authentic vision of a period which exalted the most oppressive ideal of reason and stability." Howard Moss of The New Yorker gave a mixed review, praising

3264-400: Is attractive and does not seem to listen to her. He prescribes electroconvulsive therapy (ECT); afterward, she tells her mother that she will not go back. The ECT is ineffective, and Esther's mental state worsens. She makes several half-hearted attempts at suicide, including swimming far out to sea, then she makes a serious attempt. Esther writes a note for her mother that she "will go out on

3360-406: Is back in Massachusetts, a writing course taught by a world-famous author, but on her return, she immediately is told by her mother that she was not accepted for the course and finds her plans derailed. She decides to spend the summer potentially writing a novel, but she feels she lacks enough life experience to write convincingly. All of her identity has been centered upon doing well academically; she

3456-556: Is based on author Olive Higgins Prouty , Plath's patron, who funded Plath's scholarship to study at Smith College . Plath was rejected from a Harvard course taught by Frank O'Connor . Dr. Nolan is thought to be based on Ruth Beuscher , Plath's therapist, whom she continued seeing after her release from the hospital. A good portion of this part of the novel closely resembles the experiences chronicled by Mary Jane Ward in her autobiographical novel The Snake Pit ; Plath later stated that she had seen reviews of The Snake Pit and believed

3552-666: Is best avoided if possible. Impacts to the glass and thermally induced stresses are also concerns under vacuum. Round bottom flasks more effectively spread the stress across their surfaces, and are therefore safer when working under vacuum. Purely decorative bell jars were commonly used in the Victorian period to display and serve as transparent dust covers and display cases for a wide variety of items, including clocks, taxidermy , shells, and wax flowers and fruit. Decorative bell jars were made of thin glass, with more care being taken regarding their optical clarity, and they did not have

3648-442: Is often held within the genre of confessional poetry and the style of her work compared to other contemporaries, such as Lowell and W.D. Snodgrass . Plath's close friend Al Alvarez , who wrote about her extensively, said of her later work: "Plath's case is complicated by the fact that, in her mature work, she deliberately used the details of her everyday life as raw material for her art. A casual visitor or unexpected telephone call,

3744-423: Is often used as a classroom science experiment , where the experiment is repeated with an item such as an alarm clock placed under a bell jar, and the noise of the alarm clock fading as the air is pumped out being used to demonstrate the effect. By additionally placing a microphone inside the bell jar and observing that the sound detected by the microphone reduces as the air is pumped out, the effect of absorbance of

3840-402: Is placed on a base which is vented to a hose fitting, that can be connected via a hose to a vacuum pump . A vacuum is formed by pumping the air out of the bell jar. The lower edge of a vacuum bell jar forms a flange of heavy glass, ground smooth on the bottom for better contact. The base of the jar is equally heavy and flattened. A smear of vacuum grease is usually applied between them. As

3936-455: Is too fearful of the impact of pregnancy. Esther also remarks about her fear of marriage and the constraints a "typical" marriage of the era would have on her identity and personal goals. Esther describes her life as being suffocated by a bell jar. A bell jar is a thick glass container sometimes used to create a vacuum space. Here, it stands for "Esther's mental suffocation by the unavoidable settling of depression upon her psyche". Throughout

The Bell Jar - Misplaced Pages Continue

4032-432: Is unsure of what to make of her life once she leaves school, and none of the choices presented to her (motherhood, as exemplified by the prolific child-bearer Dodo Conway, Esther's neighbor, or stereotypical female careers such as stenography ) appeal to her. Esther increasingly becomes depressed, and she finds herself unable to sleep. Her mother instructs her to see Dr. Gordon, a psychiatrist, whom Esther mistrusts because he

4128-611: The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in 1947. "Even in her youth, Plath was ambitiously driven to succeed." Plath attended Bradford Senior High School, which is now Wellesley High School in Wellesley, Massachusetts , graduating in 1950. Just after graduating from high school, she had her first national publication in The Christian Science Monitor . In 1950, Plath attended Smith College ,

4224-498: The "black comedy" of the novel, but added that there was "something girlish in its manner [that] betrays the hand of the amateur novelist". On November 5, 2019, the BBC News listed The Bell Jar on its list of the 100 most inspiring novels . The Bell Jar has been referred to many times in popular media. Iris Jamahl Dunkle wrote of the novel that "often, when the novel appears in American films and television series, it stands as

4320-461: The 1950s. Plath speaks through Esther's narrative to describe her experience of her mental health treatment. Just as this novel gives way to feminist discourse and challenges the way of life for women in the 1950s, it also gives a case study of a woman struggling with mental health. The book contains many references to real people and events in Plath's life. Plath's magazine scholarship was at Mademoiselle magazine beginning in 1953. Philomena Guinea

4416-448: The 1950s. She strongly believed in women's abilities to be writers and editors while society forced them to fulfill secretarial roles: Now with me, writing is the first delight in life. I want time and money to write, both very necessary. I will not sacrifice my time to learn shorthand because I do not want any of the jobs which shorthand would open up, although those jobs are no doubt very interesting for girls who want them. I do not want

4512-695: The Apostle bears the inscription that Hughes chose for her: "Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted." Biographers have attributed the source of the quote either to the Hindu text The Bhagavad Gita or to the 16th-century Buddhist novel Journey to the West written by Wu Cheng'en . Plath's daughter Frieda Hughes is a writer and artist. On March 16, 2009, Plath's son Nicholas Hughes died by suicide at his home in Fairbanks, Alaska, following

4608-453: The ECT as beneficial in that it has a sort of antidepressant effect; it lifts the metaphorical bell jar in which she has felt trapped and stifled. While there, she becomes reacquainted with Joan Gilling, who also used to date Buddy. The novel heavily implies that Joan is a lesbian and that she is attracted to, or interested in, Esther, who finds her strange. Esther tells Dr. Nolan how she envies

4704-528: The Primrose Hill area of Regent's Park , where an English Heritage plaque records Plath's residence. Their daughter Frieda was born on April 1, 1960, and in October, Plath published The Colossus , her first collection of poetry. In February 1961, Plath's second pregnancy ended in miscarriage; several of her poems, including "Parliament Hill Fields", address this event. In a letter to her therapist, Plath wrote that Hughes beat her two days before

4800-562: The US in 1971. Describing the compilation of the book to her mother, she wrote, "What I've done is to throw together events from my own life, fictionalizing to add color—it's a pot boiler really, but I think it will show how isolated a person feels when he is suffering a breakdown... I've tried to picture my world and the people in it as seen through the distorting lens of a bell jar". She described her novel as "an autobiographical apprentice work which I had to write in order to free myself from

4896-647: The badly managed ECT, blaming him for Sylvia's suicide attempt". Plath seemed to make a good recovery and returned to college. In January 1955, she submitted her thesis The Magic Mirror: A Study of the Double in Two of Dostoyevsky 's Novels , and in June graduated from Smith with an A.B. , summa cum laude . She was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society, and had an IQ of around 160. She obtained

SECTION 50

#1732788051388

4992-475: The beginning, she and Doreen meet Lenny, a gallant radio host who tries to seduce them, and who eventually dates Doreen. Another incident occurs with a mass food poisoning during a lunch thrown by the staff of the magazine. Much of the story is spent in flashbacks, where Esther reminisces about her boyfriend Buddy, whom she has dated more or less seriously, and who considers himself her fiancé. Esther's internal monologue often lingers on musings of death, violence, and

5088-441: The bell jar. The explanation for this observation is that the heating of the air inside the jar by the candles causes it to expand, and when the candle has exhausted the oxygen supply and extinguishes, the air will cool and contract, leading to the water being drawn up to fill the space. A common misconception is that the water level rises to replace the consumed oxygen, but since the combustion reaction produces carbon dioxide gas as

5184-428: The candle was able to be reignited a number of days later, demonstrating that the plant had produced the oxygen required. Priestley also carried out experiments using plants and mice beneath a bell jar. He found that whilst a mouse kept alone inside a bell jar eventually died, when a plant was also placed inside the jar the mouse would survive. Boyle also studied the effect of removing the air from bell jars containing

5280-540: The collection "a real find" and "exhilarating to read", full of "clean, easy verse". Bernard Bergonzi at the Manchester Guardian wrote the book was an "outstanding technical accomplishment" with a "virtuoso quality". From the point of publication, she became a presence on the poetry scene. The book was published in America in 1962 to less-glowing reviews. While her craft was generally praised, her writing

5376-443: The current depressive episode she was experiencing; it had been ongoing for six or seven months. While for most of the time she had been able to continue working, her depression had worsened and become severe, "marked by constant agitation, suicidal thoughts and inability to cope with daily life." Plath struggled with insomnia, taking medication at night to induce sleep, and frequently woke up early. She had lost 20 pounds (9 kg) in

5472-433: The effect of reducing the air pressure within the bell jar on the objects contained within. One of the best known of these experiments involved placing a ringing bell inside the jar, and observing that upon pumping out the air, the ringing disappeared. This experiment demonstrated that the propagation of sound is mediated by the air, and that in the absence of the air medium , the sound waves cannot travel. This experiment

5568-401: The evenings sat in on creative writing seminars given by poet Robert Lowell (also attended by the writers Anne Sexton and George Starbuck ). Both Lowell and Sexton encouraged Plath to write from her personal experience. She openly discussed her depression with Lowell and her suicide attempt with Sexton, who led her to write from a more female perspective. Plath began to consider herself as

5664-576: The events that took place during that summer were later used as inspiration for her novel The Bell Jar . She was furious at not being at a meeting that Mademoiselle editor Cyrilly Abels had arranged with Welsh poet Dylan Thomas , a writer whose work she loved, according to one of her boyfriends, "more than life itself". She loitered around the White Horse Tavern and the Chelsea Hotel for two days, hoping to meet Thomas, but he

5760-424: The expectation that she remains a virgin for Buddy (who intends to marry her), whilst Buddy was able to have a casual sexual relationship with another woman earlier in his life without consequence. Esther appears to take a near-scientific approach to sex and virginity. A chapter of the novel discusses Esther's plan to "have an affair" with someone, simply to "get it over with" (that is, to lose her virginity), but she

5856-414: The freedom that men have and how she, as a woman, worries about getting pregnant. Dr. Nolan refers her to a doctor who fits her with a diaphragm . Esther now feels free from her fears about the consequences of sex; free from previous pressures to get married, potentially to the wrong man. Under Dr. Nolan, Esther improves. Various significant events, such as having sex for the first time, being hospitalized as

SECTION 60

#1732788051388

5952-402: The images, giving them an almost nightmarish quality. Plath's poem "Morning Song" from Ariel is regarded as one of her finest poems on freedom of expression of an artist. Bell jar In addition to their scientific applications, bell jars may also serve as display cases or transparent dust covers. In these situations, the bell jar is not usually placed under vacuum. A vacuum bell jar

6048-417: The latter half of the novel. However, Esther's entire life shows warning signs that cause this depressive downfall. The novel begins with her negative thoughts surrounding all her past and current life decisions. It is this mindset mixed with the childhood trauma and perfectionist attitude that causes her descent that leads her to attempt suicide. This novel gives an account of the treatment of mental health in

6144-454: The miscarriage. In August she finished her semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar ; immediately afterwards, the family moved to Court Green in the small market town of North Tawton . Nicholas was born in January 1962. In mid-1962, Plath and Hughes began to keep bees, which would be the subject of many Plath poems. In August 1961, the couple rented their flat at Chalcot Square to Assia (née Gutmann) Wevill and David Wevill . Hughes

6240-492: The nature of Sylvia Plath's life and death and the parallels between The Bell Jar and her life, it is hard to ignore the theme of mental illness. Psychiatrist Aaron Beck studied Esther's mental illness and notes two causes of depression evident in her life. The first is formed from early traumatic experiences, her father's death when she was 9 years old. It is evident how affected she is by this loss when she wonders "I thought how strange it had never occurred to me before that I

6336-741: The novel included Diary of a Suicide and The Girl in the Mirror . Upon publication in the United States on 14 April 1971 it became a runaway success, and featured in The New York Times Best Sellers List for many consecutive weeks. The novel was published as an audiobook read by actor Maggie Gyllenhaal in 2015 by Faber & Faber. The novel is written using a series of flashbacks that reveal parts of Esther's past. The flashbacks primarily deal with Esther's relationship with Buddy Willard. The reader also learns more about her early college years. The Bell Jar addresses

6432-399: The novel, Esther internally muses about sex, virginity, and the expectations on her as a woman therein. A major plot point in the later chapters is Esther being provided a contraceptive implant by a doctor, which allows her to lose her virginity without fear of falling pregnant and thus being expected become a parent before her time. Earlier in the novel, Esther criticizes the double standard of

6528-409: The novel, Esther talks of it suffocating her, and recognizes moments of clarity when it is lifted. These moments correlate to her mental state and the effect of her depression. Scholars argue about the nature of Esther's "bell jar" and what it can stand for. Some say it is a retaliation against suburban lifestyle, others believe it represents the standards set for a woman's life. However, when considering

6624-534: The past". Plath dated a Yale senior named Dick Norton during her junior year. Norton, upon whom the character of Buddy in The Bell Jar is based, contracted tuberculosis and was treated at the Ray Brook Sanatorium . While visiting Norton, Plath broke her leg skiing, an incident that was fictionalized in the novel. Plath also used the novel to highlight the issue of women in the workforce during

6720-413: The pen name Victoria Lucas and was met with critical indifference. Before her death, Plath tried at least twice to take her own life. On August 24, 1953, she overdosed on sleeping pills; then, in June 1962, she drove her car off the side of the road into a river, which she later characterized as a suicide attempt. In January 1963, Plath spoke with John Horder , her general practitioner. She described

6816-638: The pillar of your tongue. My hours are married to shadow. No longer do I listen for the scrape of a keel On the blank stones of the landing. from "The Colossus", The Colossus and Other Poems , 1960 By the time Heinemann published her first collection, The Colossus and Other Poems in the UK in late 1960, Plath had been short-listed several times in the Yale Younger Poets book competition and had her work printed in Harper's , The Spectator and The Times Literary Supplement . All

6912-618: The poems in The Colossus had been printed in major U.S. and British journals, and she had a contract with The New Yorker . It was, however, her 1965 collection Ariel , published posthumously, on which Plath's reputation essentially rests. "Often, her work is singled out for the intense coupling of its violent or disturbed imagery and its playful use of alliteration and rhyme." The Colossus received largely positive UK reviews, highlighting Plath's voice as new and strong, individual and American in tone. Peter Dickinson at Punch called

7008-545: The poems of her posthumous collection Ariel during the final months of her life. In December 1962, she returned alone to London with their children and rented, on a five-year lease, a flat at 23 Fitzroy Road —only a few streets from the Chalcot Square flat. William Butler Yeats once lived in the house, which bears an English Heritage blue plaque for the Irish poet. Plath was pleased by this fact and considered it

7104-575: The pressure difference and the volume evacuated. Flask volumes can change by orders of magnitude between experiments. Whenever working with liter sized or larger flasks, chemists should consider using a safety screen or the sash of a flow hood to protect them from shards of glass, should an implosion occur. Glassware can also be wrapped with spirals of tape to catch shards, or wrapped with webbed mesh more commonly seen on scuba cylinders. Glass under vacuum becomes more sensitive to chips and scratches in its surface, as these form stress risers , so older glass

7200-602: The public wanted to see "mental health stuff", so she deliberately based details of Esther's hospitalization on the procedures and methods outlined in Ward's book. Plath was a patient at McLean Hospital , an upscale facility which resembled the "snake pit" much less than wards in the Metropolitan State Hospital , which may have been where Mary Jane Ward was hospitalized. In a 2006 interview, Joanne Greenberg said that she had been interviewed in 1986 by one of

7296-489: The question of socially acceptable identity. It examines Esther's "quest to forge her identity, to be herself rather than what others expect her to be." Esther is expected to become a housewife, and a self-sufficient woman, without the options to achieve independence. Esther feels she is a prisoner to domestic duties and she fears the loss of her inner self. The Bell Jar sets out to highlight the problems with oppressive patriarchal society in mid-20th-century America. Throughout

7392-460: The reliance of living creatures on air for their survival. The oil painting An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump depicts a natural philosopher repeating a similar experiment to that of Boyle with a bird inside a bell jar. A vacuum produces a pressure difference of one atmosphere, approximately 14 psi, over the surface of the glass. The energy contained within an implosion is defined by

7488-461: The rigid hours of a magazine or publishing job. I do not want to type other people's letters and read their manuscripts. I want to type my own and write my own. So secretarial training is out for me. That I know. (Sylvia Plath's letter to her mother, 10 Feb 1955) In 1963, after The Bell Jar was published, Plath began working on another literary work, titled Double Exposure , which was never published. According to Ted Hughes in 1979, Plath left behind

7584-550: The roles of women in her society. Shortly before the internship ends, she attends a country club party with Doreen, and she is set up with a wealthy Peruvian man named Marco who treats her roughly. Later, Marco takes her outside and tries to rape her; she breaks his nose and leaves. That night, after returning to the hotel, she impulsively throws all of her new and fashionable clothing off the roof. Esther returns to her Massachusetts home that she shares with her widowed mother. She has been hoping for another scholarly opportunity once she

7680-412: The sound by the glass of the jar itself can be excluded. Another common experiment using a bell jar involves placing a jar over a lit candle, and observing that the flame goes out, demonstrating that oxygen is required for combustion . A common variation of this experiment is to place the candle and bell jar over water, and to observe that when the candle extinguishes, the water level will rise inside

7776-466: The supernatural, using ouija boards. In June 1957, Plath and Hughes moved to the United States; beginning in September, Plath taught at Smith College, her alma mater. She found it difficult to both teach and have enough time and energy to write, and in the middle of 1958, the couple moved to Boston. Plath took a job as a receptionist in the psychiatric unit of Massachusetts General Hospital and in

7872-478: The vacuum forms inside, it creates a considerable compression force, so there is no need to clamp the seal. For this reason, a bell jar cannot be used to contain pressures above atmospheric, only below. Bell jars are generally used for classroom demonstrations or by hobbyists, when only a relatively low-quality vacuum is required. Cutting-edge research done at ultra-high vacuum requires a more sophisticated vacuum chamber . However, several tests may be completed in

7968-473: The whirling blackness that I honestly believed was eternal oblivion". She spent the next six months in psychiatric care, receiving more electric and insulin shock treatment under the care of Ruth Beuscher . Her stay at McLean Hospital and her Smith scholarship were paid for by the author Olive Higgins Prouty , who had also recovered from a mental breakdown. According to Plath's biographer Andrew Wilson, Olive Higgins Prouty "would take Dr Tillotson to task for

8064-511: The witty sarcasm and adventurousness of Doreen, another intern, but she identifies with the piety of Betsy, an old-fashioned and naïve young woman. Esther has a benefactor in Philomena Guinea, a formerly successful writer of women's fiction, who funds the scholarship through which Esther – from a working-class family – is enrolled at her college. Esther describes in detail several seriocomic incidents that occur during her internship. In

8160-496: The women who had worked on Mademoiselle with Plath in the college guest editors group. The woman claimed that Plath had put so many details of the students' lives into The Bell Jar that "they could never look at each other again", and that it had caused the breakup of her marriage and possibly others. Janet McCann links Plath's search for female independence with a self-described neurotic psychology. Ted Hughes, Plath's husband, suggested that The Bell Jar might have been written as

8256-496: Was clinically depressed for most of her adult life and was treated multiple times with early versions of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). She died by suicide in 1963. Plath was born on October 27, 1932, in Boston , Massachusetts. Her mother, Aurelia Schober Plath (1906–1994), was the American-born daughter of Austrian immigrants, and her father, Otto Plath (1885–1940), was from Grabow , Germany . Plath's father

8352-412: Was a student at Newnham College . Plath later studied with Robert Lowell at Boston University , alongside poets Anne Sexton and George Starbuck . She married fellow poet Ted Hughes in 1956, and they lived together in the United States and then in England. Their relationship was tumultuous and, in her letters, Plath alleges abuse at his hands. They had two children before separating in 1962. Plath

8448-513: Was already on his way home. A few weeks later, she slashed her legs "to see if she had enough courage to kill herself." During this time, she was not accepted into a Harvard University writing seminar with author Frank O'Connor . Following ECT for depression, Plath made her first medically documented suicide attempt on August 24, 1953, by crawling under the front porch and taking her mother's sleeping pills. She survived this first suicide attempt, later writing that she "blissfully succumbed to

8544-534: Was an entomologist and a professor of biology at Boston University who wrote a book about bumblebees in 1934. On April 27, 1935, Plath's brother Warren was born. In 1936 the family moved from 24 Prince Street in Jamaica Plain , Massachusetts, to 92 Johnson Avenue, Winthrop, Massachusetts . Since 1920, Plath's maternal grandparents, the Schobers, had lived in a section of Winthrop called Point Shirley,

8640-471: Was an unanswered cry for help. In a BBC interview in March 2000, Alvarez spoke about his failure to recognize Plath's depression, saying he regretted his inability to offer her emotional support: "I failed her on that level. I was thirty years old and stupid. What did I know about chronic clinical depression?... [S]he kind of needed someone to take care of her. And that was not something I could do." An inquest

8736-413: Was announced Dunst was no longer attached, and Bell Jar will become a limited TV series from Showtime. Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath ( / p l æ θ / ; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet and author. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for The Colossus and Other Poems (1960), Ariel (1965), and The Bell Jar ,

8832-564: Was due to arrive at nine on the morning of February 11, 1963, to help Plath with the care of her children. Upon arrival, she could not get into the flat but eventually gained access with the help of a workman. They found Plath dead with her head in the oven, having sealed the rooms between her and her sleeping children with tape, towels, and cloths. She was 30   years old. Plath's intentions have been debated. That morning, she asked her downstairs neighbor, art historian Trevor Thomas (1907–1993), what time he would be leaving. She also left

8928-529: Was held on February 15 and concluded that the cause of death was suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning . Hughes was devastated; they had been separated for six months, due to his affair with Assia Wevill. In a letter to an old friend of Plath's from Smith College, he wrote: "That's the end of my life. The rest is posthumous." Wevill also died by suicide, using a gas stove, six years later. Plath's gravestone in Heptonstall 's parish churchyard of St. Thomas

9024-421: Was immediately struck with Assia, as she was with him. In June 1962, Plath had a car accident, which she later described as a suicide attempt. In July 1962 Plath discovered Hughes was having an affair with Wevill; in September, Plath and Hughes separated. Beginning in October 1962, Plath experienced a great burst of creativity and composed most of the poems on which her reputation now rests, writing at least 26 of

9120-532: Was only purely happy until I was nine years old." The second cause of her depression is from her perfectionist ideologies. Esther is a woman of many achievements – college, internships and perfect grades. It is this success that puts the unattainable goals into her head, and when she does not achieve them, her mental health suffers. Esther laments, "The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn't thought about it." Esther Greenwood has an obvious mental break – that being her suicide attempt which dictates

9216-542: Was viewed by some critics at the time as more derivative of other poets. I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked [...] as I sat there, unable to decide [which fig], the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet. The Bell Jar , 1963 Plath's semi-autobiographical novel—her mother wanted to block publication—was published in 1963 and in

#387612