Critical analysis essay over The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
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Course
Engels
Level
VWO / Gymnasium
Book
The Bell Jar
A very comprehensive analysis essay at VWO level that expands Thomas Pynchon's book Inherent vice and puts it in context by linking with the characters in the book, the writer and the society described. Includes reference list.
Critical analysis essay over The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
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VWO / Gymnasium
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The Importance of the Timeframe
The Bell Jar describes the life of Esther Greenwood, a 19-year-old college
students who has won an internship at Ladies Day magazine in New York
City. Esther is very smart, studious and aspires to be a poet. Esther
struggles with the societal expectations and norms, surrounding marriage,
gender roles and mental illness in a 1950s America. By looking at the
timeframe in which The Bell Jar was written in, one can understand the
struggles the protagonistdeals with. It also helps see why she, tries to
break away from the expectations of this time. Therefore my thesis
statement is: The timeframe in which Sylvia Plath’s the Bell Jar was written
negatively affects the protagonist.
Firstly, the societal expectations surrounding marriage in a 1950s
America create a conflict within the protagonist, Esther Greenwood. In the
1950s women felt tremendous societal pressure to get married, or to ‘’get
their Mrs-degree’’. However, Esther feels marriage is a restricted life, filled
with expectations and limitations. She would have to live up to, not only
society’s expectations but also her husband’s expectations of her role in
their marriage. This is why Esther refuses to marry Buddy Willard, a well-
liked, handsome boy she dates in college. Buddy, being fairly traditional,
believes that ‘’What a man wants is a mate and what a woman wants is
infinite security” and that “that a man is an arrow into the future and what
a woman is the place the arrow shoots from’ (p.74, Plath, 1963). Buddy
states that women seek infinite security and find this within marriage.
Esther, however finds stability and freedom in writing poetry and editing a
fashion magazine. By marrying Buddy Willard, she would lose her freedom,
because of the expectation placed upon her to become a ‘dedicated
mother and wife’. Esther’s disdain for this life becomes apparent when she
thinks about Buddy’s views on marriage:
That’s one of the reasons I never wanted to get married. The last
thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow
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