Monday, February 2, 2009
Plath
The theme of death and suicide in The Bell Jar is definitely obvious. Knowing about the events in her life just led me down a different path of interpretation. If I didn’t know anything about Plath herself, I would have a very hard time sympathizing with her and think of her as annoying and attention hungry. All of the opportunities that she is offered in the book make it even harder to sympathize with her. She talks about her full ride to college and summer internship that every girl would die for and it makes you wonder why she can’t just be appreciative and quit feeling sorry for herself. However, knowing Plath’s story helped me to understand Esther’s character on a different level and more completely. All of these opportunities that have been put in front of her in the book are symbols of all of the pressure Plath felt like she had on her as a student and author. Applying this knowledge helped me to understand Esther’s obsession with death. She sees an opportunity to kill herself with almost every situation she is put in just like Plath felt like she needed to do in order to get out of it all and away from all the pressure.
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I think we need to approach the novel on two levels--that of Esther's experiences, which are very difficult to evaluate. She is perhaps less superficial, more focused on authenticity than the girls she hangs out with at Ladies' Day. She is also clearly a victim--of near-rape (Marco) and insensitivity (her mother) Yet she cannot fill the void inside herself. Knowing that something isn't okay isn't equivalent to knowing how to make it better. Then there's the level created by the narrator, who comments on and evaluates Esther. On that level, Esther's shortcomings are rendered very clearly: her callousness towards others, her competitiveness (even in suicide (see Mr. George Pollucci,who fails to kill himself, even though he's all ready to go on his 7-story ledge), her arrogance to the less intellectually gifted, her prejudices (towards homosexuality, blacks etc.).
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