The Bell Jar

 

The Bell Jar

Written by Sylvia Plath

Originally published in 1963

~240 pages

Rate 5/5

I've never read a book about a young woman that I have related to so much before reading this book. For those of you who have read this and feel a bit uneasy about that statement, I will elaborate. 

Esther is a writer and much like me, she finds herself unable to write, read, or do much of anything one day. Since this book took place in the 60s her and I don't get treated the same way after making this observation about ourselves. I wouldn't say I felt the same exact way as Esther throughout the entire story because of that. 

Going back to the similarities, Esther's career situation felt similar to my own job situation despite her being 19 and me being 22. She doesn't get into the class she has been hoping to get into, I haven't been able to find a job that I might really enjoy. Everything in our lives seems to be changing in one fell swoop and it feels as though the rug is being pull our from underneath us and there's nothing we can do about it. It feels like our efforts aren't being rewarded for all the work we had been putting in. Or maybe that's just me and my interpretation of The Bell Jar. 

I think Sylvia Plath shares an excellent portrayal of life as a young woman. I'm not sure how many other women could relate to Esther, but I would like to think I'm not alone. I think this would be an excellent book for all women in their 20s to read. 

This book will be known as my second favorite book until further notice. 

There were so many amazing quotes from this book here are a few:

"The silence depressed me. It wasn’t the silence of silence. It was my own silence. I knew perfectly well the cars were making a noise, and the people in them and behind the lit windows of the buildings were making a noise, and the river was making a noise, but I couldn’t hear a thing. The city hung in my window, flat as a poster, glittering and blinking, but it might just as well not have been there at all, for the good it did me."

"All my life I’d told myself studying and reading and writing and working like mad was what I wanted to do, and it actually seemed to be true, I did everything well enough and got all A’s, and by the time I made it to college nobody could stop me."

"I felt dreadfully inadequate. The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn’t thought about it. The one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and prizes, and that era was coming to an end."

"I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

"And of course I didn’t know who would marry me now that I’d been where I had been. I didn’t know at all."