The Bell Jar

For the scientific apparatus, see bell jar. For the 1979 film, see The Bell Jar (film).
The Bell Jar
First edition cover, published under Sylvia
Plath's pseudonym, "Victoria Lucas."
Author
Sylvia Plath
Country
United States
Language
English
Genre
Semi-autobiography
Publisher
Heinemann
Publication date 14 January 1963
Media type
Print
Pages
244
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 semi-autobiographical,
with the names of places and people changed. The book is often regarded as a roman clef
since the protagonist's descent into mental illness parallels Plath's own experiences with what
may have been clinical depression. Plath died by suicide a month after its first UK publication.
The novel was published under Plath's name for the first time in 1967 and was not published in
the United States until 1971, in accordance with the wishes of both Plath's husband, Ted
Hughes, and her mother.[1] The novel has been translated into nearly a dozen languages.[2] The
novel, though dark, is often read in high school English classes.
Plot summary
Esther Greenwood, a young woman from the suburbs of Boston, gains a summer internship at a
prominent magazine in New York City, under editor Jay Cee; however, Esther is neither
stimulated nor excited by either the big city or the glamorous culture and lifestyle that girls her
age are expected to idolize and emulate. She instead finds her experience to be frightening and
disorienting; appreciating the witty sarcasm and adventurousness of her friend Doreen, but also
identifies with the piety of Betsy (dubbed "Pollyanna Cowgirl"), a "goody-goody" sorority girl
who always does the right thing. She has a benefactress in Philomena Guinea, a formerly
successful fiction writer (based on Olive Higgins Prouty), who will later pay some of Esther's
hospital expenses.
Esther describes in detail several seriocomic incidents that occur during her internship, kicked
off by an unfortunate but amusing experience at a banquet for the girls held by the staff of
Ladies' Day magazine. She reminisces about her friend Buddy, whom she has dated more or
less seriously, and who considers himself her de facto fianc. She also muses about Julius and
Ethel Rosenberg, who are scheduled for execution. She returns to her Massachusetts home in

low spirits. She has been hoping for another scholarly opportunity once she is back in
Massachusetts, a writing course taught by a world-famous author, but on her return her mother
immediately tells her she was not accepted for the course. She decides to spend the summer
potentially writing a novel, although she feels she lacks enough life experience to write
convincingly. All of her identity has been centered upon doing well academically; she 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 vacuous, prolific child-bearer Dodo Conway, or
stereotypical female careers such as stenography) appeal to her.
Esther becomes increasingly depressed, and finds herself unable to sleep. Her mother
encourages, or perhaps forces, her to see a psychiatrist, Dr. Gordon, whom Esther mistrusts
because he is attractive and seems to be showing off a picture of his charming family rather than
listening to her. He prescribes electroconvulsive therapy (ECT); and afterward, she tells her
mother that she will not go back.
Esther's mental state worsens; describing her depression as a feeling of being trapped under a
bell jar, struggling for breath. She makes several half-hearted attempts at suicide, including
swimming far out to sea, before making a serious attempt. She leaves a note saying she is taking
a long walk, then crawls into the cellars and swallows about 50 sleeping pills that had been
prescribed for her insomnia. In a very dramatic episode, the newspapers presume her
kidnapping and death, but she is discovered under her house after an indeterminate amount of
time. She survives and is sent to a different mental hospital, where she meets Dr. Nolan, a
female therapist. Along with regular psychotherapy sessions, Esther is given huge amounts of
insulin to produce a "reaction," and again receives shock treatments, with Dr. Nolan ensuring
that they are being properly administered. Esther describes 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. Her stay at the private institution is funded by her benefactress, Philomena Guinea.
Esther tells Dr. Nolan how she envies 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 for 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 and
various life-changing events helps her regain her sanity. The novel ends with her entering the
room for an interview, which will decide whether she can leave the hospital.
It is suggested near the beginning of the novel that, in later years, Esther goes on to have a baby.
Characters
Esther Greenwood is the protagonist of the story, who becomes mentally unstable
during a summer spent interning at a magazine in New York City. Tormented by both the
death of her father and the feeling that she simply does not fit into the culturally
acceptable role of womanhood, she attempts to commit suicide in the hopes of escape.

 Doreen is a rebel-of-the-times young woman and another intern at Ladies' Day, the
magazine for which Esther won an internship for the summer, and Esther's best friend at
the hotel in New York where all the interns stay. Esther finds Doreen's confident persona
enticing but also troublesome, as she longs for the same level of freedom but knows such
behavior is frowned upon.
Joan is an old friend of Esther, who joins her at the asylum and eventually commits
suicide.
Doctor Nolan is Esther's doctor at the asylum. A beautiful and caring woman, her
combination of societally-praised femininity and professional ability allows her to be the
first woman in Esther's life she feels she can fully connect with. Nolan administers shock
therapy to Esther and does it correctly, which leads to positive results.
Doctor Gordon is the first doctor Esther encounters. Self-obsessed and patronizing, he
subjects her to traumatic shock treatments that haunt her for the rest of her time in
medical care.
Mrs. Greenwood, Esther's mother, loves her daughter but is constantly urging Esther to
mold to society's ideal of white, middle-class womanhood, from which Esther feels a
complete disconnection.
Buddy Willard is Esther's former boyfriend from her hometown. Studying to become a
doctor, Buddy wants a wife who mirrors his mother, and hopes Esther will be that for
him. Esther adores him throughout high school, but upon learning he is not a virgin loses
respect for him and names him a hypocrite. She struggles with ending the relationship
after Buddy is diagnosed with tuberculosis. He eventually proposes to her, but Esther
refuses due to the decision that she will never marry, to which Buddy responds that she is
crazy.
Mrs. Willard, Buddy Willard's mother, is a dedicated homemaker who is determined to
have Buddy and Esther marry.
Mr. Willard, Buddy Willard's father and Mrs. Willard's husband, is a good family friend.
Constantin, a simultaneous interpreter with a foreign accent, takes Esther on a date while
they are both in New York. They return to his apartment and Esther contemplates giving
her virginity to him, but in the end decides against it.
Irwin is a tall but rather ugly young man, to whom Esther gives her virginity, which
causes her to hemorrhage. He is a "very well-paid professor of mathematics" and invites
Esther to have coffee, which leads to her having sex with him, which leads to Esther
having to go to the hospital to get help to stop the bleeding.

 Jay Cee is Esther's strict boss, who is very intelligent, so "her plug-ugly looks didn't
seem to matter".[3] She is responsible for editing Esther's work.
Lenny Shepherd, a wealthy young man living in New York, invites Doreen and Esther
for drinks while they are on their way to a party. Doreen and Lenny start dating, taking
Doreen away from Esther more often.
Philomena Guinea, a wealthy elderly lady, was the person who donated the money for
Esther's college scholarship. Esther's college requires each girl who is on scholarship to
write a letter to her benefactor, thanking him or her. Philomena invites Esther to have a
meal with her. At one point, she was also in an asylum herself, and pays for the "upscale"
asylum that Esther stays in.
Marco, a Peruvian man and friend of Lenny Shepherd, is set up to take Esther to a party
and ends up attempting to rape her.
Betsy, a wealthier girl from the magazine, is a "good" girl from Kansas whom Esther
strives to be more like. She serves as the opposite to Doreen, and Esther finds herself torn
between the two behavioral and personality extremes.
Hilda is another girl from the magazine, who is generally disliked by Esther after making
negative comments about the Rosenbergs.
Publication history
According to her husband, Plath began writing the novel in 1961, after publishing her first
collection of poetry, The Colossus. After she separated from Hughes, Plath moved to 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,"[2] he explained.
Plath was writing the novel under the sponsorship of the Eugene F. Saxton Fellowship, affiliated
with publisher Harper & Row, but they were disappointed by the manuscript and withdrew,
calling it "disappointing, juvenile and overwrought."[2] Early working titles of the novel
included Diary of a Suicide and The Girl in the Mirror.[4]
Style and major themes
The novel is written using a series of flashbacks that show up 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 the question of socially acceptable identity. It examines Esther's "quest
to forge her own identity, to be herself rather than what others expect her to be."[5] Esther is
expected to become a housewife, and a self-sufficient woman, without the options to achieve
independence.[4] 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.[6] The men in Esther's life are all oppressive, whether it is in a
physical manner or an emotional one.
Parallels between Plath's life and the novel
The book contains many references to real people and events in Plath's life. Plath's real-life
magazine scholarship was at Mademoiselle magazine beginning in 1953.[7] Furthermore,
Philomena Guinea is based on Plath's own patron, author Olive Higgins Prouty, who funded
Plath's scholarship to study at Smith College. Plath was rejected from a Harvard course taught
by Frank O'Connor.[8] Dr. Nolan is thought to be based on Plath's own therapist, Ruth Beuscher,
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
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,[9] an upscale facility which resembled the "snake pit" much less than certain
wards in the Metropolitan State Hospital, which may have been where Mary Jane Ward was
actually hospitalized.
In a 2006 interview, Joanne Greenberg said that she had been interviewed in 1986 by one of 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' real 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.[10][11]
Janet McCann links Plath's search for feminine independence with a self-described neurotic
psychology.[12] Plath's husband has at one point insinuated that The Bell Jar might have been
written as a response to many years of electroshock treatment and the scars it left.[13]
Reception
The Bell Jar received "warily positive reviews."[12] The short time span between the publication
of the book and Plath's suicide resulted in "few innocent readings" of the novel.[4]
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 a writer and Plath as an "event."[4] Robert Scholes, writing
for The New York Times, praised the novel's "sharp and uncanny descriptions."[4] 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."[4] Howard Moss of The New Yorker gave a mixed review, praising the "black comedy"
of the novel, but added that there was "something girlish in its manner [that] betrays the hand of
the amateur novelist."[4]

Legacy and adaptations

Main article: The Bell Jar (film)
The Bell Jar has been referenced by many popular sources in the media including Gilmore
Girls, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Warehouse 13, Robot Chicken and in the finale of Master of
None.[14] When Heather Chandler crashes through the glass table in Heathers, CliffsNotes for
The Bell Jar are seen on the floor. Immediately after this sighting, J.D. decides to frame
Heather's death as a suicide.[15] Iris Jamahl Dunkle wrote of the novel that often, when the
novel appears in American films and television series, it stands as a symbol for teenage
angst.[2]
Larry Peerce's The Bell Jar (1979) starred Marilyn Hassett as Esther Greenwood, the
protagonist 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, an incident which is not in the
book. Joan is implied to be a lesbian in Plath's novel.
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.[16][17]
See also
1963 in literature
External links
Wikilivres has original media or text related to this article:
The Bell Jar
The Bell Jar at DMOZ
A page of Bell Jar book covers
Faber profile
The Bell JarBBC profile
"Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar", Salon, 5 October 2000
"The Bell Jar at 40", Emily Gould, Poetry Foundation
The Bell Jar at the British Library
Works by Sylvia Plath

 "Ariel"
"Daddy"
"The Munich Mannequins"
Poems

"Tulips"
"Two Lovers and a Beachcomber by the Real
Sea"
"Lady Lazarus"
"Ennui"

Ariel
The Colossus and Other Poems
Three Women: A Monologue for Three Voices
Poetry collections

Crossing the Water

Winter Trees
The Collected Poems
Selected Poems
Plath: Poems

Prose and novels

The Bell Jar

Letters Home: Correspondence 19501963
Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams: Short
Stories, Prose, and Diary Excerpts
"Superman and Paula Brown's New

Snowsuit"
The Journals of Sylvia Plath
The Magic Mirror
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

The Bed Book

Children's books

The It-Doesn't-Matter-Suit
Collected Children's Stories
Mrs. Cherry's Kitchen

WorldCat Identities
VIAF: 194759992
Authority
control

GND: 4388145-2
SUDOC: 096248653
BNF: cb123417913 (data)

Categories:
1963 American novels
American autobiographical novels
Books by Sylvia Plath
Debut novels
Heinemann (publisher) books
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

 Mental illness in fiction

Novels set in Boston
Novels set in New York City
Roman clef novels
Works published under a pseudonym
Psychotherapy in fiction