‘The Bell Jar’ by Sylvia Plath

It goes without saying that Sylvia Plath’s only novel, The Bell Jar, is an exceptional work of fiction more than worthy of a place in the canon of modern literature. It seems more appropriate, therefore, to discuss my individual response to the book and how it made me feel rather than reviewing or dissecting it in any narrow, objective sense.

Prior to reading The Bell Jar and flicking through assorted volumes of her poetry, my knowledge of Sylvia Plath amounted to little more than a few mentions here and there in films such as Not Another Teen Movie and 10 Things I Hate About You. In the latter, Julia Stiles can be seen sitting in an armchair reading The Bell Jar with a deeply angry countenance, while Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation provides a fittingly angst-ridden score. It is my opinion, however, that productions such as these present Plath in a one-sided and somewhat unflattering light; as the quietly rebellious girl’s writer of choice who should be read whilst listening to a playlist dominated by the riot grrl sounds of the Pacific Northwest. As Chyler Leigh, in Not Another Teen Movie, so succinctly says: ‘I read Sylvia Plath, I listen to Bikini Kill, and I eat tofu. I am a unique rebel.’

So it was with a bunch of poorly informed preconceptions that I set about reading The Bell Jar, but as a result I was pleasantly surprised. Plath’s fluid and hypnotic prose style makes clear her modus operandi as a poet, though her wry perception of the world around her and a keen appreciation of detail are what make the novel so infinitely readable as just that - a novel. As a twenty-year-old woman living in the considerably more equal times of 2011, it is fascinating to read about Esther Greenwood’s struggles with sex and femininity and all that those areas encompass. In my opinion the sequence towards the end of the novel, in which Esther suffers a terrible haemorrhage after having sex with a much older professor, ought to be used as abstinence propaganda for the cult-like strains of Christianity that preach about no sex before marriage. I doubt that these notions slipped the venerable mind of Plath, whose perceptiveness simply pours out of every page.

The image of the bell jar itself is, to me, a strikingly beautiful one, and a fitting allegory to the often skewed boundaries between reality and fantasy. The ultimate question posed by Plath through the story of Esther Greenwood’s mental breakdown seems to be just what is reality, exactly? Ideas, anyone?

This piece was originally published on alisonlaurabell.tumblr.com in August 2011.