Sylvia Plath is most well known as the poet who committed suicide only a month after her semi-autobiographical first novel, The Bell Jar, was published. The Bell Jar was her second book publication. Her previous book was a collection of poems gathered under the title The Colossus and Other Poems.
Readable But Not Easy to Read
The Bell Jar is a compelling book. Plath’s skills as a writer are obvious. The text is easy to read with an occasional lyrical line that reminds the reader that Plath was a poet.
However, the detached point of view of the protagonist and narrator, Esther Greenwood, uses to share her story can leave the reader feeling as if they were floating in an incomprehensible ocean. In addition, the subject matter, that of madness and the cruel treatments that were used on it during the 1950’s, is not conducive to setting the mind at ease. The well-known fact of Plath’s own suicide obviously colors the reader’s understanding of the story.
The detached narration places the reader in the middle of Esther’s mind and allows them to walk down the halls of madness with her, which makes it a difficult book to read and put aside. However, if the reader reads with the intention of better understanding other people and their lives and the writer writes with the intention of conveying a particular reality to the reader, Sylvia Plath achieved the objective of writing a novel.
Not for the Emotionally Squeamish
Sylvia Plath’s novel is not for the emotionally squeamish. The first-person narration of a disconnected young woman travel towards, through, and beyond madness is not easy to set aside. Readers will find that the book lingers with them no matter what they are doing and consequently, gives their activities a slightly different feel than they normally seem to have.
In addition, to the emotional context of the novel, there are the sometimes-graphic descriptions of the physicality of madness. Esther neglects herself and does bizarre things during her madness and while attempting to commit suicide.
An Upbeat Ending
What is easy to miss, when reading a novel about insanity with the knowledge that the author committed suicide less than a month after publication, is that Plath ended the novel on a positive note. When Esther prepares to leave the hospital, she wears a red suit that is as “flamboyant as my plans.” She goes on to wonder if there isn’t a prescribed ritual for those who are born a second time “patched, retreaded and approved for the road.”
The closing paragraph seems almost buoyant “The eyes and the faces all tuned themselves toward me, and guiding myself by them, as by a magical thread, I stepped into the room.”
Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. Harper and Row, Publishers Inc. 1996.
Read more about Sylvia Plath and her work at Suite101.
 |
