The Bell Jar 1963 Literature

Sylvia Plath

I’ve always associated The Bell Jar with Catcher in the Rye: both are relatively aimless journeys of extremely unlikeable (but so unlikable they’re likeable again) young adults who find themselves jaded with the world that surrounds them. Esther Greenwood is a deeply cynical narrator who fits with the unsaturated greys of city life. The Bell Jar is timeless, it’s a book that people even to this day are still fascinated by. Sylvia Plath herself was the textbook example of depression, something that has earned her a bit of a mystical status to the rare readers of my generation (I have two friends who regularly read :-(). As for my thoughts on the book, it’s really quite good. It didn’t really speak to me in quite the same way as the other books I’ve read, but regardless, it’s still really good. I also didn’t know what a bell jar was until I was writing this review, and after seeing a picture of one, using a bell jar as a metaphor for being confined and trapped in your own head is actually really really brilliant. Also, I wasn’t expecting a borderline memoir to have rich symbolism in it but hey I appreciate it.