The Bell JarSylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)

Plath was born in 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts. A precocious child – knew insect names in Latin.

Her mother introduced her to poetry and her first poem was published when she was 8.

Idolized her father – a bee keeper and professor. He developed diabetes and died in 1940.

She attended Smith College on scholarship. At the age of 20, she won a Mademoiselle short story contest and worked as a guest editor during her junior year of college, but suffered mental and emotional exhaustion.

In August, 1953, she attempted suicide and was institutionalized, though, eventually, she returned to college and graduated with honors.

In 1953, Plath received bipolar electro-convulsive shock treatments, leaving her traumatized.

Plath and Hughes Once again receiving a scholarship, she

continued her studies at Cambridge University, where she met poet laureate of England, Ted Hughes in 1956. Within a year, they married and returned to the States.

By 1962, Plath and Hughes have 2 children and live in England.

July1962, Sylvia discovers Ted is having an affair and they separate.

October, 1962, she writes 26 poems in one month.

February 1963, during one of the coldest winters in English history, she succeeded in taking her own life.

The Book The Bell Jar is considered to be

a deep work of slightly fictionalized autobiography.

It became most influential in its style: straight-forward, earnest, and almost-painfully honest.

Many critics focus on the parallel between Plath’s fight to become a well-known writer (a predominantly male profession) and women’s fight for equality on the larger scale.

The Book In 1963, The Bell Jar was published under a pseudonym : Victoria

Lucas. A month later, Plath committed suicide by putting her head in a gas oven.

In 1966, The Bell Jar was reprinted with Plath’s name on the cover.

Plath’s mother claimed that Plath intended to follow this novel with another version of the same events – a version that would more closely resemble how a “sane” person would interpret the same events

Plath’s mother also claimed Sylvia once described the process of writing this books as: What I’ve done is throw together events from my own life, fictionalizing

to add color – …I think it will show how isolated a person feels when he is suffering a breakdown…I’ve tried to picture my world and the people in it as seen through the distorting lens of a bell jar.

A Bell Jar? a bell-shaped glass cover used for

covering delicate objects or used in a laboratory, typically for enclosing samples. Can keep contents under great pressure

an environment in which someone is protected or cut off from the outside world

symbolically represents being trapped in depression and isolated

The view from the outside in is distorted – just as mental illness distorts its victim’s perception of the world

Themes

Society and class Women and

femininity Madness Identity

Conformity (1950s in the US)

Death and transformation through rebirth

Family Sex

Motifs

Whiteness/snow Silence/death Submersion Suicide/graves/coffin

Sea/seashore Moon Babies/birth/children Clear/transparent

Existentialism Existentialism is a

philosophical theory/approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of will.

Existentialism involves the attempt to make meaning in a chaotic world.

Sartre argued, "Man makes himself."

As a form of literary criticism, Existentialism seeks to analyze literary works, with special emphasis on the struggle to define meaning and identity in the face of alienation and isolation.

Asks the questions: Who am I? What is my place in the

world? How do I make meaning?

Judging the Book by its Covers

Cover 1

Take a moment to reflect & interpret this

cover.

Cover 2

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cover.

Cover 3

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cover.

Cover 4

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cover.

Cover 5

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cover.

Cover 6

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cover.