Jaidee's Reviews > The Bell Jar

3.5 "descriptive rather than insightful" stars !!

I told my GR friend Ann that I meant to read this since age 16. All the girls I had crushes on at the time were reading this book with their pencil skirts and Smiths Tshirts. I read some Plath poetry that I enjoyed but never got to this novel.

I spent a good deal of time reflecting on Esther...the heroine in this modern classic. She is a fascinating study in female narcissism that mistakes herself for being misunderstood, special and superior to men, lesbians and those of other social classes and ethnicities. She is raised by a working class widowed mother whom Esther feels a great deal of disdain and hostility towards. Esther, however, continually struggles for her independence, dealing with her suppressed libido and I suspect significant lesbian tendencies of her own. None of this is unusual in late adolescent females who consider themselves both world weary and special.

Unfortunately Esther suffers also from unprocessed grief, school disappointments and a traumatic event that bring out her biological vulnerability,in her case, either very severe depressive psychosis or more likely a schizoaffective disorder that render her non-functional, at times delusional and severely suicidal.

This book is her journey from confused spoiled brat to a young woman with a horrendous mental illness and her journey back to the living world. The book is very adept at describing the moral and the social roles of white middle class Northeastern men and women as well as the hypocrisies of that time period. At times the book is hilariously funny despite being about a young woman's immense psychic suffering.

This book did not reach four star status however. I found much of it fragmented, unfinished and the prose (unlike her poetry) rather pedestrian more than inspired. I also found that although I found the character most fascinating I was not able to empathize or understand to the degree that I had hoped for.