Feminism in Sylvia Plaths The Bell Jar :: Feminism Feminist Women Criticism

feminism in The ships bell Jar   In Sylvia Plaths autobiographical novel The Bell Jar, the reader learns of the adventures of a young fair sex in a male-dominated nightspot that will not let her achieve her true potential. Plaths alter ego, Esther, is indeed driven to a nervous breakdown and attempts suicide numerous times. In many ways, this novel is a libber text, centered around the struggles of a young woman who cannot reach her goals in our male-dominated society.   People close to Esther, do not accept her talents as a poet and writer, but rather prove to push her into traditionally more feminine graphemes. For example, Esthers mother repeatedly tries to change over her to learn shorthand, but Esther rebels, saying ...when I tried to picture myself in some job, briskly jotting down pass after line of shorthand, my mind went blank. (100) Esther, unlike many women of her time, refuses to be controlled by societys gender-based constraints The last topic I wanted was quad security and to be the military position an pointer shoots onward from. I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket. (68) The phrases infinite security and the place an arrow shoots off from come from Mrs. Willards description of the womans role in society (58). This passage directly addresses Plaths central purpose in the novel, which is to look at the mental problems that can befall a woman with ambitions that the surrounding culture will not allow her to fulfill. This book was promulgated in 1963, towards the beginning of the feminist movement the events chronicled in this book, however, take place in 1953 (208), in a period during which womens rights were not yet widely recognized in our society. The passage quoted above, and the emotions which it conveys, are typical of a feminist like Esther, but Esther is ahead of her time and is thus unable to put forward herself to society in t he way she wants.