5 November The Bell Jar,Sylvia Plath, William Heinemann, 1963
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath’s only novel, is a semi-autobiographical account of a young woman’s (Esther’s) decline into a depressive mental illness and towards suicidal impulses. Esther describes herself as sitting under a bell jar ‘stewing in my own sour air’, suggesting her suffocation by the world, her alienation from the world and the distortion by which she experiences the world. Esther imagines and makes several suicide attempts, and at the discovery of her final attempt she is admitted to an asylum where she is treated with Electro Compulsive Therapy (ECT). The Bell Jar was published only a few months before Sylvia Plath, herself, committed suicide.
Plath’s writing verges at times on stream of consciousness; Esther’s account moves backwards and forwards in time and her mind darts between thoughts and observations in ways that are sometimes startling to the reader. Plath’s language and imagery is vivid and poetic, shot through with biting comment and at times, casual racism. She explores several themes in the novel, most notably the alienating nature of severe depression and the treatment of mental health illness in the mid twentieth century. But The Bell Jar is also an exploration of the repression and constraints under which American women in the 1950s and 1960s lived, the expectation to marry and become mothers rather than to work or build careers, the double standards and the inequalities. It is these themes which made Plath a feminist icon. However, it was the issues of depressive mental health and the efficacy (or otherwise) and effect of ECT which generated a much wider discussion in the group. Responses to the book varied; many found it a powerful exposition of mental health decline, others were less convinced, but there is no doubt that Plath’s theme continues to resonate with our contemporary and at times troubled lives.