The Bell Jar
Sylvia Plath
Esther Greenwood, a college student, finds herself inside a bell jar quite often. Outside world looks surreal and eerily silent while she is inside. In spite of her scholarly achievements she struggles to get out of the bell jar of depression.
She struggles to pick the right fruit from the fig tree of her life.
"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."
The metaphorical bell jar and the fig tree summarise the plight of Esther Greenwood. Sylvia Plath in this autobiographical work takes us through the dark, sorrowful and uncertain arena of mental illness. The book's narrative is so graphical that you feel it, see it and sometimes be in it.
Yet, it is quite a good read, because of the ingrained humour and because finally we see Esther emerging out of the Bell Jar , though it still hangs right there above her head.
Preetha Raj
Comments