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| Plot Summary of The Bell Jar |
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"This witty story goes through the journey of a woman exploring her mind and breaking through outside expectations and pressures. It also deals with issues such as sex and suicide."
Jasmine Rodriguez, Resident Scholar
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"Story of a young woman struggling with the hard and bitter raility she is thrown into in New York City. She becomes intensely depressed ans questions herself and her surroundings. As she disintegrates, she attempts suicide numerous times. Her failure begins her journey of self realization."
A.Scott, Resident Scholar
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"An autobiographical novel about Esther Greenwood in the summer of 1953 and her internship at Ladie's Day magazine, her return home, the events leading to her depression, and her attempted suicide. At the end of the novel Esther is leaving the mental hospital ready for life but still knowing that the bell jar of her depression could descend again"
, Resident Scholar
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"Esther Greenwood begins her narration in New York City, where she is staying in a hotel with other girls who, like her, have won an internship there. There, she begins to have feelings of self-doubt. She no longer knows what she wants to do with her life. She comes home disappointed with her experiences in New York. Her one hope when she comes home, that she will be accepted for a summer writing class with a famous author, is ruined when she returns to find that she was not accepted.
Miserable, she begins to lose all hope. She begins to criticize and see no point in anything. She won't wash her hair because, she rationalizes, she'll only have to do it again tomorrow. Her mother becomes very worried about her, and makes her see a psychiatrist. Using the sleeping pills she gets from her doctor, Esther tries to kill herself. She is found unconscious in the basement, where she made the attempt. Her mother then sends her to a psychiatric hospital. Esther is then forced to have electroshock therapy, a very painful experience for her. Throughout all of this, Buddy Willard, a boy she used to have a crush on, proposes to her. "
Amy Cassidy, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of The Bell Jar |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Kids growing up/acting up?
Yes
Something wrong upstairs/downstairs?
- mental illness
Main Character
Gender
- Female
Profession/status:
- writer
Age:
- a teen
Eccentric/Mental
Yes
Eccentric:
- mentally ill
- emotionally unstable
How sensitive is this character?
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Cynical sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Physique
- average physique
Main Adversary
Identity:
- none
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 5 (an average amount)
United States
Yes
The US:
- Northeast
City?
Yes
City:
- New York
Style
Person
- mostly 1st
Accounts of torture and death?
- explicit references to deaths
Sex in book?
Yes
What kind of sex:
- vague references
- descript of kissing
- descript. of nude males (the big P)
Unusual Style:
- a lot of flashback and forwards
- a lot of stream of consciousness
- written like a journal/diary/letters
Amount of dialog
- roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
- significantly more descript than dialog
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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