"the Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath

It’s 50’s, you are a young woman just arrived in New York with a scholarship you granted and just about to do your internship in a famous magazine. Being full of ambitions, dreaming big things but gradually finding yourself inside a dilemma. Life becomes harder as your ambitions don’t match with what society expects from you. At the end, you figure out that your sole guide to help you find your way out in this labyrinth is to commit suicide.

If you like it, please keep reading.

Doreen is a young woman who is the main character of the Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Throughout the book, you’ll accompany her while she begins to struggle with the reality just waits out there in the cold New York winter.

Herein I would like to focus on the main character:

Doreen has troubled me a bit since she is somehow one of the types whom I always try to keep at arm’s length – willingly or unwillingly: they are never afraid of revealing their minuses or weakness. I’m not of course troubled by their courage but somehow by their putting their foot in the mouth in presence of others. I’m mostly worried not for me but them.

On the other hand, there are dramatic similarities between me and Doreen and it made me go over and over again the same pages. Plath’s description of fig tree especially was one of these that-happened-to-me-as-well parts of the book, she skillfully portrayed the choices in a women’s life in the form of fig tree: while you are trying to decide which one to pluck, they all got mature and falls down. This is more or less what happened to me drastically if not fatally. The sad thing on the other hand is that our fig trees are planted by men and the fruits of all these trees including Doreen’s are the fruits of male dominated perspective of life. I also personally like Doreen’s relation with water, her finding refugee in warm bath. No need to mention, as you can guess, this is exactly how I feel most of the time.

And the last thing I should highlight is, apart from such kind of individual heart beats I found in the book which are pros to me as well as unrealistic suicide descriptions which were cons, Mrs. Plath plays a beautiful game in her first and last book.

And just only for this let’s-link-it game, I say you should read it.

You should read it - even if you don’t like it at the first place- because at the end you’ll be able to comprehend how strongly Sylvia Plath connected these two facts: to be executed by government and to be executed by the society, your colleagues, your friends and your family are no different than each other.