The Bell Jar

Synopsis:

Esther Greenwood begins the summer with an internship at a popular women’s magazine, but her hopes for a career as a writer are dashed when she returns home to Massachusetts to discover she’s been rejected from a prestigious writing seminar. Listless and suffering from the onset of depression, Esther attempts suicide, and eventually finds herself in a variety of hospitals undergoing controversial electro-shock therapy.

American author Sylvia Plath’s only novel,

The Bell Jar

has been read and discussed widely for its dark humour, honest portrayal of mental illness, and feminist point of view, and is noted for its parallels to the author’s own life—Plath committed suicide only a month into the book’s UK publication. Ultimately,

The Bell Jar

’s exploration of the pressure on young women of Plath’s time to conform to societal expectations has influenced both literature and pop culture in the decades since its publication.

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