The Bell Jar as a coming-of-age novel

Introduction

The story revolves around a young girl named Esther Greenwood, who is a brilliant student, but suffers from mental illness resulting in suicide temptations. The story starts as she goes for drinks with her friend Doreen, where they acquaint to some men. They both go to Lenny's apartment, whom they just met, where Doreen get intimate and even a little violent with him. Seeing this, Esther leaves back to her hotel, where Lenny drops off intoxicate Doreen. The story unfolds interestingly, revealing the burden Esther bore as a daughter of a mother who did not understand her, and the pressure she faced about her future, and her sexuality by the society, while tying to succeed in the vast city as an independent women.

Mental illness

She was metaphorically a neurotic as she admitted when refusing the proposal from Buddy while stating, “If neurotic is the want of two mutually exclusive things at once and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell”, which explains the compilation of stress and the problems she faces. She is not able to sleep or eat, as she tells Dr. Gordon, and shows the doctor her handwriting, explaining she was not able to write, and thought more often about committing suicide on which the doctor advices her to undergo shock therapy. Even after the treatment she plans to commit suicide by drawing a hot bath and trying to slit her wrist as she believed, “There must be quite a few things a hot bath will not cure, but I do not know many of them” (Plath, Pp. 17 - 280).

External factors for Esther's mental conditions are not blamed in the novel, putting the blame to inward mysterious forces. A number of factors can be seen effecting her mental position, including the loss of her father at a very young age, the lack of understanding by her mother, belonging to a financially poor family, while enduring the weight of everyone's expectation for her to succeed. The stress, of her sexuality, and conflict to remain pure ads to the confusing demands and expectations of the 1950s on young-talented women in America added to worsen the situation for her. Expecting her to be independent and successful while being a submissive wife, having attractive possessions at home as apparent by her saying, “So I began to think, maybe it was true that when you are married, ...