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The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath Place of Publication: New York, New York Name of Publishers: Harper & Row, Publishers Inc. Original Publication Date: 1971

Katie Crocker Martin 6th period February 6, 2008

Characterization Describing a character

The Bell Jar uses a large amount of characterization in the novel. The author seemed to think that it would help the readers understand the character more. With almost every character introduced, there is vivid description of that certain character. Without the characterization, readers would not know much about the character.

“I’m five feet ten in my stocking feet, and when I am with little men I stoop over a bit and slouch my hips, one up and one down, so I’ll look shorter and I feel gawky and morbid as somebody in a side show” (9). “When her white hair and white dress she was so white she looked silver” (10). “She was six feet tall, with huge, slanted green eyes and thick red lips and a vacant, slavic expression” (28). “And he looked so proud of having thought of this that I just stared at his blond hair and his blue eyes and his white teeth—he had very long, strong white teeth—and said ‘I guess so.’ “ (56). “Of course, Constantin was much too short, but in his own what he was handsome with light brown hair and dark blue eyes and a lively, challenging expression” (74).

Esther Greenwood Main character and narrator

In the beginning of the novel, Esther is in New York because she got a scholarship to an all women’s college and won a prize from a magazine. She and eleven other girls live in a hotel together and were given jobs and a large amount of money. Later, in the novel she begins losing interest in the things she likes. She likes things to go her way and she seems to like watching other people get what they deserve especially if they have done wrong. After a while of feeling depressed, she tries to commit suicide and gets sent to an asylum, the bell jar.

“I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo” (3). “I hate handing over money to people for doing what I could do myself” (54). “I didn’t want my picture taken because I was going to cry. I didn’t know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I’d cry for a week” (101). “I’m an observer” (105). “I hate saying anything to a group of people. When I talk to a group of people I always have to single out one and talk to him, and all the while I am talking I feel the other are peering at me and taking unfair advantage. I also hate cheerfully how you are when they know you’re feeling like hell and expect you to say ‘Fine.’ “ (177). Repetition for Effect Repeating the same noun or phrase over and over again for effect

To get the author’s point across, she used a series of repetition. The readers should have a better understanding of what the author was trying to say. It adds effect to anything Esther is speaking about also. She repeats words over and over to describe something instead of saying it once. She seems to want to get her point across.

“I thought we must have planned it all along, but Buddy said no, his father simply couldn’t stand the sight of sickness and especially his son’s sickness, because he thought all sickness was sickness of the will. Mr. Willard had never been sick a day in his life” (91). “Doctor Gordon’s waiting room was hushed and beige. The walls were beige, and the carpets were beige, and the upholstered chairs and sofas were beige” (126). “Then I thought, how could this Doctor Gordon help me anyway, with a beautiful wife and beautiful children and a beautiful dog holding him like the angels on a Christmas card?” (129). “As the woman was dragged by, waving her arms and struggling in the grip of the nurse, she was saying, ‘I’m going to jump out of the window, I’m going to jump out of the window, I’m going to jump out of the window’ “(142).

Buddy Willard Long time friend of Esther, wanted to marry her

Esther and Buddy have known each other for a long time. They grew up together and lived in the same town. They seem to both have feelings for each other also. They part their separate ways when Esther goes to college and wins the fashion magazine contest. They still communicate with each other. While at college Buddy develops tuberculosis and has to go stay at a hospital. It was at that hospital Esther started finding out how un-pure he was and how he was a hypocrite and now she no longer liked him. He asked her to marry him and she laughed in his face. Deep down she still has feelings for him though.

“I looked down on Buddy Willard. This thought gave me a certain satisfaction. Because I did look down on Buddy Willard, and although everybody still thought I would marry him when he came out of the TB place, I knew I would never marry him if he were the last man on earth. Buddy Willard was a hypocrite” (52). “My trouble was I took everything Buddy Willard told me as the honest-to-God truth” (57). “While he kissed me I kept my eyes open and tried to memorize the spacing between the house lights so I would never forget them” (61). “Well, I had just decided to ditch Buddy Willard for once and for all, not because he slept with that waitress but because he didn’t have the honest guts to admit it straight off the everybody and face up to it as part of his character” (72). “Buddy wrote that he was probably falling in love with a nurse who also had Tb, but his mother had rented a cottage in the Adirondacks for the month of July, and if I came along with her, he might well find his feeling for the nurse to be a mere infatuation” (119).

Fashion Magazine Contest The reason Esther was in New York at the beginning of the novel

Esther and eleven other girls won a fashion magazine contest. They had to write essays, fashion blurbs, and stories. The prize was that they all received jobs in New York and a large amount of money, plus all expense paid visits to ballets and fashion shows. She said she was supposed to be having the time of her life, but she wasn’t. She met her friends Doreen and Betsy there. Most of the girls were very prissy and stuck up. They were involved in a lot of ladies luncheons and meetings that Esther wanted nothing to do with.

“I was suppose to be having the time of my life. I was supposed to be the envy of thousands of other college girls just like me all over America who wanted nothing more than to be tripping about in those same size-seven patent leather shows I’d bought from Bloomingdale’s one lunch hour with a black patent leather belt and black patent leather pocketbook to match” (2). “I just bumped from my hotel to work and to parties and from parties to my hotel and back to work like a numb trolleybus” (3). “ We all had won a fashion magazine contest, by writing essays and stories and poems and fashion blurbs, and as prizes they gave us jobs in New York for a month, expenses paid, and piles and piles of free bonuses, like ballet tickets and passes to fashion shows and hair stylings at a famous expensive salon and changed to meet successful people in the field of our desire and advice about what to do with our particular complexions” (3).

Jay Cee Esther’s boss in New York

Jay Cee was Esther’s boss for a magazine company. She was strict and had a good head on her shoulders. Esther said she liked her more than she expected. She spoke kind to Esther and was like a mother figure. Jay Cee wanted Esther to become the absolute best.

“Jay Cee was my boss, and I liked her a lot, in spite of what Doreen said” (5). “I wish I had a mother like Jay Cee” (39). “Jay Cee handed me a pile of story manuscripts and spoke to me much more kindly” (40). “ ‘She wants to be,’ said Jay Cee wittily, ‘to be everything’ “(101).

Doreen Esther’s good friend in New York

Doreen and Esther were like two peas in a pod sometimes. Doreen is more spontaneous than Esther is, but their friendship still worked. Doreen would tell Esther to blow off her responsibilities and Esther would listen. Doreen says what she thinks and isn’t afraid of the consequences. Esther knew Doreen was bad for news for her though.

“I’d never known a girl like Doreen before” (4). “Doreen singled me out right away. She made me feel I was that much sharper than the others, and she really was wonderfully funny” (5). “I made a decision about Doreen that night. I decided I would watch her and listen to what she said, but deep down I would have nothing to do at all with her” (22). “I would have been nervous about my dress and my odd color, but being with Doreen made me forget my worries” (8).

Betsy Esther’s friend in New York

Betsy was one the other magazine winners and lived in the same hotel as Esther. Betsy was a sweet girl and Esther could tell that she meant well. Betsy was always asking Esther to do things and many times she said no and made plans with Doreen. After a while, Esther started doing things with Betsy. They went to a party together and got food poisoning.

“Deep down, I would be loyal to Betsy and her innocent friends. It was Betsy I resembled at heart” (22). “Betsy was always asking me to do things with her and the other girls as if she were trying to save me in some way” (6). “Betsy was sick again in the elevator and I held her head, and then I was sick and held mine” (44).

Change Becoming something that you were not before

A little before Esther started thinking suicidal thoughts, she changed. She changed so much that her friends and family started to notice. She could not sleep, eat, read, or write. Her mother went looking for help for her daughter and went through a few people before she actually found good help.

“I can’t sleep. I can’t read” (126). “I haven’t washed my hair for three weeks, either. I hadn’t slept for seven nights” (127). “I didn’t want to go at first, because I thought Jody would notice the change in me, and that anybody with half an eye would see I didn’t have a brain in my head” (155). “And I thought of how my mother and brother and friends would visit me day after day, hoping I would be better” (160). “But when I took up my pen, my hand made big, jerky letters like these of a child, and the lines sloped down the page from left to right almost diagonally, as if they were loops of string lying on the paper, and someone had come along and blown then askew” (130).

Constantin A translator who takes Esther on a date with whom she wants to sleep with

Mrs. Willard had set up a meeting between Constantin and Esther. They went to the UN and then grabbed a bite to eat. Before meeting Constantin, Esther had been thinking about going ahead and losing her virginity, since Buddy Willard had lost his. Constantin and Esther never ended up having sex, but it was at the top of her thoughts.

“Gradually I realized that Constantin was trying to arrange a meeting for us later in the day” (51). “Of course Constantin was short, but in his own way he was handsome, with light brown hair and dark blue eyes and a lively, challenging expression” (74). “Constantin kept refilling our glasses with a sweet Greek wine that tasted of pine bark, and I found myself telling him how I was going to learn German and go to Europe and be a war correspondent” (78). “I felt so fine by the time we came to the yogurt and strawberry jam that I decided I would let Constantin seduce me” (78). “Constantin’s room had a balcony, and the balcony over-looked the river, ad we could hear the hooing of the tugs down in the darkness. I felt moved and certain about what I was going to do” (80). Doctor Nolan Esther’s doctor in the asylum

At The Bell Jar, Esther’s doctor is Doctor Nolan. She and Doctor Nolan get along very well. Esther seemed to very well. Esther seemed to take greater liking towards her than Doctor Gordon. Doctor Nolan seemed to really care about Esther in the asylum. She seemed to know what Esther meant when she said things.

“Doctor Nolan nodded. She seemed to know what I meant” (203). “I liked Doctor Nolan, I loved her, I had given her my trust and told her everything and she had promised, faithfully, to warn me ahead of time if ever I had to have another shock treatment” (211). “Doctor Nolan put her arm around me and hugged me like a mother” (212). “Doctor Nolan took out a white handkerchief and wiped my face. Then she hooked her arm in my arm, like an old friend, and helped me up, and we started down the hall” (212). “I hung on to Doctor Nolan’s arm like death, and every so often she gave me an encouraging squeeze” (213).

Suicide Taking one’s own life

In the novel, the main character, Esther Greenwood changes in the middle of the novel. She starts to become uninterested in anything at all and wants to stay in bed all day. After a little while of feeling like this, she starts to contemplate methods of suicide.

“Then in one quick flash, before they had time to think twice, they would jab the knives in and zip them round, one on the upper crescent and one on the lower crescent, making a full circle. Then their stomach skin would come loose, like a plate, and their insides would fall out, and they would die” (138). “I thought it would be easy, lying in the tub and seeing the redness flower from my wrists, flush after flush through the clear water, till I sank to sleep under a surface gaudy as poppies” (147). “The only thing to do was to kill myself then and there” (160). “I knew that Catholics thought killing yourself was an awful sin. But perhaps, if this was so, they might have a good way to persuade me out of it” (164). “Then I took the glass of water, and the bottle of pills and went down to the cellar” (168). “I tried to kill myself” (176).

Simile A comparison using as or like.

In the novel, Sylvia Plath uses many ways to help show the reader what is going on and visualize it. She uses an immense amount of similes to help. There is at least one simile on every other page, if not every page. Without the large amount of similes, the reader would not get the full understanding of the book.

“I was skinny as a boy and barely rippled, and I liked feeling almost naked on the hot summer nights” (7-8). “The doors folded shut like a noiseless accordion” (18). “So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed” (85). “Woman-haters were like gods: invulnerable and chockfull of power” (157). “I tried to smile, but my skin had gone stiff like parchment” (143). “He didn’t answer but reached over and put his hand at the root of my hair and ran his fingers out slowly to the rip ends like a comb” (86). “The lilt and boom threaded by me like an invisible rivulet in a desert of snow” (95).

Imagery Helps the reader visualize what’s going on in the novel

The backgrounds and the characters in the novel are well described. Because of all the imagery used, the reader can feel as if they are there with the characters. The author did the readers a good thing by adding all that imagery in the book.

“When the man in the lumber shirt and black chinos and tooled leather cowboy boots started to stroll over to us from under the striped awning of the bar where he’d been eyeing our cab, I couldn’t have any illusions.” (8). “I saved her placecard for her—a pocket mirror with “Doreen” painted along the top of it in lacy script and a wrath of frosted daises around the edge, framing the silver hole where her face would show” (25). “It flew straight down from the sky in drops the size of coffee saucers and hit the hot sidewalks with a hiss that sent clouds of stream writhing up from the gleaming, dark concrete” (151). “The stores in the modern part were crude and cheap, and here and there a grave rimmed with marble, like an oblong bathtub full of dirt, and rusty metal containers stuck up about where a person’s navel would be, full of plastic flowers” (166). “I looked up, idly, and saw a small sandy child being dragged up from the sea’s edge by a skinny, bird-eyed woman in red shorts and a red-white polka-dot halter” (151). Shock Treatments Thought to make depression or other brain/personality disorders go away

Before Esther goes to the asylum, she goes and sees Doctor Gordon. He tells her he wants her to have some shock treatments to try and help her. During the shock treatment, she realizes that something goes wrong and that it does not feel right. When Doctor Nolan explains how the treatments are suppose to go, they both realize that something did go wrong. Esther has some shock treatments with Doctor Nolan and everything goes well.

“I didn’t see how Doctor Nolan could tell you went to sleep during a shock treatment if she’d never had a shock treatment herself” (205). “I told Doctor Nolan about the machine, and the blue flashes, and the jolting, and the noise. While I was telling her she went very still. ‘That was a mistake,’ she said then. ‘It’s not supposed to be like that.’” (189). “’You won’t have any shock treatments here. Or if you do,’ she amended, ‘I’ll tell you about it beforehand, and I promise you it won’t be anything like what you had before’” (189). “Doctor Gordon doesn’t think you’ve improved at all. He thinks you should have some shock treatments at Walton” (135). “Then something bent down and took hold of me and shook me like an air crackling with blue light, and with each flash a great jolt drubbed me till I thought my bones would break and the sap fly out of me like a split plant” (143). Purity Abstaining from anything sexual in action and thought

Esther, the main character, was taught when she younger to stay pure and wait for marriage. As she was staying in New York, she realized that not many people we following that way. She wanted to follow the route her friends were following. She looked for signs from men that signaled that they wanted to sleep with her.

“What I couldn’t stand was Buddy’s pretending I was so sexy and he was so pure, when all the time he’d been having an affair with that tarty waitress and must have felt like laughing in my face” (71). “Of course they would try to persuade a girl to have sex and say they would marry her later, but as soon as she gave in, they would lose all respect for her and start saying that if she did that with them she would do that with other men and they would end up by making her life miserable” (81). “When I was nineteen, pureness was the great issue” (82). “I thought if only I had a keen, shapely bone structure to my face or could discuss politics shrewdly or was a famous writer, Constantin might find me interesting enough to sleep with” (83). “This woman lawyer said the best men wanted to be pure for their wives, and even if they weren’t pure, they wanted to be the ones to teach their wives about sex” (81).

Onomonopetia Sounds in the form of words

To describe sounds that are made in the novel, the author uses onomonopetia. Although it is not used too often, it is used well enough to know that the author is doing it on purpose. This is also used to help the readers visualize what is going on in the book.

“It sounded like a heavy wooden object falling downstairs, boomp boomp boomp, step after step” (124). “He tapped his pencil—tap, tap, tap—across the near green field of his blotter” (128). “Cal pointed a finger to his temple and made a comical, screwed-up face, ‘click!’” (156). “There was a terrible shriek of brakes followed by a dull thump- thump!” (9). “The whole time I was talking, Doctor Gordon bent his head as if he were praying, and the only noise apart from the dull, flat voice was the tap, tap, tap of Doctor Gordon’s pencil at the same point on the green blotter, like a stalled walking stick” (130).

Joan Esther’s friend in the asylum

Joan Gilling was from the same town as Esther and Buddy Willard. Esther had envied her for a while because she went to Yale and Buddy had liked her. Later in the novel, Joan checks into the asylum as Esther. They become friends in a way, but Esther still does not like her very much and Joan knows this.

“It occurred to me that Joan, hearing where I was, had engaged a room at the asylum on pretense, simply as a joke. That would explain why she had told the nurse I was her friends. I had never known Joan except at a cool distance” (195). “I thought either Joan must be crazy—wearing rubber boots to work—or she must be trying to see how crazy I was, believing all that” (195-196). “Joan had walk privileges, Joan had town privileges. I gathered all my news of Joan into a little bitter heap, though I received it with surface gladness. Joan was the beaming double of my old best self, especially designed to follow and torment me” (205). “’Yes.’ Joan’s voice slid down my spine like a draft. ‘I loved them. They were so nice, so happy, nothing like my parents. I went over to see them all the time,’ she paused,’ until you came.’” (217). “’I like you,’ Joan was saying. ‘I like you better than Buddy.”” ( 219). “’That’s tough, Joan.’ I said, picking up my book. ‘Because I don’t like you. You make me puke, if you want to know,’” (220). Marriage A man and woman combining their lives together publicly. Something that receives tax benefits.

Marriage is a topic discussed in The Bell Jar, Esther, says she us never going to get married because she does not want to be miserable the rest of her life. She also says that she does not want to get married because she is neurotic and she won’t be able to decide where to live. Her lifelong love, Buddy Willard, asks for her hand in marriage and she laughs at him in his face.

“That’s one of the reasons I never wanted to get married. The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place on arrow shoots from” (83). “This seemed a dreary and wasted life for a girl with fifteen years of straight A’s but I knew that’s what marriage was like” (84). “’How would you like to be Mrs. Buddy Willard?’ I had an awful impulse to laugh” (93). “I’m never going to get married” (93). “I tried to imagine it would be like if Constantin were my husband” (84).

Mother Esther’s wise mother In the beginning of the novel, Esther tells the readers many things her mother has told her. It’s not until she leaves New York, that she is reunited with her mother. She seems to be willing to go to great lengths for her daughter. Her mother seems to be wise beyond her years and care about Esther a great deal. Esther though, doesn’t seem to care too much for her mother. “My own mother wasn’t much help either. My mother had taught shorthand and typing to support us ever since my father died, and secretly she hated it and hated him for dying and leaving no money because he didn’t trust life insurance salesmen” (39). “My mother had always told me never under any circumstances to go with a man to a man’s rooms after an evening out, it could mean only one thing” (80). “My mother said this was something a girl didn’t know about till it was too late so she had to take the advice of people who were already experts, like a married woman” (81). “My mother said the cure for thinking too much about yourself was helping somebody who was worse off that you, so Teresa had arranged for me to sign as a volunteer at our local hospital” (16