The Bell Jar
Esther Greenwood, a brilliant young writer and dedicated student, had won a trip to New York City and a job at a top fashion magazine; it looked as though all of her dreams were coming true. But slowly Esther realized the reality of corruption and in effect she began to question her dreams and even her own identity. She gradually learned that people and society itself are not what they seem to be, and so she began to build her own world around herself to escape the one she no longer wished to be a part of. She stopped being able to sleep, eat, and even read, so her mother took her to stay in a hospital that incorrectly performed electrotherapy on Esther, which drives her to try to kill herself by taking an entire bottle of sleeping pills; an attempt which met with failure. Esther is admitted to hospital after hospital until finally a writer named Philomena Guinea paid for her to go to an expensive asylum where they treated her with kindness and caring. During her stay there, she went through many life-changing experiences, including the loss of her virginity and the suicide of her friend, Joan. But regardless of hardships Esther finally re-established her identity and freed herself from the artificial reality she had created for
This thought goes through Esther's mind as she says goodbye to her friend, Valerie, at the asylum. She has freed herself from the bell jar, and is now fully exposed to and aware of reality. Even so, the fear haunts the back of her mind of once again falling into the madness to which she had previously succumb, and that fear will stay with her forever, implanted into her mind with the experiences she has had. This quote means a great deal to me, because I myself suffer from that same fears and convictions as Esther. More than anything in the world, I am afraid of once again becoming the person I used to be, a person whom I did not like very much. I am afraid that, at some point in my life when things start to get hard for me, that my mind will put itself back into the false world in which I had lived for almost three years of my life. I, like Esther, am afraid of once again becoming trapped under a bell jar and choking to death on my own breath. During the course of the entire novel, Esther goes through many changes in her personality and point of view. But perhaps the most significant change happened near the end of the novel. Up until then, Esther could not open herself up to trust anyone; the bell jar kept her from coming to close to anyone, so that way she could never be hurt by deception. Doctor Nolan had told Esther that electrotherapy did not hurt at all, and that she would stay by Esther's side the entire time. Well it turned out that Doctor Nolan had told Esther the truth, and for the first time in a long while, Esther found herself able to trust again. She explained how she suddenly found herself to no longer be inside the bell jar, and how she could once again breathe the fresh, crisp air of the real world. Finally, Esther had regained the ability to trust and therefore love again. This novel touched me in many ways because it is the portrait of exactly everything that I thought and felt during the nearly 3 years of my depression. All except
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1328
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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