the bell jar

The book starts with the setting in New York as the main
character is pondering the execution of the Rosenbergs. Esther the main
character is in New York because of contest held by a fashion magazine.
While in New York Esther tells about her life by the encounters she's
had. She is a college student and is in the honors courses. The whole
trip to New York had messed up Esters way of thinking. For example
before she went to New York she had planed to finish college and
become a poet or English professor, but now she had no idea. When
Esther returned home she became very depressed. She wanted to
disregard the whole New York experience by taking a exclusive summer
writing course. Only the best of the best writers had been able to be
excepted to this class and Esther was sure she had made it until her
mother had told her she was not accepted. This was what pushed Esther
over the edge. She became more and more obsessed about how she
would kill herself and planed it out carefully. When the time came she
just couldn't do it. So she began to preoccupied herself by thinking of
other ways of death. She couldn't sleep or read this bothered her
because she loved to read. Finally she went to see a doctor who gave
her shock treatments. This made Esther even worse an so she slipped
even deeper into her depressed state. She knew the bell jar was almost
completely apon her and there was nothing she could do to prevent the
suffocation of her own life. She knew there was something very wrong
and neither her family or herself had no idea how to help prevent this and
it made her wish for death. Finally she did it, she plotted a scheme to end
the torture of her insanity. "The silence drew off, baring the pebbles and
shells and all the tatty wreckage of my life." This way she thought she
could escape the madness inside herself and this made her happy. So
she did it and her family knew then she needed help so they with the help
of a rich lady put her in a facility that could help her. Esther did get help
and became sane again through special help and a good doctor who
gained Esthers trust. Sylvia Plath's life is the basis for this intriguing

book. She was born in Massachusetts 1932. In August of 1950 her first
publication was "And Summer Will Not Come Again," this was in
Seventeen magazine. Another publication was in the Christian Science
Monitor this was a poem "Bitter Strawberries." In September 1950 Sylvia
went to Smith College (the largest woman's college in the world). Just
like in the book she won a contest to go to New York. In June of 1955
she graduated from college and soon after at Cambridge University she
met her husband. Ted Hughes who was a poet married Sylvia in London
in spring of 1957. Later Sylvia became a instructor at Smith College in
the English department. In April of 1960 thier first child was born and
Sylvia's book of poetry was accepted for fall publication by William
Heinemann Limited. In January of 1962 their second child was born. In
1962 the "Bell Jar" was published and in 1963 she ended her life. The
Bell Jar had descended again she wrote in her journal.