Cover 1

cover 2 

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is a story of elapsed time. The protagonist Esther Greenwood starts off as a normal college student but over time she starts to act differently. She goes under pressure in life. She doesn’t know who she wants to be and exactly what she wants in life. Over time people around the world started designing covers for the story. Some are very hard to understand and some pin point the main points from the story. I believe that the cover should portray the story’s theme. It should also reflect the symbols that are used in the story. So when I was looking for book covers I was looking for something with the theme and symbols I had in mind. The symbol I had in mind was a jar. The themes I would like to discuss are expectations leading to disappointments and the regrowth or rebirth from suffering and pain. The first cover I chose was published in 1963 in London by Heinemann. The cover has the author’s name on the top and the title on the bottom middle in bold pink letters. The cover itself is black and white. On the cover there is a girl sitting on a chair resting her head on her hand. There is a bell jar and it seems like the girl is inside the bell jar. The second cover I chose was published in New York in 1971 by Harper & Row. The cover is a hand letting go of a rose. I look at the letting go of the rose as a rebellious act. Throughout Esther’s life she acts in rage. Her actions are very rebellious.

In college Esther starts to date Buddy but does not have a sexual relationship with him. Her mother approves Buddy and expects her to marry him. Later in time she bumps into a professor at college, Irvin. She loses her virginity to him. The whole situation of being married and having a family worries Esther because she won’t be able to be a poet. She is a successful poet with college education and does not want that to go to waste. This situation worsens her madness. The first cover reflects Esther trying to decide what she wants to do. What decision she is trying to make. This cover is shown in a way that she is trapped inside the jar. With so many responsibilities and hobbies Esther doesn’t know which one to carry on with. In a sense she feels trapped. When Esther comes home from New York she was rejected from a writing course she wanted to get into. That was one of the disappointments Esther faced.  Esther was highly disappointed by her boyfriend who wanted her to stop writing and be pure. Buddy lectured Esther on the importance of being pure and clean. Right after that he told her he had sex with a waitress over 30 times. Esther faced such a huge disappointment after hearing that from Buddy.

“I sank back in the gray, plush seat and closed my eyes. The air of the bell jar wadded round me and I couldn’t stir” (Plath, Chapter 15). Esther explains how she is feeling and what she feels like she’s going through. She feels that she is trapped and there’s no way out. She’s breathing the same air, the air filled with negativity. This quote reflects the body posture of Esther inside the bell jar. Esther was very disappointed in life. She didn’t know exactly what she wanted.

Coming across this cover I realized it portrays the restrictions put on women in America in the 1950s. Women in the 1950s were expected to get married and raise a family. In this cover Esther is slouching, and with such body posture it is very predictable that she is worried. “A man doesn’t have a worry in the world, while I’ve got a baby hanging over my head like a big stick, to keep me in line” (Plath, Chapter 18). Esther thinks that a man doesn’t have anything for worry about. They have all the rights and freedom. Meanwhile if she gets married she is expected to have a baby. Esther worried that once she gets married she would have to choose either her married life with children or her writing career.

There was the symbol of a fig tree throughout the novel. The fig tree stood for the options and choices Esther had in store for her. “I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet” (Plath, Chapter 7). Esther struggles when it comes to men. She doesn’t know who she should go for or who to seduce. Esther imagines each fig represents a different life. The only problem is she can only one fig. Esther becomes very indecisive, and starts to think very hard. Meanwhile the figs are rotting and fall to the grounding. With the choice in life Esther becomes very overwhelmed. She begins to worry. On the cover Esther’s body posture is slouched with her head resting on her hand. I look at this as a posture people are in when they are stresses, overwhelmed and worried.

The biggest rebellious move is when Esther tries to commit suicide. Esther gives up in life overall and tries to get away from all the problems and the options she has to choose from. This led her in the hospital. From shock therapies to get medicine, Esther was constantly in and out the hospital. Being there is only a forearm on the second cover, I see this is weakness. People tend to slit their wrists when committing suicide because if the cut it deep enough it leads to death due to the artery connected to the heart. Esther rebels against her own life. But she fails to do so. In this cover Esther’s arm looks very weak. I can relate this to when Esther was going through her shock treatments.  “But each time I would get the cord so tight I could feel a rushing in my ears and a flush of blood in my face, my hands would weaken and let go, and I would be all right again” (Plath, Chapter 13).  Esther expresses her weakness she goes through and asks for mercy to be relieved from the pain.

“Then my hands jerked free, and I fell back onto my mother’s bed. A small hole, blackened as if with pencil lead, pitted the center of my right palm” (Plath, Chapter 12). This quote is when Esther was getting shock treatments by Doctor Gordon. After the treatment was done for the day, the doctor asked Esther how she was feeling. Although she said she was fine she was in pain. In this quote Esther explains her pain in great detail. This quote can also be applied to the cover because of her description when her hands were free.

“That afternoon my mother had brought me the roses.  “Save them for my funeral,” I’d said. My mother’s face puckered, and she looked ready to cry. “But Esther, don’t you remember what day it is today?”  “No.”  I thought it might be Saint Valentine’s Day. “It’s your birthday.”  And that was when I had dumped the roses in the waste-basket” (Plath, Chapter 16).  During this scene Esther’s mother brings her roses for her birthday at the hospital. Esther throws the roses out. This scene is what came to my mind when I saw the second cover. It shows how Esther didn’t appreciate her mother or her mother’s feelings. Esther begins to rebel her mother’s care for her.

Part Two

I have chosen this cover for many reasons. It shows the theme of hospital and blood. Hospitalization and blood are repetitive themes throughout the book. Esther was in the hospital for shock therapy, going to visit a doctor about her problems, and when she was bleeding. Esther was hospitalized after overdosing on sleeping pills, in an attempt to commit suicide. Blood has an important throughout the novel as well. Blood was caused from the pain and harm she was put through or she put herself through. When Marco tried to rape her, Esther punched him leading him to bleed. When Esther was getting suicidal thoughts, she began to practice cutting her calf to get ready to cut her wrist. While slashing her calf she was bleeding and there was blood in that scene as well. Another scene where Esther bled was when she lost her virginity to Irvin. She refuses to be comforted by Irvin and heads to the hospital. The blood represents the scary experiences that Esther faced during her lifetime. This picture can also reflect when Esther went to Dr. Nolan, who gave her talk therapy, insulin injections and shock therapy, all in the comfort of one hospital and under one doctor’s care. On this picture the blood is drawing the heart rates. The heart relates to the scene where she tried to kill herself but her body strives to survive. Since the waves are not flat in the picture it resembles when Esther’s heart does not give up on her and wants to live. The image can only be seen as a rebirth from all the trauma Esther went through. Her ability to live regardless her countless attempts to kill herself. This cover has many scenes within and can definitely be used as a cover for The Bell Jar.

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