Bell Jar

Bell Jar – noun

a bell-shaped usually glass vessel designed to cover objects or to contain gases or a vacuum

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bell+jar

The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

“wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air”

Throughout this story the significance of the bell jar was very important here we see Esther feeling that she is inside of a bell jar because she is suffocating within her own thoughts. Esther is not able to express what she truly feels in this is why she feels trap.

hunky-dory

hunky-dory

adjective

informal
adjective: hunky-dory; adjective: hunky-dory fine; going well.
Recitatif

My ears were itching and I wanted to go home suddenly. This was all very well but she couldn’t just comb her hair, wash her face and pretend everything was hunky-dory. After the Howard Johnson’s snub. And no apology. Nothing“.

Twyla pretend everything was fine.

 

crux

crux
noun 
the decisive or most important point at issue
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/crux
Quicksand page 19 PDF
“that was the crux of the whole matter. for Helga, it accounted for everything, her failure here in Naxos, her former loneliness in nashville.”
 Helga realizes that she will not be able to solve he engagement issue. It is a problem that needs a resolution.

Congenial

– adjective

– Pleasent and enjoyable; very friendly

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/congenial

– “Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.”

– In “The Yellow Wallpaper”,  the main character has temporary nervous depression. Her brother and husdnad forbid her to work, but she believes that congenial work will do her good.

Internacine

occurring between members of the same country, group, or organization

adjective

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/internecine

You know you believe it when you start your own little family with some person you met four years ago in a bar and then he tries to open the presents on Christmas Eve because that’s what he did in his family and you have the strong urge to run screaming from the building holding your banner about the end and how it is nigh. It is a moving and comic thing — a Murdochian scuffle between the Real and the Dream — to watch a young couple as they teeter around the Idea of Christmas, trying to avoid internecine festive warfare.”

 

They didn’t want their traditions to clash now that they’re living together.

Ardent

having or showing very strong feelings

adjective

“Certainly better than Denzil’s the year he got his own place and phoned us to say he’d killed a partridge in the backyard with a slingshot and just finished eating it like a proper English gentleman (it was a London pigeon, of course). Oh, we Smiths are ardent seekers after the spirit of Christmas, and we do not listen to Iris Murdoch’s sensible analogical advice: ”Good represents the reality of which God is the dream.” We’re chasing the dream, baby.”

They spent their time better than Denzil did.

 

Proliferation

to increase in number or amount quickly

verb

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/proliferation

“Denzil found this out when he attempted, on this most sacred of days, to do the things we could not do because we’d always done them another way, our way — a way we all hated, to be sure, but could not change. Denzil wants to open a present on Christmas Eve — don’t do that, Denzil. Denzil wants to go for a walk — I’m so sorry, Denzil, that’s impossible. We’d like to, but we just can’t swing it. Why not? Because, Denzil. Just because. Because like the two parts of Ireland, because like the Holy Trinity, because like nuclear proliferation, like men not wearing skirts, because like brandy butter.”

She made it clear that the reason they couldn’t go against their traditions or do things differently was because they were so used to it and it’s routine. It doesn’t really need an explanation

 

 

Patois

a flat area of ground that is covered with a hard material (such as bricks or concrete), is usually behind a house, and is used for sitting and relaxing

noun

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/patios

“This Christmas was the only time we ever met each other, Denzil and I. He was the gift that kept on giving, with his strange patois and his huge feet and the piggyback rides he conducted out on the balcony because the ceilings were too low. Outside was where he wanted to be anyway — you can tell that much from the look of infinite weariness he’s giving my dad’s left elbow.”

He wanted to change up Christmas, he was very different and fun loving.

 

 

Predate

to exist or happen at an earlier time than (something or someone)

verb

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/predate

“As for the ”Natural Woman” Christmas or the ”You’ve Got a Friend” Christmas – these predate my consciousness. But they must have existed, what with Ben being a September baby and me October. Those were the sexy Noels, delivering babies like presents nine months later.”

I still don’t really understand what this passage means.