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Category Archives: Sylvia Plath
Bell Jar
– Noun
– a bell shaped usually glass vessel designed to cover objects or to contain gases
– http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bell%20jar
– ” To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream.”
– Esther Greenwood is the person in the bell jar. She is trapped within her own mind which leads to her depression.
Final Exam quotes
“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 an arrow shoots off from. I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket.”
1) The Bell Jar
2) Sylvia Plath
3) Esther
4) This passage is showing us that Ester did not find the idea of marriage comforting at all. She just wanted an exciting life and didn’t see it with anyone. I actually don’t think that she ever liked the idea of marriage throughout the novel. I feel like everyone around her made her feel that marriage was always like this. Of course it was during a different time period, but I still don’t think that every guy would have been the same. I felt like Esther felt like she was forced to get married one day and for that reason did not enjoy the idea.
5) I think that this text is showing us that Esther doesn’t like anything that she is supposed to do I the future. I think she just wants to live her life with no rules. Women in that point in time were supposed to get married and I honestly think that thinking about anything that she was “supposed” to do stressed her out. I think they included this in the texts because usually a girl from that time would be very excited about being a future wife. I think this passage was showing us that Esther is not like the rest.
6) The fact that Esther is stressed out about being forced to do things because of society’s expectations reminds me of the main character from The Yellow Wallpaper because they both seem so scared about the future. I feel like they are scared about nothing because they don’t have to do anything that they don’t want to do, but they don’t know this. The main character in The Yellow Wallpaper always thought she was being watched, when she wasn’t. I just think they go together because they are both just being paranoid.
Bell jar
Bell Jar – noun
Definition – a bell-shaped usually glass vessel designed to cover objects or to contain gases or a vacuum
Source – http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bell+jar?show=0&t=1400612972
Found in – The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
Passage – “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.
Pseudonym
Pseudonym (noun)
from the Greek pseudonymos bearing a false name
http://i.word.com/idictionary/pseudonym
The Bell Jar is a novel written by Sylvia Plath in the mid Twentieth Century. This novel was first released under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. Sylvia Plath decided to use this name in hopes to avoid hurting people she cared for in America. This book had many editions since the first one.
After reading the book, I was better able to understand why Ms. Plath would use a false name. There were a lot of content that would probably have offended some people, although this was just her outlook.
Bell Jar
“To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream”.
http://i.word.com/idictionary/bell%2520jar
bell Jar (noun)
:Bell shaped usually glass vessel designed to cover objects or to contain gases or a vacuum
Understanding what a bell jar is helps me to understand this passage better. The bell jar is really a metaphor for her “world”. The dead baby is of her spirit. not alive, suffication of her liberation. This spiritual death seemed more like a dream.
Bungled
Bungled
verb – past of bungle
to act or work clumsily and awkwardly
Source: Merriam-Webster
“My words bungled out thick as molasses.”
From “The Bell Jar”, by Sylvia Plath – chapter 4
The word describes how Esther told the person knocking on the door to wait a minute. She was feeling sick in the bathroom and wasn’t feeling strong enough to speak properly, so she had to mumble.
Slunk
Slunk
verb (past participle of slink)
to move in a way that does not attract attention especially because you are embarrassed, afraid, or doing something wrong
Source: Merriam-Webster
“I slunk down on the middle of my spine, my nose level with the rim of the window, and watched the houses of outer Boston glide by. As the houses grew more familiar I slunk still lower.”
From: The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath – chapter 10
The understanding of the word “slunk” is fundamental get the sense of shame and embarrassment that is being conveyed. Esther was explaining how she felt diminished by the fact that she hadn’t made the writing course, which wasn’t expected.
Veld
Veld
noun
a grassland especially of southern Africa usually with scattered shrubs or trees
Source: Merriam-Webster
“Travel posters plastered the smoke-dark walls, like so many picture windows overlooking Swiss lakes and Japanese mountains and African velds, and thick, dusty bottle-candles, that seemed for centuries to have wept their colored waxes red over blue over green in a fine, three-dimensional lace, cast a circle of light round each table where the faces floated, flushed and flamelike themselves.”
From: The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath (Chapter 7)
The definition of this word makes it easy for me to understand the scenario that is being described, which is the imagery present in a poster on the wall of the restaurant where Constantin took Esther to.
