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The Bell Jar

274 statements
53 feature instances
18 referencing feature instances

The Bell Jar	type	TVTItem
The Bell Jar	label	The Bell Jar
The Bell Jar	page	thebelljar
The Bell Jar	comment	Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_content_3'); })Published in 1963 and written by Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar tells the story of Esther Greenwood, a young, beautiful, successful nineteen-year-old girl whose talents and ambitions are being stifled by societal pressures. The novel opens with Esther in New York working on an internship at a big glamorous publishing company (obviously based on Condé Nast and Mademoiselle, where Plath really interned). The interns get dresses, makeup, free theater tickets and all sort of other gifts from sponsors. In the midst of this glamorous dream come true, all she can think of is how the Rosenbergs are going to be executed. Esther feels increasingly isolated and troubled by her inability to enjoy herself in direct violation of what society expects.Esther observes that being a successful woman and having a family are mutually exclusive in the eyes of society. If she marries, as everyone assumes without question, she will be expected to give up her "silly" notions of a career. She feels her virginity is a burden, but wants to have her first experiences on her own terms.Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_content_2'); })The internship over with, Esther returns to her mother's house. She is rejected for an advanced writing course she'd applied for, so she decides to spend the summer writing the Great American Novel, but realizes she hasn't had sufficient experience. Her condition worsens as she develops insomnia. She visits a psychiatrist, who utterly fails to help her; said failure is excruciatingly amplified by incorrect use of electroconvulsive therapy.She begins various half-hearted suicide attempts. Finally she leaves a note saying that she's gone for a stroll, conceals herself in a space in the cellar under a breezeway, downs a bottle of sleeping pills and loses consciousness.Esther is hospitalized and eventually meets Dr. Nolan, a woman psychiatrist. Esther undergoes ECT once more, reassured that if done properly it's "like going to sleep". She describes it as temporarily lifting the "bell jar" of her depression and letting fresh air in, while she engages in regular psychotherapy sessions with Dr. Nolan. Finally, she has someone to listen to and validate her honest thoughts.Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_content_1'); })Still at the hospital, Esther loses her virginity and confronts the reality of death. The novel ends with Esther entering a room for an evaluation which will ascertain if she is ready to be released. The novel ends with the words, "I stepped into the room".The novel itself has been adapted once in 1979 starring Marilyn Hassett as the protagonist. A second adaptation starring Julia Stiles was announced but never happened, and Stiles relinquished the rights. Kirsten Dunst has announced another adaptation, starring Dakota Fanning and due out in 2017.
The Bell Jar	fetched	2018-10-20T14:21:48Z
The Bell Jar	parsed	2020-06-25T17:22:59Z
The Bell Jar	processingComment	Dropped link to FinnegansWake: Not a Feature - ITEM
The Bell Jar	isPartOf	DBTropes
The Bell Jar / int_1397e10d	type	Rage Against the Reflection
The Bell Jar / int_1397e10d	comment	Rage Against the Reflection: Esther when she wakes up in hospital after her suicide attempt.
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The Bell Jar / int_14a5a8e2	type	Nerds Are Sexy
The Bell Jar / int_14a5a8e2	comment	Nerds Are Sexy: Irwin, the mathematics professor who deflowers Esther boasts that he has a way with women, and in fact, sends away another professor's wife when Esther is visiting him.
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The Bell Jar / int_1869b4b1	type	UnreliableNarrator
The Bell Jar / int_1869b4b1	comment	Unreliable Narrator: Esther is very opinionated and makes many damning judgements of people before she even describes them fully.
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The Bell Jar / int_18d15922	type	Title Drop
The Bell Jar / int_18d15922	comment	Title Drop: See the opening quotation for the page and Harsher in Hindsight.
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The Bell Jar / int_1d47b2b7	type	Unable to Cry
The Bell Jar / int_1d47b2b7	comment	Unable to Cry: When visiting her father's grave as an adult, Esther realizes that she didn't cry when her father died.
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The Bell Jar / int_297ab1b9	type	Parental Abandonment
The Bell Jar / int_297ab1b9	comment	Parental Abandonment: Esther's father is dead.
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The Bell Jar / int_2a8a7ea6	type	Bury Your Gays
The Bell Jar / int_2a8a7ea6	comment	Bury Your Gays: You could see Joan's suicide coming a mile away. Plath uses great sympathy with the Lesbian characters, while portraying Esther, who is straight, as being faintly repelled by what she's seen. Esther then asks Dr. Nolan what a woman would want with another woman, and Dr. Nolan replies "Tenderness." Plath herself was not gay, but she had a substantial Lesbian following.
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The Bell Jar / int_2fc21a19	type	Distaff Counterpart
The Bell Jar / int_2fc21a19	comment	Distaff Counterpart : According to at least one biography, Plath wrote Esther as a female version of Holden Caulfield. Apparently, The Bell Jar is supposed to be wry and comedic. Who knew? There's plenty of wry comedy in it — Esther's witnessing of Doreen's drunken revel with DJ Lenny Shepard, her observations on Technicolor musicals and a session at the U.N. — but the book overall is clearly not meant to be funny.
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The Bell Jar / int_3c85bc3e	type	Grave Clouds
The Bell Jar / int_3c85bc3e	comment	Grave Clouds: It's cloudy at the graveyard before the rain kicks in.
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The Bell Jar / int_3e74b72e	type	The Pollyanna
The Bell Jar / int_3e74b72e	comment	The Pollyanna: Betsy is described as a country version of this trope.
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The Bell Jar / int_4063fe0d	type	Stock Shout-Outs
The Bell Jar / int_4063fe0d	comment	Stock Shout-Outs: Got a moody female character or a girl that's feeling down? Show her reading The Bell Jar. Can be seen in The Simpsons, Family Guy, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Gilmore Girls, and 10 Things I Hate About You. Other sources merely reference the novel.
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The Bell Jar / int_46118dc5	type	Adult Fear
The Bell Jar / int_46118dc5	comment	Adult Fear: Esther's fear that life is passing her by when she realises that she has no concrete career plans will hit close to home for many teenagers and twenty-somethings.
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The Bell Jar / int_4bfe435c	type	Lobotomy
The Bell Jar / int_4bfe435c	comment	Lobotomy: Valerie gets one of these. Valerie is a friend of Esther’s in the private mental hospital and she is friendly and relaxed.
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The Bell Jar / int_4e3dee88	type	Their First Time
The Bell Jar / int_4e3dee88	comment	Her First Time: Esther thought that losing her virginity would bring about this incredible change, like visiting Europe for the first time. She sleeps with an experienced man. Boy, was she wrong.
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The Bell Jar / int_55180ce	type	Snow Means Death
The Bell Jar / int_55180ce	comment	Snow Means Death: It snows the day of Joan's funeral.
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The Bell Jar / int_5dcb7ce7	type	Fashion Magazine
The Bell Jar / int_5dcb7ce7	comment	Fashion Magazine: Esther won a one-month internship at a fashion magazine called Ladies' Day (based on Mademoiselle). She finds it more sterile and depressing than glamorous, however.
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The Bell Jar / int_66755d29	type	Author Avatar
The Bell Jar / int_66755d29	comment	Author Avatar: Esther Greenwood is Sylvia Plath. And an in-universe example: the heroine of Esther's attempted novel is named Elaine. Esther explicitly chooses the name because it begins with an E and has the same number of letters as her own.
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The Bell Jar / int_6bda9a30	type	Meaningful Name
The Bell Jar / int_6bda9a30	comment	Meaningful Name: Esther Greenwood. The name Sylvia comes from "sylvan" which is associated with woods and what color do you typically think of when you think of woods?
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The Bell Jar / int_6d089995	type	The Shrink
The Bell Jar / int_6d089995	comment	The Shrink: Doctor Gordon and Doctor Nolan.
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The Bell Jar / int_6d332aea	type	Driven to Suicide
The Bell Jar / int_6d332aea	comment	Driven to Suicide: Several attempts by Esther: also Joan commits suicide.
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The Bell Jar / int_6d9bc945	type	Babies Ever After
The Bell Jar / int_6d9bc945	comment	Very early in the story, Esther states that "only last week" she gave her baby one of her Mademoiselle freebies to play with, implying that not only does she recover from the events of the story, but she eventually gets an ending that involves a husband and a family.
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The Bell Jar / int_7332c94f	type	Suicide by Sea
The Bell Jar / int_7332c94f	comment	Suicide by Sea: Esther has been trying to commit suicide. After failing to hang/strangle herself because of her body's natural preservation instincts, she decides to swim so far out into the ocean that she won't be able to swim back. She chooses a large rock as a marker to swim to only to realize that if she reaches it, she'll simply climb on the rock. She tries to drown herself where she is but is unsuccessful.
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The Bell Jar / int_7464705c	type	Arc Words
The Bell Jar / int_7464705c	comment	Arc Words: "I am, I am, I am".
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The Bell Jar / int_7870735b	type	From Bad to Worse
The Bell Jar / int_7870735b	comment	From Bad to Worse: Esther's mental and emotional state deteriorate until she is suicidal.
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The Bell Jar / int_82accf22	type	Gainax Ending
The Bell Jar / int_82accf22	comment	Gainax Ending: The novel ends with Esther entering the room for her medical review. It's pretty clear that she'll be released from the hospital. Very early in the story, Esther states that "only last week" she gave her baby one of her Mademoiselle freebies to play with, implying that not only does she recover from the events of the story, but she eventually gets an ending that involves a husband and a family.
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The Bell Jar / int_835d1cd2	type	Satellite Love Interest
The Bell Jar / int_835d1cd2	comment	Satellite Love Interest: Buddy Willard as a gender subversion. You don't learn a whole lot about him other than wanting to be a doctor and sleeping with a waitress.
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The Bell Jar / int_856a425a	type	TheFifties
The Bell Jar / int_856a425a	comment	The '50s: The novel is set in this decade, and takes an extremely scathing and critical look at the decade's opinions on women.
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The Bell Jar / int_875615dd	type	Truth in Television
The Bell Jar / int_875615dd	comment	Truth in Television: This is the epitome of why The Bell Jar is still read today. If you've ever felt depressed or suicidal, or like your environment was stifling and crippling your spirit, then this novel perfectly describes how you felt and does it better than you ever could. The descriptions of being ashamed of still being a virgin in your early twenties are exquisite. Plath has beautifully cutting descriptions of society's Double Standard and sexism, a reality which hasn't changed much fifty years later (see any book by Susan Faludi).
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The Bell Jar / int_8af68ed7	type	Grave-Marking Scene
The Bell Jar / int_8af68ed7	comment	Gravemarking Scene: Esther visits her father's grave shortly before her breakdown.
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The Bell Jar / int_8c78872	type	Writer's Block
The Bell Jar / int_8c78872	comment	Writer's Block: Esther tries to start a novel after returning home from New York but is unable to write more than a couple of sentences.
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The Bell Jar / int_8e13262d	type	Virginity Makes You Stupid
The Bell Jar / int_8e13262d	comment	Virginity Makes You Stupid: Very much Esther's attitude, who unlike the idealized fifties young woman, sees her lack of experience as an embarrassment. She makes a number of attempts to get rid of her virginity and finally succeeds with a math professor she met randomly.
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The Bell Jar / int_8f3a20a	type	Heroic Spirit
The Bell Jar / int_8f3a20a	comment	Heroic Spirit: "I am, I am, I am" is the sound of Esther's heartbeat; she hears it when she tries to drown herself. In spite of herself, Esther's body wants to keep living.
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The Bell Jar / int_9bbe7fae	type	Biography
The Bell Jar / int_9bbe7fae	comment	Biography: The events of the novel are so heavily inspired/influenced by Plath's own life that it's particularly difficult to not read The Bell Jar as an autobiography.
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The Bell Jar / int_a1a1491e	type	Homage
The Bell Jar / int_a1a1491e	comment	Part of the novel is a sort of Homage/Shout-Out to Mary Jane Ward's autobiographical novel The Snake Pit. Some of the scenes in the hospital are nearly identical to Ward's. Plath had read reviews of the book in college and had planned to write something about "mental health stuff" after seeing that there was a market for it. Ward's book is based on her treatments at Rockland state hospital in New York. Plath went to McLean asylum in Massachusetts, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School with more lavish funding and research facilities.
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The Bell Jar / int_a25af902	type	The Food Poisoning Incident
The Bell Jar / int_a25af902	comment	The Food Poisoning Incident: Esther and the other interns get food poisoning from a fancy lunch that included tainted crab.
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The Bell Jar / int_a8982539	type	Gray Rain of Depression
The Bell Jar / int_a8982539	comment	Gray Rain of Depression: When Esther visits her father's grave, it begins to rain. She realizes that she didn't cry when her father died and then she "laid [her] face to the smooth face of the marble and howled [her] loss into the cold salt rain."
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The Bell Jar / int_ae3d6438	type	Deadpan Snarker
The Bell Jar / int_ae3d6438	comment	Deadpan Snarker: Doreen, a worldly blonde from the South who befriends Esther during her time at Ladies' Day. Esther herself becomes one when she is admitted to the psych ward.
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The Bell Jar / int_b1e8a3b3	type	Coming of Age Story
The Bell Jar / int_b1e8a3b3	comment	Coming-of-Age Story: An atypical and significantly darker one because Esther learns from her madness.
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The Bell Jar / int_b58c51d8	type	My Beloved Smother
The Bell Jar / int_b58c51d8	comment	My Beloved Smother: Esther sees her mother this way.
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The Bell Jar / int_b6cebad3	type	DoubleStandard
The Bell Jar / int_b6cebad3	comment	Double Standard: Society's expectations on virginity for men and women is a major point of contention for Esther. Buddy Willard expects Esther to be "pure" for him, but openly admits to sleeping with a waitress.
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The Bell Jar / int_b905e88c	type	People Jars
The Bell Jar / int_b905e88c	comment	People Jars: Used metaphorically to describe how depression can come back to haunt you and blurs everything around you.
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The Bell Jar / int_bc03c871	type	Child Hater
The Bell Jar / int_bc03c871	comment	Child Hater: Esther does not like children and doesn't understand what makes mothers happy.
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The Bell Jar / int_bf1255fa	type	Really Gets Around
The Bell Jar / int_bf1255fa	comment	Really Gets Around: Doreen, the tough-talking Southern society girl Esther befriends in New York. Esther is both intrigued and repelled by Doreen's casual attitude towards sex.
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The Bell Jar / int_c75df49a	type	Shout-Out
The Bell Jar / int_c75df49a	comment	Shout-Out: In chapter 10, while at home, Esther attempts to read Finnegans Wake. It doesn't work out. Part of the novel is a sort of Homage/Shout-Out to Mary Jane Ward's autobiographical novel The Snake Pit. Some of the scenes in the hospital are nearly identical to Ward's. Plath had read reviews of the book in college and had planned to write something about "mental health stuff" after seeing that there was a market for it. Ward's book is based on her treatments at Rockland state hospital in New York. Plath went to McLean asylum in Massachusetts, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School with more lavish funding and research facilities.
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The Bell Jar / int_cb1a6514	type	Country Mouse
The Bell Jar / int_cb1a6514	comment	Country Mouse: Esther grew up in a small town. In New York she wasn't in control of anything, even herself, and she just went through the motions.
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The Bell Jar / int_dae4a87	type	Seemingly-Wholesome '50s Girl
The Bell Jar / int_dae4a87	comment	Seemingly Wholesome '50s Girl: Esther. Most of the girls she meets in New York qualify as well, including Joan (at least in outward appearance) and Betsy aka "Pollyanna Cowgirl" (who really is).
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The Bell Jar / int_db1888f0	type	Bad Dreams
The Bell Jar / int_db1888f0	comment	Bad Dreams: Metaphorically used to describe what the world is like to the person inside the bell jar.
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The Bell Jar / int_dda99fa8	type	Despair Event Horizon
The Bell Jar / int_dda99fa8	comment	Despair Event Horizon: Terrified of the thought of being in the kitchen for the rest of her life, absolutely no idea what to do now that she's out of college because all she was ever good at was winning scholarships, intense insomnia that has lasted for three weeks, traumatized by the botched ECT, and feeling completely trapped inside a bell jar because of her depression, Esther begins suicide attempts.
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The Bell Jar / int_e6d0ea39	type	Nature Abhors a Virgin
The Bell Jar / int_e6d0ea39	comment	Nature Abhors a Virgin: This is one of Esther's chief concerns. To Esther, her virginity is a burden; she's doomed to be a virgin until she marries a man or be deemed a slut for having premarital sex. She loses her virginity near the end, doing so just to be able to get rid of it.
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The Bell Jar / int_f23ad6de	type	Food Porn
The Bell Jar / int_f23ad6de	comment	Food Porn: Plath sure knew how to make one's mouth water. Chapter 3 begins with the lavish Ladies' Day banquet luncheon, with all types of delicious food being described.
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The Bell Jar / int_f8084d07	type	Society Is to Blame
The Bell Jar / int_f8084d07	comment	Society Is to Blame: Most of Esther's problems at the start can be traced back to society's expectations of young women. Esther is expected to be cheerful no matter how she feels inside; and she's expected to keep herself "pure" when that's the last thing she wants.
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The Bell Jar	hasFeature	The Bell Jar / int_f8084d07
The Bell Jar / int_f85354eb	type	Attempted Rape
The Bell Jar / int_f85354eb	comment	Attempted Rape: Marco with Esther. She considers going along with it so as to be rid of her unwanted virginity but instead fights back.
The Bell Jar / int_f85354eb	featureApplicability	1.0
The Bell Jar / int_f85354eb	featureConfidence	1.0
The Bell Jar	hasFeature	The Bell Jar / int_f85354eb
The Bell Jar / int_name	type	ItemName
The Bell Jar / int_name	comment
The Bell Jar / int_name	featureApplicability	1.0
The Bell Jar / int_name	featureConfidence	1.0
The Bell Jar	hasFeature	The Bell Jar / int_name
The Bell Jar / int_name	itemName	The Bell Jar

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

TheBellJar	sameAs	The Bell Jar
The Bell Jar	hasFeature	Ambiguous Ending / int_9c615a34
The Bell Jar	hasFeature	Author Avatar / int_9c615a34
The Bell Jar	hasFeature	Bloodstained Defloration / int_9c615a34
The Bell Jar	hasFeature	Bury Your Gays / int_9c615a34
The Bell Jar	hasFeature	Caged Bird Metaphor / int_9c615a34
The Bell Jar	hasFeature	Country Mouse / int_9c615a34
The Bell Jar	hasFeature	Electroconvulsive Therapy Is Torture / int_9c615a34
The Bell Jar	hasFeature	Nature Abhors a Virgin / int_9c615a34
The Bell Jar	hasFeature	People Jars / int_9c615a34
The Bell Jar	hasFeature	Psycho Psychologist / int_9c615a34
The Bell Jar	hasFeature	Queer Flowers / int_9c615a34
The Bell Jar	hasFeature	Rage Against the Reflection / int_9c615a34
The Bell Jar	hasFeature	Short Run in Peru / int_9c615a34
The Bell Jar	hasFeature	Suicide by Pills / int_9c615a34
The Bell Jar	hasFeature	The City vs. the Country / int_9c615a34
The Bell Jar	hasFeature	The Shrink / int_9c615a34
The Bell Jar	hasFeature	Unable to Cry / int_9c615a34

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