Confinement in the Bell Jar

From the beginning, Plath’s first person narration creates intimacy with the disillusioned 19 year-old Esther by introducing her thoughts and feelings of alienation an

The Bell Jar is set during a six month period in 1953, beginning with Esther’s brief stay in New York while working as a guest editor for a fashion magazine. Although unconventional in her thinking from the beginning, it is quickly revealed that the fateful edges of the bell jar are increasingly pushing down around her and she is losing her grasp on reality. Rather than being glamorous and wonderful, her one month visit to New York proved to be empty and exploitative to Esther. The month “serves to repress” her as she “finds herself uncomfortable, drunk and sick, frightened, and attacked by Marco [a blind date]” (Wagner-Martin 72). Again, just as she experienced detachment from the girls in her college dormitory, Esther lacks camaraderie with the other guest editors in New York. She is in a “quandary about Doreen and Betsy,” the two girls who want to befriend her. Esther is confused about her own identity and cannot answer the question of whether she wants to be a bad girl or a good girl – “sexual and defiant like Doreen, or “law-abiding and kind like Betsy” (Wagner-Martin 74). When Hilda, another guest editor comments about that she is “so glad that [the Rosenbergs are] going to die,” Esther uses her knowledge of Jewish folklore to compare Hilda’s voice to a “dybbuk,” (the soul of a dead sinner) which Esther experienced in a play (100). Esther appears intellectual, serious and passionate compared to Hilda, “a mindless mannequin for ... stylish hats ... and accessories” (Bundtzen 130). An important point is made by Esther’s contrast with Hilda. Esther is confounded that Hilda seems “curiously detached from the human pain” (Bundtzen 131). During a month in New York, Esther’s bell jar descends as her sense of alienation and isolation are overpowering her. Her confinement deprives her of freedom and liberation to be who she really is. It is a painful realization that the scholarships and prizes which brought her to New York are not enough to make her feel adequate and prepared for life. Instead of the award-winning American girl finding happiness by following society’s rules, she is in a struggle with herself and

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