“The Bell Jar” is a classic ‘thought daughter’ book. Its the only novel ever written by the American writer and poet Sylvia Plath , as a semi-autobiography. In the title, the protagonist’s slow descent into a mental illness parallels with Plath’s own struggle with clinical depression. This book is all about how the people you are surrounded by, don’t understand you or refuse to understand what you are going through. It explores themes of mental health, identity crisis, societal pressure and is part of feminist literature. Though it is mentally and psychologically hard to read, Plath’s poetic way of writing pulled me in. I loved how the book really put me inside Sylvia’s mind and explained how it worked. It made me realise that at the end of the day, she was just a girl trying to cope with the vastness of her world, and trying to survive the ignorance her distorted reality got. One of my favourite parts of the book, which i think about often is when she talks about her indecision paralysis to choose one life path out of all the desirable ones and fear to loose all the others, that she doesn’t choose any at all . she uses the metaphor of a fig tree, where the ripe figs are all the lives she could have and the tree represents her life full of potential . As the protagonist, Ester, sits starving under this tree , unable to choose a fig, they all start to shrivel and fall, representing the opportunities she lost, that prevented her from experiencing anything at all. So, as you read this book and move on with your life, I hope you think of this analogy often, don’t let your figs rot, and choose a ripe fig no matter how messy it may be.
Great