The Bell Jar- Sylvia Plath

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L-herron
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Re: The Bell Jar- Sylvia Plath

Post by L-herron »

This book wasn't a favorite of mine. I enjoyed it, but at times I felt sort of lost. I feel like the story was good but I just had a hard time with it.
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Post by Christina O Phillips »

I love this author and this book. It has helped me through my own dark times.
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Post by Gingerbo0ks »

Appreciate this book now I'm older but didn't at the time studying at 17. One of my favourite quotes is from The Bell Jar.
"One must always be careful of books, and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.”
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Post by Steph K »

The Bell Jar remains one of my favorite books. I read once that Plath planned to write two books, the Bell Jar to show how depression and mental illness looks while you are experiencing it, and a follow-up that never happened (she died before she could) to show how depressive episodes look in retrospective when you have made it through.
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Post by CarrieMe »

I read The Bell Jar early in high school and loved it. I would really like to reread it and see what I think of it as an adult.
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Post by Gingerbo0ks »

I read it again when I was older and enjoyed it much more but it seemed so dark and cynical.
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Post by Alice Heritage »

This is one of my favorite books ever, not least because her writing is so beautiful, I just savor the prose. About five years after I'd first read it I travelled to the USA and appreciated seeing New York and Boston with the events of this book in mind.
This book does raise issues about some very questionable treatment of mental health patients also. It is inspiring that she recovers of course ... even when we do know what became of Sylvia Plath in the end :(
This post was brought to you by the word "specifically".
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Post by hlc85 »

Plath created one of the most moving stories I have ever read and most likely because it is semi-autobiographical. Although distressing and powerful, I love reading Plath's works. Famous as a poet, Plath brings her striking figurative language to prose in The Bell Jar. By far, Plath has written the most poetic novel that I have yet to read.
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Post by myplatter »

Great work.
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Post by Insightsintobooks729 »

I love the Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I enjoyed the authors writing and I want to read more by her.
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Post by GabbiV »

alexisporter wrote: 30 Jan 2014, 17:59 I am curious if anyone who's read Syliva Plath's novel, The Bell Jar, has had a similar experience as I have.

It has been some time since I've read this book, but it is one that comes to mind when asked "What books have had a strange effect on you?". I'm not sure if it was just the writing, my own psychological frailty at the time, or a combination of both that caused me to actually feel like I was underneath a bell jar myself. I felt a very strange darkness when I read this book. While I found it to be a good book, and would recommend it to anyone, I don't intend to ever read it again.

Strange, how books can have such profound and powerful effects on us.
I had a very similar experience as you concerning this book! As Esther's mental state deteriorated, mine did as well in a fashion so similar, I think I was copying her. I have the benefit of hindsight now but the book served as a bildungsroman for both of us.

I love the book and I want everyone to read it so they can have a better understanding of the trials women go through. While I would say that gender relations in America are getting better, I still think this work is relevant because there are situations in the book that could take place then and that can take place today without having to tax the imagination.
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Post by ostercl »

This novel really took me by surprise - it started out a little slow, but tied everything together more beautifully than I could have ever hoped. There is no question on how it has become the well respected novel that it is today -
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Post by GabbiV »

Steph K wrote: 02 May 2017, 14:41 The Bell Jar remains one of my favorite books. I read once that Plath planned to write two books, the Bell Jar to show how depression and mental illness looks while you are experiencing it, and a follow-up that never happened (she died before she could) to show how depressive episodes look in retrospective when you have made it through.
Oh wow I never heard that! What a shame we never got to see her get better. So many people love and relate to with her book about her lows, it would have been beautiful to see a text on self-love and such. But don't get me wrong, I mourn for her life first and foremost.
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Post by GabbiV »

ButterscotchCherrie wrote: 19 Jul 2017, 05:47 This is one of my favorite books ever, not least because her writing is so beautiful, I just savor the prose. About five years after I'd first read it I travelled to the USA and appreciated seeing New York and Boston with the events of this book in mind.
This book does raise issues about some very questionable treatment of mental health patients also. It is inspiring that she recovers of course ... even when we do know what became of Sylvia Plath in the end :(
The US definitely has a seedy history of how we used to treat our mentally ill. It's striking to see that within living memory, lobotomies were seen as a healing technique. There is still so much we can learn about how to treat the mentally ill, so I think it's good that we keep a record of our practices so we never make the mistake of going backward.

What's even more interesting to me though, are the techniques that are still used by medical staff today. Electrical shocks are still administered to patients when it is deemed that nothing else can be done to improve their condition, whether it be from drug abuse or mental illness, resulting in infantilization of adults.

Plath did the US literary world good by using her voice to shed some light on the practices of mental health workers.
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Post by GabbiV »

Salma Siddiqui wrote: 24 Aug 2014, 15:30 I love Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath because it helped me to understand mental illness more clearly. Often, people can't understand why someone with opportunity and a seemingly happy life is depressed without realizing that the depressed person can't understand her feelings either. Bell Jar spells it out for readers in an entertaining and informative way.
There is still such a shroud of mystery around mental illness that persists to this day, so your experience is valid. That said, I think that the general population of today is still more knowledgeable about the topic in general than Sylvia Plath's contemporaries.

Discussing her work goes hand in hand with a discussion on mental health, which we can all benefit from. What Plath and Esther experienced is more common than most people realize but because there is such a taboo about its discussion, most people are kept in the dark about these illnesses that affect those around us.

Esther's mental health, and so many others, went into decline even though to some degree it could, to some degree, have been prevented. The Bell Jar shows its audience what to look out for in the people closes to us.
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