The Bell Jar- Sylvia Plath
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Re: The Bell Jar- Sylvia Plath
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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
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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.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 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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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.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.
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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.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
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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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.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.
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.