Esther Greenwood is brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. In her acclaimed and enduring masterwork, Sylvia Plath brilliantly draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that her insanity becomes palpably real, even rational—as accessible an experience as going to the movies. A deep penetration into the darkest and most harrowing corners of the human psyche, The Bell Jar is an extraordinary accomplishment and a haunting American classic.
As soon as I started the book I loved it, I said finally a book talking about a successful, independent and talented young lady. I was flying through the pages to know more about Esther; her life in New York (com'on, it is the city that never sleeps) , her job at a glamorous magazine, her writings. I wanted to know it all about free clothes, parties and men. It is every girl dream to live in a big city, have AMAZING job and have fun, duh. I was expecting more, much, much more( people see good, expect good). However, our young lady turned to be a "spiteful" woman , a modern female version of the "underground man" (the protagonist from "Notes From the Underground" by Fyodor Dostovesky); she felt empty and "being burned alive all along (her) nerves". She felt like sitting under a bell jar. It was depressing and each time she talked about suicide I was like "WHY SYLVIA WHY !!!". Then I understood why.
The why!!
The book is literally Plath's last couple of breath, she wrote her own autobiography then she committed a suicide :
"My heroine would be myself, only in disguise. She would be called Elaine. Elaine. I counted the letters on my fingers. There were six letters in Esther, too. It seemed a lucky thing."
The book is depressing but not sad, I did not even shed one tear while reading the suffering that Esther went through because she did not want sympathy , she was just telling us her story. The answer for the why.
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