Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar

by Bloom, Harold

• ISBN13: 9781604132038
• ISBN10: 1604132035
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-01-01
• Publisher: Facts on File

Summary

In this classic coming-of-age novel set in post-World War II America, Esther Greenwood emerges as a double for author Sylvia Plath. A summer internship at a fashion magazine in New York City reveals only the lack of beauty in the young womans inner life, as Esther succumbs to a pervasive depression that she likens to being trapped beneath the title object, a bell jar, struggling for her next breath. Noted literary scholar Harold Bloom introduces this new title in the Blooms Guides series, which also features an annotated bibliography and a listing of other works by the author.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 7
Biographical Sketch	p. 9
The Story Behind the Story	p. 12
List of Characters	p. 15
Summary and Analysis	p. 18
Critical Views	p. 59
Howard Moss on Illness and Disclosure in the Novel	p. 59
Vance Bourjaily on Pseudonyms and Alternate Identities	p. 63
Robert Scholes on Plath's Use of Realism	p. 66
Linda W. Wagner on the Female Coming-of-Age Novel	p. 69
E. Miller Budick on Plath's Feminist Discourse	p. 80
Diane S. Bonds on Esther's Tentative Rebirth	p. 92
Paula Bennett on Models of Womanhood	p. 103
Pat Macpherson on the Portrayal of Social and Gender Conventions	p. 112
Tim Kendall on Esther's Search for Identity	p. 121
Marilyn Boyer on Language and Disability	p. 128
Kate A. Baldwin on the Novel's Social and Political Contexts	p. 140
Janet Badia on Pop Culture Appropriations of The Bell Jar	p. 151
Works by Sylvia Plath	p. 161
Annotated Bibliography	p. 162
Contributors	p. 165
Acknowledgments	p. 168
Index	p. 170
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

In this classic coming-of-age novel set in post-World War II America, Esther Greenwood emerges as a double for author Sylvia Plath. A summer internship at a fashion magazine in New York City reveals only the lack of beauty in the young woman's inner life, as Esther succumbs to a pervasive depression that she likens to being trapped beneath the title object, a bell jar, struggling for her next breath. Noted literary scholar Harold Bloom introduces this new title in theBloom's Guidesseries, which also features an annotated bibliography and a listing of other works by the author.

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Excerpted from Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar
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