![]() Sylvia Plath constantly translated Esther’s experience in the narrative present episodes into image of her inner journey. A word, an incident, a pain in the leg are presented and we travel through Esther’s past to know the reason and have a right perspective of it. Discontinuity is only apparent because time is fused as narrative present gives way and sometimes takes the reader into the narrative past. The most important feature of a psychological novel is discontinuity and The Bell jar is discontinuous in that sense. It expresses the existential angst the conflict between being and non-being. ![]() Whatever action in it is on the mental plane. The candid self-examination, is so precise and disturbing that at times Plath turns away from it only to return again to it because of her obsession nature.Īs in all psychological novels there is very little of action, in this novel. The Bell Jar is the novel about the atmosphere of the mind and it is highly autobiographical. The stream-of-consciousness technique rightly suits the kind of confessional novel. The novel employs the technique of a psychological novel so as to covey fully the inner working of the narrator’s mind. The claustrophobic title suggests how obsessed Esther was with her own identification, which she felt threatened at every stage and her defenses were too weak and too frail. The Bell Jar is her own dark Vision, her own mind, her own narcissistic, obsessive-compulsive nature which clouds her view. That the Bell Jar also points out how obsessed she was with her own narcissistic universe. The metaphoric title The Bell Jar of the novel is a symbol for the inner, alienated, sequestered world in which Esther Greenwood lives or which she imagines descends on her stifling and cutting off supply of communicative air with the outside, healthy, external world. Similarly, Greenwood was the maiden name of her maternal grandmother whom Plath liked very much. Plath also later saw the novel as an exercise in psychological catharsis, The name then contains reference to the specific illness and to the writer as self-healer. ![]() Victoria is an obvious reference to the repressed sexuality attributed to Victorian England, Lucas is a variant on Luke, the disciple physician. Her predominant concern is with herself written in the stream of consciousness style which is the proper vehicle for her disturbed consciousness, for her frustrated soul. They are more in the nature of psychological catharsis which she thought would free her mental strain and hence she could not keep the distance between fact and fiction, art and life. ![]() Her novel and prose writing and the Journals constitute a veritable diary from which one can glean the subtle working of Plath’s mind. The Bell Jar is a psychological novel which reveals the authors’ narcissistic, obsessive and compulsive personality. The author’s attitude towards life, sex, marriage, parents, virginity, doctors is all clearly reflected in the behaviour pattern of Esther Greenwood. The incidents of Esther’s life have roots in the personal life of Plath. Sylvia Plath uses first Person in The Bell far for the narrator, suggesting her complete identity with Esther, the chief protagonist of the novel. ![]() The novel The Bell Jar is a confessional novel in which her personality has been fully mirrored through the character of an alter ego. The resonance of personal vibrations could be easily noticed in The Bell Jar, her only novel. Sylvia Plath kept records of her life, and the surviving portions of this record have been published as her Journals. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |