THE BELL JAR

by Sylvia Plath

  1. ISBN: 978-93-5702-599-7
  2. Pages: 224 pages
  3. Date: 5th October 2023

ABOUT THIS BOOK

To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream.
In the hauntingly beautiful pages of The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath takes us on a gripping journey into
the fragile psyche of Esther Greenwood. Set against the backdrop of 1950s America, this semi-
autobiographical novel explores the stifling expectations placed upon women and the suffocating grasp
of societal norms. As Esther grapples with her ambitions, desires and mental health, she finds herself
trapped in a metaphorical bell jar—an oppressive glass enclosure that isolates her from the world.
Plath’s evocative prose and poignant portrayal of Esther’s descent into madness make The Bell Jar
a timeless masterpiece that shines a searing light on the complexities of the human psyche and the
unrelenting quest for self-identity.

AUTHOR OF THE BOOK

Sylvia Plath, one of the most acclaimed American writers of the twentieth century, was born on 27
October 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts. Her writing was intensely autobiographical, often dealing
with her troubled relationship with her father, who died when she was eight, as well as her mental
illness, which she struggled with throughout her life until her suicide on 11 February 1963. Her
only novel, The Bell Jar (1963), published a few weeks before her death, is a semi-fictionalized
account of her lapse into and recovery from her first depressive episode, which occurred during
her undergraduate years. Her most well-known works are her poetry collections The Colossus and
Other Poems (1960), Ariel (1965) and the posthumously published The Collected Poems (1981), for
which she received the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1982.