The novel, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, had a dark setting that kept the readers attention throughout the whole book. The main character Esther was a girl at the age of 20 that had a very depressing life, and this had kept her happiness away from her life. Many events that kept her sad were when she found out that the love of her life Buddy Willard had slept with another women. I believe these setbacks in her life each time led to her to be suicidal and stopped her to think optimistically. This evil inside Esther was emerging and growing, and in the middle of book I believe she had lost hope and stopped looking for help to solve her suicidal problem. This was evident when she started to not even adore or take advice from her mother; she had said to Dr. Nolan "I hate my mother!" Throughout the book I felt disgusted the way Esther tried to attempt suicide, and this made the book have a more wicked setting. The details that Sylvia Plath used to describe the feelings of Esther was so frightening, that it kept my attention to the book and made me want to know what was going to happen next. I felt like the descriptive writing style in The Bell Jar was very similar to The House on Mango Street, and this writing style from Sylvia Plath attracts the reader to the book. When Esther had shock treatments for her mental illness, the chapter would become very dramatic and intense. But the sad thing was that I felt like Esther was going through so much pain and torture. There were features of the book that I didn’t enjoy. I disliked the gruesome scenes of Esther’s emotional breakdown, and the dark setting throughout the book, because it was always depressing and gloomy. Overall I enjoyed the book’s writing style, and the intensity of each chapter about Esther!
Aren, I don't know how this book could have kept your attention. The book was about a girl who wins a competition, goes to New York, goes back home and becomes depressed, and tries to go suicidal. I don't know how that could be interesting because there is really no action to that. I would like to know why you thought that was interesting.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same. I think that the book is very gruesome and it actually gets hard to read as you flip each page. It takes a little bit away from the the story, but it also adds a lot to it, because , like you said, the writing style kept intensity in every chapter so you do not get bored of the novel. Even though I agree with most of what you are saying, I still don't feel that the book was very good, because throughout the whole thing, i had to force myself to read it because i could not relate to one thing throughout the entire novel.
ReplyDeleteYeah, this heathen was terrifying. I agree with you on most parts In fact I agree with you about most of it. Right when it looked like the book would pick up, it began to get boring again. While I was hoping that it would continue to get better, it stayed boring. Waste of my time.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the book was really dark and intense. I agree that Esther's pain was really gruesome sometimes that made it hard for me to read sometimes. I don't think i enjoyed the intensity of each chapter as much as you did but i didn't hate the book.
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