Death And Rebirth

Death is a natural phenomenon and an objective existence in life. Human beings have been accompanied by death all the time, thus death is always an important subject in literature history. The aesthetic value of death theme reflects human beings'pursue for truth, good and beauty, while especially the conflict between life and death brings people a strong heartquake. Therefore, the expression of death subject in literature is an attempt to explain life existence value, life significance and dignity of human nature. In the process of death subject analysis of a certain work, people could explore the humanity concern and life concern embodied.Sylvia Plath (1932-1963), the author of the Bell Jar, is a famous American poet, novelist and the owner of Pulizter Prize, whose best-known works are preoccupied with alienation, death, and self-destruction. Plath committed suicide three weeks after the novel was published. Since then, her only novel The Bell Jar, has long been considered as Plath's autobiography. In this novel, Plath describes the growing of a promising college girl—the plight, her struggle and escaping attempt, finally the rebirth from death. Through the story of Esther, Plath reveals the inner world of a talented adolescent female to readers. The analysis of death subject can be regarded as an in-depth study of the author's death conscience and more importantly, the plight and struggle of the female in The Bell Jar.Starting with the death theme, this thesis firstly analyses the plights of Esther in which Esther feel confused in her future choosing and chastity defending, and then presents her awareness of the oppression and the methods of Esther's escaping attempt from the restrictions. By employing the existence and death theory of Heidegger's existentialism, the thesis focuses on the implication of Being-towards-Death in the novel. As"Death is Dasein's ownmost possibility"and the project on death is an authentic"freedom towards death", Esther reaches mentally rebirth in this approach. In addition, the thesis discusses the causes of Esther's death consciences on the basis of Freud's psychoanalysis and the novel's social context.As an eminent poet of confessional school, Plath advocates the beauty of death, considering"dying, is an art". This thesis constructs a perspective of the death theme and death philosophy on female's plight and rebirth which tries to provide a new way of thought on future studies of the novel the Bell Jar.