College Girls In The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) is a well-known poet and novelist in American literature of twentieth century. Her works are preoccupied with outrage, desperation, alienation, love and death, mental disorder as well as self-destruction. Her father died when she was very young and she lived a popr and isolated life in her childhood. The anxiety of wealth, status, emotion and future career mixed with her strong self-esteem brought her long term feeling of lacking security. She concealed her real painful life under the superficial energy and the splendid success. The fierce worriment of death and rebirth contributed to her only novel, The Bell Jar, in which she reproduced her private experience of adolescent depression and suicide behavior in this bildungsroman, anonymously. After her death, most critiques regard this novel as Plath's autobiography.Based on Freudian theory of id, ego, superego, as well as the connection of internal cause and external cause from Marxist dialectical materialism point of view, this thesis attempts to analyze the various reasons for the adolescent depression of Esther, the protagonist of The Bell Jar (who is also the embodiment of Plath). In addition, through practical investigation, this thesis summarizes the ubiquitous psychological obstacles present to college girls, similar to Esther, who are experiencing adolescence nowadays, and points out the invisible bell jar is not only formed under the specific Americansocial environment in 1950s. However, the common physical and psychological characteristics of female adolescent predestine that some individuals who are introversive, sensitive and frail might suffer from adolescent depression.This thesis is composed of four chapters.The opening chapter briefly introduces the biography and works of Sylvia Plath, as well as the motif and theoretical basis of this thesis.From Freudian perspective, Chapter Two respectively analyzes the heroin's social pressure, future obsession and indistinct yet unhealthy idea about sex during her college life, summarizes the causes for her bell jar as well as the parallel relations between Plath and her autobiographical Bell Jar, brings forward the opinion that inner conflicts are the determinative factors for adolescent depression.Chapter Three focuses on the practical significance of The Bell Jar. Based on authentic data and diagram, this part illustrates the importance of psychological health for college girls and provides some solutions and countermeasures for their mental obstacles.Chapter Four, which is the conclusion, on the basis of the analysis in previous chapters, once again emphasizes that although the phenomenon of repressive bell jar could not be eradicated, the issue of college girls' mental health must not be ignored.