Female Initiation Theme In The Ball Jar

The term and concept of initiation derive basically from anthropology. It is the most important rite of the most primitive cultures center around the passage from childhood or adolescence to maturity and full membership in adult society. These ceremonies involve physical torture, cutting of various parts of the body, isolation and indoctrination in secret tribal beliefs. Similar initiation rituals can be found in myth and fairy tales. In fairy tales, stories like Cinderella and the Snow White concern more about female characters, about their birth, death and rebirth rituals and their transformations from girlhood to womanhood. Each of these contributes to the female initiation theme in The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. This thesis attempts to analyze the coming-of-age female protagonist and other female characters, and their transformations from girlhood to womanhood, compare them to some female characters and their experience of becoming a woman in the fairy tales, and find out the archetype of the coming-of-age females in the novel, and the relationship between metaphorical images of "death" and "rebirth" in The Bell Jar and the anthropological idea of initiation rituals. The thesis also examines the female self-fashioning motivated by seeking of subjectivity and its conflicts with the social value system.