Escape From The Bell Jar

As one of the most important representatives of Confessional Poets, the American poetess Sylvia Plath has published numerous famous poems. People are speaking approvingly of both her first poetry anthology The Colossus and the later Ariel which has been published posthumously till nowadays. Most subject matters of these poems come from the personal experience and tastes of the author, which express her strong emotion with chaotic life and aspiration of showing inner self-agony to the whole world. In addition, the other poetry anthologies which are collected and published after her death further manifest her sense of loneliness, depression and horror. Plath is skilled in writing several highly symbolic images by plain, smooth language and standard grammar. Many of her creations are exhibiting her discontents and attack to the depressive society which ruins human nature at that time. In this sense, her desire of suicide is also a last resistance. She wants to finally destroy all the things in a detestable modern society by ruining a self who lives in a civilized society. She has a rapid leapt mind and the narration mode of her work sometimes is illogic, her fantasy and monologue are weaved in her works usually. Therefore, her poetry can not be understood easily by first impression. Once Readers frequently put themselves in the same situation and appreciate the creation mode of her free imagination to follow the author's jumping rhythm of mind, they may truly understand the essence of her work. The Bell Jar published in 1963 is her only novel, and it is also a creation with strong autobiographic feature. This book honestly records her life during her young days and Plath tries to announce her inner torments to the whole world by this work. Therefore, it is also an excellent production of autobiographic literature.The Bell Jar tells the story of a modern female who chases her independent self. The heroine Esther always feels nervous, miserable and depressed in college by an extreme inharmony of inner and outside world. She realizes that her life situation is suffocated and oppressive as by the thin air in a bell jar and tries to commit suicide to escape, however, people find her in time and rescue her. This sense of disorder and disconnection causes her psychological problems but the later short-time concentrated treatments in several hospitals inspire her rethinking about the value of life and the possibility of rebuilding her self-identity. The great success of this novel is Plath's vivid characterization and the psychological analysis of the self-chasing process. The strong yearnings of "I am, I am" repeatedly emerge in the heart of the heroine. This thesis adopts the psychoanalytical approach and tries to discover the meaning of Esther's psychological exploration by using Lacan's Mirror Stage theory to criticize the heroine's mental state of self-formation, the development of self to individual and the relationship between individual and others.My thesis consists of five parts:Introduction supplies the time and social background which affects the creation of this novel, and as the archetype of the heroine of this novel, the author's life is mentioned, the research aim of this novel is introduced by pointing out the mental self-exploration and representation of reality in the work of Sylvia.Chapter One briefly expounds Lacan's Mirror Stage theory and starts from the plot of this novel to roughly analyze the life situation and mind state of the heroine, several special writing techniques are also involved to represent the experience of her inner development. Chapter Two focuses on Esther's psychology in the first phase of Mirror Stage. She is puzzled and worried by various, fragmented mirror images which reflected in the gigantic mirror of outside world and society when she first has the realization of self. Furthermore, many passive influences of negative factors are the direct causes which deteriorate her mental problems.Chapter Three includes two main parts, Part One further explores the process from Esther's disillusionments with several fine images to her last despair with life, she finally breaks the mirror by an extreme way of suicide. Part Two is about her physical and mental situation when being rescued and treated in sanatorium, during which two symbolic things not only represent the fragmented psychological state but also foreshadow her possibility of recovery.In Chapter Four I would specifically elaborate some positive outside factors which appear in Esther's later humanized sanatorium and her relationship with others, which may represent the development of the heroine's sense, from the rebuilding of self individual being to the realization of the separateness and relationship with others, during which another self of Esther, Joan's influence with her would be mentioned to more thoroughly reveal this transitional process of successful completion of Mirror Stage in the psychology of the heroine.Conclusion reaffirms the gist of this thesis. The success of The Bell Jar is its profound historic and realistic meanings by representing the inner world maturing process of the heroine and many contradictory elements' effects during it. The typical confessional frank writing style and the heroine's mental state displaying at several different phases in her Mirror Stage of individual-being exploration are combined. Even though Sylvia can not be strictly called a feminist writer in a sense, The Bell Jar is a pioneering work for later feminist literature which enlarges its experimental field. Meanwhile, the representation of figure is not a case study but can provide reference to the research of psychological puzzlements and uncertainties in the growing process of modern teenagers nowadays.