| Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) is, with outstanding artistic talent in writing, the youngest confessional poet in the mid-twentieth century. Her poems are filled with anger, despair, love, death, mental disorders and self-destruction. Especially, her extraordinary enthusiasm on death has challenged people's traditional understanding about death. Three weeks after the publication of The Bell Jar, her only novel, she commits suicide at the age of only 31. Short but legendary, her life is always a myth to the readers.The Bell Jar is basically considered as an autobiography modeled on Plath's own early life experiences, depicting a college student Esther's spiritual path full of perplexity and struggle during the growing process. The "bell jar" is a bell-shaped glass vase for air and bacteria isolation in medical use, and in this novel it symbolizes the state of mind that people fell restrained and cannot find a way out. As a female intellectual, Esther can not make her mind to be a traditional mother and wife or a successful career woman. She wanders among the roles she is expected to be and is confused about her choices for the future until those contradictions and upset lead to her divided self and then mental break-down. Eventually, with the others'help and her own efforts, she manages to overcome the psychological barriers to the new life. Also, the novel describes the schizoid condition and mental illness treatment from a completely distinct and truthful perspective. Based on the relevant studies, this thesis attempts to explore the social environment and individual psychological factors that result in Esther's divided self by application of Laing's theory of Existential Psychology. Combining the feminist ideas, twisted attitude toward family and sex in the patriarchal society is also discussed.In addition to the introduction and the conclusion, the thesis consists of four chapters. Based on the framework of Laing's theory, the first chapter mainly quotes the terms "the false-self system" and "ontological insecurity" and gives an introduction to the contents and construction of the novel. It proves the practicability and uniqueness of analyzing the characters in the novel by application of existential psychology. The second chapter explores the origins of social, family and individual factors causing Esther's divided self, and makes comparisons between her sensitive, rebellious "inner self" and excellent, obedient "false self". As the main part of the thesis, the third chapter analyzes Esther's role confusion to be a traditional woman or a successful career woman. Unable to make a satisfactory choice, she gets into a schizoid condition with serious conflict and insecurity, and then makes rebellion and suicide attempt after disillusion. The last chapter presents the schizoid treatment and her ways to destroy the "false self" through challenging the social moral values of traditional women. Esther eventually rebuilds confidence to lead a new life, but confined by reality, her recovery is destined to be temporary. The author of this thesis holds that a female intellectual, under the double pressures of unfair social constraint criterion and personal ideal pursuit, has to face the confusion about self identity positioning. Therefore, how to make balance or choice becomes one of the major challenges in her life.Modeled on Plath's personal experiences, this thesis aims to understand the formation and development of schizophrenia and invoke the community's concern about the psychological growth for intellectual young woman. Meanwhile, it tries to help the female intellectuals in contemporary times be more aware of their own value as well. |
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