The Bell Jar

In the novel The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, the main character, Esther, is a generally unhappy girl. She attended a prestigious fashion program in New York City, where she made friends and seemed to be having fun. But in reality, she is depressed and angry with herself for being depressed. She tries a number of things to try and make herself feel better, but nothing works. Eventually she leaves the program and goes back to her hometown. She lives in a small town with her mother, who is a teacher. When Esther gets home, she never does anything, she stays in bed all the time and isolates herself from everyone around her. Everything that used to make her happy no longer does. She is afraid of everyone, and she sees everyone as a threat to her well being. She starts leaving her house without telling anyone where she is going, when she meets new people along the way, she makes up new stories about herself to make her life sound more interesting. Her mother gets very concerned for her so she decides to take her to see a therapist named Doctor Gordon. While she is there she feels like he doesn't listen to her. As their sessions progress Doctor Gordon decides she needs a more aggressive course of treatment.


The author builds suspense by letting us in on Esther's thoughts. In the beginning of the novel, we don't really know that she is so depressed, we only think that she is upset with where she is at the time, but then she talks more and more about what she is thinking about and how she sees the world, and we know that she is extremely depressed. An example of this can be found on page 75 when she is talking about her dreams. She talks about how even in her dreams her happiness only lasts for a little while and then she is depressed again. She even goes as far as to say, "I had never been really happy again" (page 75). This is where we really start to see how depressed Esther is and the reader really starts to feel bad for her.


Another way that the author builds suspense is the way that she describes settings. For example, when Esther is at Doctor Gordon's private hospital the way that she describes it makes the reader nervous for what is to come, "As the woman was dragged by, waving her arms and struggling in the grip of the nurse she was saying, 'I'm going to jump out of the window, I'm going to jump out of the window, I'm going to jump out of the window"' (page 142). In this scene we see that this hospital is not the most welcoming place. We also see the Esther is just as nervous as we are for the upcoming events. The hospital is described to sound like a dangerous place rather than a helpful place which is what makes the whole scene so unnerving.