The bell jar, by Sylvia Plath PDF
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C R I T I C A L I N S I G H T S The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath C R I T I C A L I N S I G H T S The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath Editor Janet McCann Texas A&M University SalemPress Pasadena,California Hackensack,NewJersey Cover photo:©Emillie Duchesne/iStockphoto.com Copyright © 2012 by Salem Press, a Division of EBSCO Publishing, Inc. Editor’s text © 2012 by Janet McCann “TheParis ReviewPerspective” © 2012 by Emma Straub forThe Paris Review Allrightsinthisbookarereserved.Nopartofthisworkmaybeusedorre- produced in any manner whatsoever or transmitted in any form or by any means,electronicormechanical,includingphotocopy,recording,oranyin- formationstorageandretrievalsystem,withoutwrittenpermissionfromthe copyrightownerexceptinthecaseofbriefquotationsembodiedincriticalar- ticlesandreviewsorinthecopyingofimagesdeemedtobefreelylicensedor inthepublicdomain.Forinformationaddressthepublisher,SalemPress,at csr.salempress.com ∞ The paper used in these volumes conforms to the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48- 1992 (R1997). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The bell jar, by Sylvia Plath / editor, Janet McCann. p. cm. — (Critical insights) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN978-1-58765-836-5(alk.paper)—ISBN978-1-58765-821-1(Crit- icalinsights:alk.paper)—ISBN978-1-58765-833-4(set-pack:alk.paper) 1. Plath, Sylvia. Bell jar. I. McCann, Janet. PS3566.L27B4325 2012 813'.54—dc23 2011022414 printed in canada Contents About This Volume,Janet McCann vii The Book and Author OnThe Bell Jar,Janet McCann 3 Biography of Sylvia Plath,Jane Satterfield 22 TheParis ReviewPerspective,Emma Straub forThe Paris Review 31 Critical Contexts “The domesticated wilderness”: Patriarchal Oppression in The Bell Jar,Allison Wilkins 37 Sylvia Plath’sThe Bell Jar: Understanding Cultural and Historical Context in an Iconic Text,Iris Jamahl Dunkle 60 Interruptions in a Patriarchal World: Sylvia Plath’sThe Bell Jar and Susanna Kaysen’sGirl, Interrupted,Kim Bridgford 75 Sylvia Plath’sThe Bell Jar: Critical Reception, Ellen McGrath Smith 92 Sentient Patterning inThe Bell Jar,Pamela St. Clair 110 Critical Readings “I have your head on my wall”: Sylvia Plath and the Rhetoric of Cold War America,Sally Bayley 129 The Radical Imaginary ofThe Bell Jar,Kate A. Baldwin 153 Plath, Domesticity, and the Art of Advertising,Marsha Bryant 180 The Feminist Discourse of Sylvia Plath’sThe Bell Jar, E. Miller Budick 201 Sylvia Plath’s Anti-Psychiatry,Maria Farland 222 Mad Girls’ Love Songs: Two Women Poets—a Professor and Graduate Student—Discuss Sylvia Plath, Angst, and the Poetics of Female Adolescence,Arielle Greenberg and Becca Klaver 241 (Sub)textual Configurations: Sexual Ambivalences in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar,renée c. hoogland 280 Contents v “The Woman Is Perfected. Her Dead Body Wears the Smile of Accomplishment”: Sylvia Plath andMademoiselleMagazine, Garry M. Leonard 305 Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath: The Self at Stake, Solenne Lestienne 338 The Fig Tree and the Black Patent Leather Shoes: The Body and Its Representation in Sylvia Plath’sThe Bell Jar,Nóra Séllei 346 Resources Chronology of Sylvia Plath’s Life 385 Works by Sylvia Plath 388 Bibliography 389 About the Editor 393 AboutThe Paris Review 393 Contributors 395 Acknowledgments 398 Index 399 vi Critical Insights About This Volume Janet McCann TheBellJarisahighlydistinctiveandunusualbook,andalthough the era of the 1950s, which it represents, has faded and disappeared intohistory,thepowerofthisnoveldoesnotdissipate.TheBellJarhas always been troubling reading because its main character, Esther Greenwood,issofullyidentifiedwithSylviaPlathherself.Attemptsto separatethetwocriticallyhavenotbeensuccessful,andthebookoften ends up classified along with those that readers find somewhere be- tween autobiography and fiction, such as Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior and Augusten Burroughs’s Running with Scis- sors.Buthoweveritislabeled,TheBellJargetsinsidethemindofa brilliantyoungwomanwhocannotaccepttheconstraintsplacedonher byhertime.WhetherornotwesuperimposePlath’sownendingonthe optimisticendingofthenovel,theinteriorlandscapeshedescribesre- mainsstartling,precise,andunforgettable—asdoestheworldoutside her. WhenTheBellJarfirstcameout,itwasthoughtof,andspokenof, as a woman’s version of J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. For manycurrent-dayreaders,ithassupersededCatcherinimportancebe- cause the surrounding society is represented more superficially in Catcher.Forsomeyoungwomentoday,thisnovelisthe1950s.Notall of the television shows and movies that have attempted to recapture thattime,imagessuchasthoseinPleasantvilleandTheTrumanShow, cancatchthefeelofthe1950sasPlathdoes.Itisunusualforawriterto besoawareofthetriviaofhertimeasshewas.Itisasifshehadasense of her own era as though it were history—and, indeed, there was a lapse of years between the events described and the narration. But Plath’spersistenttendencytodistanceherselffromherownlife,while itmayhavebeenpsychologicallyunhealthy,hadartisticbenefits. ThisvolumecollectsessaysaboutTheBellJar,botholderonesand newones.Inchoosingthepreviouslypublishedessaystobereprinted About This Volume vii here,Ihavetriedtorepresentasmorgasbordofperspectivesandalsoto showhowthenovelhasbeenviewedovertime,fromitsfirstpublica- tion in 1963 until the second decade of the new millennium. The changesinperspectivearefurtherindicationofthisbook’slong-lived appeal—it fits into whatever theoretical framework is current, from 1970s feministactivismto somepostmodern approaches. However, I have also selected the essays based on consideration of their general readability. I have excluded pieces requiring readers to have knowl- edgeofspecializedvocabularies,eventhoughmanysuchessaysmay be highly insightful; instead, I have attempted to choose essays that collegestudentsandtheirinstructorscanshareandthatmightalsobe helpfultothosereadingTheBellJarontheirown.Aquickbrowseof theInternetshowshowmanygroupsofPlathfollowersofallkindsare eagerforanynewtakeonherandherwork.TheBellJaritselfhasthe virtue of being perfectly clear, at least superficially, but it opens all kindsofquestions.Ithasstrongappealforscholarsofthe1950s,femi- nists, psychology buffs, older women who experienced the time the noveldescribes,personsundergoingpsychologicalturmoil,bildungs- roman addicts, poets, and uncountable other groups and individuals. Theessaysreprintedinthisvolumeprovidesomeofthefinestscholar- ship on The Bell Jar that has been madeavailable over the years and offerawidevarietyofcriticalapproachestothiswork. Alloftheessaysinthisvolume,newandreprinted,havesomecom- mondirections:theyarefocusedonhowthetimeperiodofthe1950s affectedPlathandhenceherfictionalcounterpart,EstherGreenwood; they are also focused on Esther’s internal struggles and how they are dealtwithbyEstherandbyothers.Someofthereprintedessayslocate Esther in her time—in Cold War rhetoric, in the world of Mademoi- selle magazine and its expectations, in the intrusive images of do- mesticitythatcouldnotbeevaded.Theyexplorethenovelintermsof bodycriticismandsexualambivalence.Theyalsoexamineeveryele- mentofmentalhealth,treatments,andfadsorcustomsinattitudesto- wardmentalillness.TheydonotsomuchdissectEstherGreenwoodas viii Critical Insights underscoretheforcestearingatheragainstwhichhewastryingtohold firm. Alloftheessayswrittenspecificallyforthisvolumearebywomen whoarepoetsaswellasscholars;theylookatthisworkthroughadif- ferentlens.Eachofthenewessaystakesaspecificanglefromwhichto examineTheBellJar.Myownintroductoryessaygivesanoverviewof theissueof“natureversusnurture”inEsther’sdevelopinguneaseand depression. I argue that the 1950s play an immense role in bringing aboutthebreakdownthatEstherexperiences,andthatthecombination of her inability to compromise and an ethos unfriendly to female geniusmakehercollapseinevitable. JaneSatterfield’sbiographicalsketchofPlathdescribestheforma- tiveeventsinthelifeofthecreatorofTheBellJarandtracessomeof themajorthemesthatobsessedher,notonlyinthenovelbutalsoinher poems. This essay provides solid background information on Plath’s lifeandsubjectsandgivesinsightintothecharacterofthenovelist.It servesasastrongintroductiontothiswork.EmmaStraub’s“ParisRe- viewPerspective”providessomepersuasivereasonswhyTheBellJar hascontinuedtohaveastrongappealtolatergenerations,andwhythe workneverseemstobecomeoutdated. Allison Wilkins, in “‘The domesticated wilderness’: Patriarchal OppressioninTheBellJar,”analyzesthebookfromthepointofview ofecofeminism;sheusescurrentecologicalcriticismtoprovidearich andwell-documentedanalysisofPlath’srepresentationofEsther’s— and her own—essentialist perspective. Wilkins demonstratesthat Es- ther Greenwood needs contact with nature, needs to be part of aself- sustainingandhealthyecosystemthatisplanetaryaswellaspersonal. ShetracesEsther’sattemptstomaintaincontactwiththenaturalworld and her forced compliance with the demands of a nature-denying patriarchalsystem. In“SylviaPlath’sTheBellJar:UnderstandingCulturalandHistori- calContext in an Iconic Text,” Iris JamahlDunkle discusses how the novelreflectsthetimeinwhichitwaswrittenandremainsrelevanttoa About This Volume ix woman’sworlddespitethedecadesthathaveelapsedsinceitfirstsaw print. This insightful analysis focuses on the demands and expecta- tions of Plath’s era and how they frustrated and tormented the young writer and concludes with the significance of the novel to today’s differentreadership. KimBridgford’sessay,“InterruptionsinaPatriarchalWorld:Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted,” ad- dressesthenoteworthysimilaritiesanddifferencesbetweenthesetwo accounts of a young woman’s mentalbreakdown and recovery, sepa- ratedbythirtyyearsinthewritingbutonlyfifteenyearsintheevents described.Bridgfordshowshoweachwomanistornapartbyhercir- cumstancesbutthenhealed,coincidentally,by thesamedoctorinthe sameinstitution. EllenMcGrathSmith’sessay,“SylviaPlath’sTheBellJar:Critical Reception,”focusesonthecriticswhoovertheyearshaveresponded to this text. Smithconnects elementsof critical thought and ideology with specific critics and critical perspectives that have dominated in the decades since the book was published. She introduces the main Plath critics and their assumptions, and shows how each fits into the thoughtstructuresofhisorhertime.Smith’sessaygivesasenseofThe Bell Jar’s impact on the American literary scene and provides an es- sentialresourceforstudentswritingcriticalessaysonthenovel. In“SentientPatterninginTheBellJar,”PamelaSt.Clairexamines how Plath defined her creative life by looking at Plath’s writing pro- cess,herreading,herinspirations, andherthoughts aboutthewriting life.Thisessaylooksatthenovelasananalysisofwhatwritingisand how Plath, through Esther, represents what doing creative work en- tails, how incredibly difficult it can be to do creative work, what “writer’s block” did to her, and how she represented its operations in hernovel.Thisunusualnewapproachlooksatthebookasanindexof Plath’sdevelopmentasawriterandrelatesherpredicamenttowriters ingeneral. Together,thenewessaysinthisvolumeshowhowSylviaPlathasa x Critical Insights
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