Work hard, play by rules, and then things should fall into place. Things should feel right. You should feel alright. But they don’t and you don’t and life is hell. That is pretty much "The Bell Jar" in a nutshell.

Paradoxically, when I first read this famous tale of a woman going insane as a young and troubled teenager, I no longer felt like I was completely insane. That is the power of this book; it made me feel validated and understood at a time when I was completely isolated in a bell jar of my own. But would it hold up upon re-reading it now that I am a grounded and functional adult?
Short answer: yes.

Long answer:

I am well aware that this book falls into a category of media that is most powerfully impactful when consumed during ones formative years. More often than not I tend to hate these stories, from books like "The Catcher in the Rye," to films like "Donnie Darko." This aversion typically stems from the fact that these stories play upon adolescent malcontent, but ultimately lack any greater substance. What sets Sylvia Plath's semi-autobiographical novel apart is that indignance is not her message, but rather the beginning of a greater exploration of "why?".

The "why" can be found within the setting Esther must live: mid-20th century America. She is a high-achieving scholarship student, but remains directionless and detached from this world. While a universal story, this particular account is then compounded with unequal gender contradictions regulating social convention. Even a woman operating at the highest level still has her agency dictated by her relationships to other people (namely men). Not just a woman’s worth, but her very identity depended not on her intelligence or achievement, but almost entirely on whom she married. Patriarchal hegemony may be a heavy-handed characterization of the time, but it is an accurate description.

Esther is painfully aware of this disparate merit system and is consequently obsessed with a notion of "purity." Not just being pure, but feeling pure. At the beginning of the novel she sees this as not only essential social currency, but the mythical key to feminine fulfillment. The problem is that "purity" is an improbable and toxic construct, rather than an achievable reality. When Esther ultimately comes to the realization that this line of thinking is dumb (thanks Buddy), she becomes obsessed with becoming what she previously perceived to be as impure (having sex) and using this as a means of finally gaining power.

Nothing goes well and more bad things happen (this is a spoiler-free understatement). Ultimately, like many high-achieving young people who are made to believe there is only one rigid path to success, Esther snaps under the pressure and opts to check out. Once she is deemed medically insane, she is still far from free of the metaphorically restraining bell jar, but rather finds herself in the prison-like confines of a mental institution (that's not a spoiler, right?).

Regardless of how one might feel about this book, I think we can all agree that psychology was super bad and horrifyingly underdeveloped during the mid-20th century. Electroshock therapy is now known to be a cruel oxymoron; there is nothing therapeutic about getting high voltage to the brain. The time period's infantilization of women is further amplified with the stigma of being labeled mentally ill. While mental illness can impair ones judgement, it does not leave someone devoid of personhood or intelligence. These are all new encounters around which Esther must navigate.

I should note at this point, that while I respect the struggle Esther endures, she is herself a fairly terrible person. She suffers from a fundamental failure to take personal responsibility. Furthermore, while her racist statements could be written off as the norm of the time, Esther is profoundly unkind to the people who are kind to her, which underscores her inability to value others. Her detachment is partly to blame, but so is the fact that she sees every encounter as a power struggle that must be won. She understands that she exists in a stratified socio-economic society, but rather than using her experiences to empathize with others, she belittles those different from herself.

Inequality and oppression may compose her prison, but Esther's lack of compassion is the true lock and key. Or maybe it was the electroshock, who knows? What I can say is that I do believe her attempts to understand Joan could have been the start of a true watershed moment, but nothing good has any real permanence in this novel (this is another spoiler-free understatement).

After all is said and done, I cannot begin to imagine being an intelligent woman of this time period, especially when considering the fates of the real Sylvia Plath, and Virginia Woolf before her. It must have sucked pretty hard. That specific feeling of existential dread is what Sylvia Plath poignantly captures in "The Bell Jar," and her explorations of how this coalesces is what makes the novel truly impactful.

Ultimately, would I recommend this novel? Absolutely.

BUT! While you can respect Sylvia, do not idolize Esther.