The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Published 1963 · 69,929 words · about 6 hours at an average pace · Coming-of-Age, Literary Fiction, Memoir & Autobiography

How hard is The Bell Jar to read?

The Bell Jar scores 64 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 55 out of 100
Plath employs a precise and literary vocabulary, often using evocative adjectives and verbs to convey Esther's internal state. While generally accessible, it occasionally features less common words or specialized terms related to mental health, requiring attentive reading.
Sentence structure: 58 out of 100
The prose maintains a balance between direct, declarative sentences and longer, more introspective passages reflecting Esther's stream of consciousness. Sentences are well-structured and clear, avoiding the extreme hypotaxis or unpunctuated monologues found in higher-scoring works.
Abstraction: 78 out of 100
The novel is profoundly abstract, delving into themes of identity, mental illness, societal expectations, and existential despair through Esther's internal monologue. While grounded in concrete events, the narrative consistently prioritizes psychological exploration and philosophical questioning over simple plot progression.
Information density: 70 out of 100
The Bell Jar is dense with psychological insight, symbolism, and emotional nuance, demanding close attention to Esther's internal world and the subtle shifts in her perception. Every observation and interaction is imbued with deeper meaning, requiring readers to actively interpret the subtext.
Narrative indirection: 58 out of 100
Esther Greenwood's first-person narration is deeply subjective, requiring readers to infer the full extent of her mental breakdown and the societal pressures she faces through her observations and internal monologues. While events are recounted directly, the underlying meaning of her experiences and the critique of her environment are largely implied.
Symbolic density: 68 out of 100
The novel is rich with recurring symbols, most notably the bell jar itself, which represents Esther's suffocating mental state and isolation. Other potent symbols like the fig tree, the electroshock therapy, and the fashion world carry significant thematic weight beyond their literal presence.
Ironic distance: 72 out of 100
Esther's narrative voice frequently employs a sharp, sardonic wit, creating a distinct gap between her outward observations and the underlying despair or critique. This ironic lens — particularly when describing the superficiality of the fashion world and societal expectations for women — compels readers to discern the implicit commentary.
Resolution withholding: 62 out of 100
The novel concludes with Esther facing an uncertain future, having seemingly recovered but with the lingering threat of her mental illness returning, symbolized by the ever-present bell jar. This open-endedness denies readers a definitive sense of closure or a clear resolution to her struggles.
Structural complexity: 45 out of 100
The Bell Jar maintains a largely linear, first-person retrospective narrative, following Esther's experiences in New York and her subsequent breakdown. While her deteriorating mental state introduces an element of subjective perception, the novel does not employ significant formal experiments or fragmented timelines.

How The Bell Jar is regarded

The Bell Jar holds a literary regard score of 85 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

Where The Bell Jar sits in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism

Placed by a full reading of the text (136 passages), not from reputation. Each verdict quotes the passage that earned it. On the axis from myth to irony, The Bell Jar scores 72 out of 100. A second mythos, comedy, pulls at it with a weight of 0.2. About the map of stories.

Mode: Low Mimetic
Only I wasn't steering anything, not even myself.
Symbol: Formal
I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.
Mythos: Irony iv (irony iv)
How did I know that someday—at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere—the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn't descend again?
Genre: Confession + Novel
It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.

Where the story of The Bell Jar takes place

  • New York and Massachusetts, 1953-1954 (1953 to 1954), the main setting
  • Esther's college and Buddy Willard's Yale and medical school years (flashback) (1950 to 1952)
  • Massachusetts suburbs, Boston and private asylum, summer 1953 to January 1954 (1953 to 1954)
  • New York City and the Amazon hotel, June 1953 (Rosenberg execution)

6 things that are true of The Bell Jar, with the passage for each

  1. The novel's opening situates it in the summer of the Rosenbergs' execution.

    It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.

  2. Esther is one of twelve prizewinners housed at the all-women Amazon hotel.

    There were twelve of us at the hotel.

  3. Doctor Gordon charges twenty-five dollars an hour.

    Doctor Gordon cost twenty-five dollars an hour.

  4. Esther finds at least fifty sleeping pills in her mother's strongbox.

    There were at least fifty.

  5. After her first treatment with Doctor Nolan, Esther is told to expect electroshock three times a week.

    You will be having shock treatments three times a week—Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

  6. Joan Gilling, Esther's fellow patient, hangs herself in the woods by the frozen ponds.

    'Dead,' said Doctor Quinn. 'I'm afraid she's hanged herself.'

Scenes in The Bell Jar that Frye would name

34 sightings of Frye's terms in the text. The strongest:

Sparagmos, untitled
Then something bent down and took hold of me and shook me like the end of the world. The first shock treatment is rendered as a tearing-apart of body and world.
Pathos, untitled
'Dead,' said Doctor Quinn. 'I'm afraid she's hanged herself.' Joan's suicide is the book's sacrificial death scene.
Confession, untitled
I knew something was wrong with me that summer, because all I could think about was the Rosenbergs Introverted retrospective autobiographical narration begins here and runs throughout.
Anagnorisis, untitled
'I don't really know,' I heard myself say. I felt a deep shock, hearing myself say that, because the minute I said it, I knew it was true. A recognition scene in Jay Cee's office that pivots Esther from ambition to the gap beneath it.
Alazon, untitled
Buddy Willard was a hypocrite. Buddy poses as pure and superior while hiding his double life.
Alazon, untitled
He was young and good-looking, and I could see right away he was conceited. Doctor Gordon is the vain impostor-healer.

Books that share these scenes with The Bell Jar

About the author

Sylvia Plath