Sylvia Plath's the Bell Jar: A Feminist Novel

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lives, Esther’s society also imposes different expectations for male and female careers. In general, women are expected to be homemakers, wives, and mothers and to devote their energies to caring for men and children rather than pursuing their own dreams. Esther’s mother, Mrs. Willard, Betsy, Dodo Conway, and many others demonstrate this conventional path and intimate that Esther should follow it too. Her mother’s insistence that she learn shorthand implies her faith in a low-level, traditionally female secretarial career. People close to Esther, do not accept her talents as a poet and writer, but rather try to push her into traditionally more feminine roles. For example, Esther’s mother repeatedly tries to convince her to learn shorthand, but Esther rebels, saying "...when I tried to picture myself in some job, briskly jotting down line after line of shorthand, my mind went blank." Esther, unlike many women of her time, refuses to be controlled by society’s gender-based constraints: "The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow shoots off from. I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket." The phrases "infinite security" and "the place an arrow shoots off from" come from Mrs. Willard’s description of the woman’s role in society. This quote directly addresses Plath’s central purpose in the novel, which is to look at the mental problems that can befall a woman with ambitions that the surrounding culture will not allow her to fulfill.

In this novel, Plath shows us the ways in which women were discriminated against, through the eyes of a sensitive young artist. In many ways, this novel is a feminist text, centered around the struggles of a young woman who cannot reach her goals in our male-dominated society. This novel is a feminist text because of Esther’s experiences with societal expectations such as purity and the traditional female role.