The Bell Jar is the only novel written by the American writer and poet Sylvia Plath. Originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963, the novel is semi-autobiographical, with the names of places and people changed. The book is often regarded as a roman à clef since the protagonist's descent into mental illness parallels Plath's own experiences with what may have been clinical depression. Plath died by suicide a month after its first UK publication. The novel was published under Plath's name for the first time in 1967 and was not published in the United States until 1971, in accordance with the wishes of both Plath's husband, Ted Hughes, and her mother. The novel has been translated into nearly a dozen languages. The novel, though dark, is often read in high school English classes.
Plot summary
Esther Greenwood, a young woman from the suburbs of Boston, gains a summer internship at a prominent magazine in New York City under editor Jay Cee. However, Esther is neither stimulated nor excited by either the big city or the glamorous culture and lifestyle that girls her age are expected to idolize and emulate. Instead, her experiences frighten and disorient her. She appreciates the witty sarcasm and adventurousness of her friend Doreen, but also identifies with the piety of Betsy (dubbed "Pollyanna Cowgirl"), a "goody-goody" sorority girl who always does the right thing. She has a benefactress in Philomena Guinea, a formerly successful fiction writer (based on Olive Higgins Prouty), who will later pay some of Esther's hospital expenses.
The Bell Jar is a 1979 film based on Sylvia Plath's 1963 roman à clef; it was directed by Larry Peerce, and stars Marilyn Hassett and Julie Harris. The story follows a young woman's summer in New York City working for a women's magazine, her return home to New England, and her subsequent psychological breakdown within the context of the difficulties of the 1950s—ranging from the Rosenbergs' execution, to the disturbing aspects of pop culture, to the distraction of predatory college boys.
Janet Maslin of The New York Times was not impressed: "...the character's imaginative life that leads (Esther) to a collapse, and the movie barely even goes skin-deep. The audience isn't given the slightest clue about Esther's quirks, her fears, her peculiarly distorted notion of herself. ...Much of the story is concerned with Esther's experiences in New York, in the 50's, as a guest editor at a women's magazine. Larry Peerce, who directed Goodbye, Columbus, would seem well equipped to send up the fashion world in these sequences, but there's no satirical edge to any of this, and no dramatic edge either. It all simply plods along, en route to a nervous collapse that manages to seem perfectly unwarranted by the time it finally occurs."
Die Glocke (The Bell), a German socialist journal edited by Max Beer from 1919 to 1921
Kolokol (newspaper) (Bell), a Russian and French language newspaper published by Alexander Herzen and Nikolai Ogaryov in London (1857–1865) and Geneva (1865–1867)
Die Glocke (pronounced[diː ˈɡlɔkə], German for "The Bell") was a purported top secret Nazi scientific technological device, secret weapon, or Wunderwaffe. Described by Polish journalist and author Igor Witkowski in Prawda o Wunderwaffe (2000), it was later popularized by military journalist and author Nick Cook as well as by writers such as Joseph P. Farrell and others who associate it with Nazi occultism and antigravity or free energy research.
According to Patrick Kiger writing in National Geographic magazine, Die Glocke has become a popular subject of speculation and a following similar to science fictionfandom exists around it and other alleged Nazi "miracle weapons" or Wunderwaffen. Mainstream reviewers such as former aerospace scientist David Myhra express skepticism that such a device ever actually existed.
History
Discussion of Die Glocke originated in the works of Igor Witkowski. His 2000 Polish language book Prawda o Wunderwaffe (The Truth About The Wonder Weapon, reprinted in German as Die Wahrheit über die Wunderwaffe), refers to it as "The Nazi-Bell". Witkowski wrote that he first discovered the existence of Die Glocke by reading transcripts from an interrogation of former Nazi SS Officer Jakob Sporrenberg. According to Witkowski, he was shown the allegedly classified transcripts in August 1997 by an unnamed Polish intelligence contact who said he had access to Polish government documents regarding Nazi secret weapons. Witkowski maintains that he was only allowed to transcribe the documents and was not allowed to make any copies. Although no evidence of the veracity of Witkowski’s statements has been produced, they reached a wider audience when they were retold by British author Nick Cook, who added his own views to Witkowski’s statements in The Hunt for Zero Point.
The Bell magazine (1940–54) Dublin, Ireland. A monthly magazine of literature and social comment which had a seminal influence on a generation of Irish intellectuals.
The Bell was notable, particularly under the editorship of Seán Ó Faoláin, as an outspoken liberal voice at a time of political and intellectual stagnation, fiercely critical of censorship, Gaelic revivalist ideology, clericalism, and general parochialism.
Under Peadar O'Donnell (1946–54), The Bell became more left‐wing in content and irregular in frequency of publication but continued to produce material of high quality. W. R. Rodgers and Louis MacNeice were among the authors whose work sustained the magazine's connection with cultural activities in Ulster, in addition to which it repeatedly featured writing from various parts of Europe.
In the course of its fourteen-year career, The Bell was variously subtitled "A Survey of Irish Life", "A Magazine of Creative Fiction", and "A Magazine of Ireland Today"; its concern with social and political matters gave rise to incisive commentaries on such topics as state censorship in Ireland, on which George Bernard Shaw wrote in an issue of 1945, the restrictive influence of the Church, and reactionary tendencies in Irish literature.
To be common place would be unique, But we're so obscure we're incoherent, Like tongueless vigilantes choking just to make you choke, Rattling, rattling, No nails to hold ideas in place, no expression on your face Music and her patrons are dead and irrelevant, Like osteoporosis, she's brittle she is broken Static comes through synthesizers, megaphones and drum machines, Beauty sounds like smashed guitars, And several references to feedback, Rattling, rattling, No surgery to save your life, No promise everything's all right Music and her patrons are dead and irrelevant, Like osteoporosis she's brittle and she is broken, Languages must be organic because like flies they fall and die, Music now sleeps with Latin and Aramaic, It's over, it's over, No more waiting for something to live for, It's over, it's over,
Sylvia Plath's “The Bell Jar” brought a vivid and eerily rational description of exactly what mental health struggles feel like into the general discussion ... .
"The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath gives a jarring perspective on what it's like to lose your mind. "The Bell Jar" is Plath’s only published novel ...Mental health is still a stigmatized topic in the modern day.
O'Colly
07 Sep 2022
O'Colly
07 Sep 2022