The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath grew up in a suburb neighborhood located in Winthrop, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. Growing up, she didn’t have much of a social life nor did she interact with others very often. Although she wasn’t very social growing up, she gained a lot out of it by being able to focus more on writing poetry and novels. Plath’s novel The Bell Jar described her experiences as a woman writer in the 1950s. In her novel, Plath describes many obstacles facing women writers of the time. Throughout her novel, the main character, Esther Greenwood, is described as herself and how her time was spent in New York, along with the struggles she experienced. The 1950s was a difficult time not only for women writers, but also for families who were suffering from the cold war; alcohol was also another big issue during this time and many people began to develop alcoholism[1].

During the 1950s, it was a difficult time for those residing in the United States and in different countries throughout the world due to all of the occurring events at the time. For example, from the beginning of July of 1950 to 1953, North Korea invaded South Korea which lead South Korea into three years of stall mate.[2] Another incident would be the Rosenberg case which grabbed the public’s attention very quickly. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were communist spies who were arrested in 1950 and later accused of sharing secretive information with the Soviets about atomic bombs. The accusation began in 1951 leading to the couple being tried, and both were eventually executed in 1953.[3]

The Bell Jar was primarily based on the main character spending her summer in New York during 1953. Only a college student, Esther Greenwood spent her time in New York as one of the twelve guest editors’ for a local magazine company. During her time there with her brand new job, Greenwood experienced horrid events such as being informed of the electrocution of the Rosenbergs through newspaper ads and...