8th Form Book Club: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Theo Frankel

This week marked the very first session of the English Department's new  Eighth Form Book Club. Having been postponed from the week before as everyone forgot to read the book over Christmas, the ten of us, joined by Mr Gardner, Dr Pryce and Miss Warner, met to discuss our opinions of Sylvia Plath's semi-autobiography (or perhaps work of fiction, as I'll get onto later) The Bell Jar.

I had started the society with two other members of the Lower Eighth after a discussion with Miss Warner over the fact that there seemed to be an incredible number of people in my year who were keen on studying English at university. She told me the reason she believed she managed to get into Cambridge was that she and the other students at her school who wanted to study English met each week to discuss the books they had been reading and have thought-provoking discussions. We already have the Senior English Society, which is a superb space for informative presentations and lectures, but I believe a space for discussion would be beneficial for everyone, not just those applying for English.

Everyone was given a summary, context and some wider reading in advance to aid our discussion. The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.

The Bell Jar was written at a particularly worrying time in Plath's life. She had struggled with clinical depression her entire life, and The Bell Jar attempted to recount her time spent living in New York as she slid into a depressive episode, but with names and places changed. The Bell Jar was her only novel, as less than one month after the novel was published, Plath committed suicide. Following her death, her husband Ted Hughes published the remaining poems that she wrote in a burst of creative energy in the lead-up to her death under the title Ariel.

In the week leading up to the meeting, I began to hear the thoughts of the people who had read or were reading it, and which were unfortunately overwhelmingly negative. Many thought that our narrator Esther was overwhelmingly narcissistic and negative, and that the prose was gorgeous but excessively flowery. However, as it drew closer to the date, opinions began to change. I heard that whenever people had a break they would immediately keep reading, or that they admired the tonal shift as Esther becomes more numb as the novel progresses, or that they felt seen by some of the very relatable sections of the book (the fig tree I'm looking at you). I even ended up having a pre-book club discussion with quite a few people attending as well as Mr Saul because everyone was so excited to share their thoughts.

We covered a range of topics in our discussion, starting with everyone's favourite character (everyone agreed it was the therapist Dr Nolan) and what other books it reminded them of (A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara was discussed: if you've read this, I hope you're okay).  People now generally seemed to have loved the book, thinking that it was accessible but moving and allowed them to contemplate a very hard topic from a new point of view. 

One topic that we discussed from various perspectives is how Esther's narration evolves throughout the book. The book starts with Esther talking about how the upcoming death sentence of the Rosenbergs has been dominating her mind, which has been making her feel sick. Her descriptions are disturbingly detailed: 'The idea of being executed made me sick, but I couldn't help wondering what it would be like, being burned alive all along your nerves.' However, as the book progresses her descriptions become more detached and plain, and as she becomes more mentally unwell her relationship with death takes a turn for the worse. 

Plath in Paris, 1956

The topic we discussed most was to what extent the book is a biography. All the events mirror what Plath talks about in her journals, but she made the conscious choice to change everyone's names and map her events onto a literary arc. We also discussed whether it was a feminist novel, or simply a book that discussed women's issues. I thought that it might make a difference whether it was an autobiography that described events, or by placing them into a literary context it became feminist, but pretty soon we strayed into quite advanced literary theory and moved on. The question of whether it was a autobiography also made us ask why she decided to end it before she went to Cambridge, met Ted Hughes or had children, a theme which she explores prominently in her poetry.

Plath with her two children in 1962

Overall, I felt as though the first meeting was a complete success, as an accessible read led to everyone enjoying themselves, and a thought-provoking discussion to be had over both the the form and the themes. If you are in the Eighth Form and this sounds interesting, join our Google classroom with code hky2yak and watch this space for our next book. Hope to see you there!