The Bell Jar (1 Viewer)

[holl]

I know a few people were talking about reading "The Bell Jar" a little while ago and was wondering who actually got round to doing it? I finished it the other day. I thought it was pretty good but a little disturbing epecially since it was an autobiography. What are your thoughts?

 

[glycerine]

i readit a couple of years back, generally i'm not big on plath, but i did like this

 

[Dave85]

i read plaths poetry 4 english this year. Most of her poems are pretty depressive. Does the belljar follow trend?

 

[veanz]

i 'enjoyed' it immensely. No hidden agendas, intensely real and depressing with a sort of languid undertone.

I felt sorry for her and yet feel that she wouldnt want you to be sometimes.

Anyone going to see the sylvia movie?

 

[hipsta_jess]

i did ted hughes for TTT in english last year and we used sylvia plath as our supp. material, and from their poems i dont really like either of their works, he was a typical bloke who exacerbated her problems, and she was an absolute loony, i mean seriously, who thinks roses are attacking them?
id like to read TBJ, but i just cant get over my dislike for the little i know of the characters
but ill prob go see sylvia

 

[PaleReflection]

Originally posted by hipsta_jess
i did ted hughes for TTT in english last year and we used sylvia plath as our supp. material, and from their poems i dont really like either of their works, he was a typical bloke who exacerbated her problems, and she was an absolute loony, i mean seriously, who thinks roses are attacking them?
id like to read TBJ, but i just cant get over my dislike for the little i know of the characters
but ill prob go see sylvia

There was a thing in the paper today about the movie.
It said she killed herself when she was 30 by putting her head in the oven.

 

[hipsta_jess]

she boarded up the doors of the kitchen and put tape right around them to seal the cracks to try and protect her children from it, and then turned the stove on, she didnt shove her head in it, but the gas filled the room and killed her (kinda like putting the hose on the exhaust of a car)
she'd also tried before that as well, by other methods

 

[Melanie Jane]

I love this book but don't read it if you are feeling very depressed yourself because I think it's the sort of stuff that could push you over the edge if you relate too closely to it. The most difficult part for me to handle reading about was the electric shock therapy.
I would love to see Sylvia - my only hope is that Hollywood does not romanticise an incredibly intense story.

 

[veanz]

Originally posted by Melanie Jane
I love this book but don't read it if you are feeling very depressed yourself because I think it's the sort of stuff that could push you over the edge if you relate too closely to it.

i agree. i was going through similar things and reading TBJ didnt help a bit even though it was like she was reading my mind.

Do you remember the part when she tries to kill herself by taking all those sleeping pills and then she crawls into some crack in the wall and lie there for days? i would crawl into the darkest crack i could find myself to fit in, or under my bed, any place dark

In hindsight but, the great thing about the novel is how it sometimes relates to teenagers and their expectations of themselves and what society labels them as. I had words, but didnt know how to put it together. Plath did it for me.

 

[holl]

Originally posted by hipsta_jess
she boarded up the doors of the kitchen and put tape right around them to seal the cracks to try and protect her children from it, and then turned the stove on, she didnt shove her head in it, but the gas filled the room and killed her (kinda like putting the hose on the exhaust of a car)

Teds 2nd wife did the same thing too, she took some sleeping tablets and gave them to their daughter aswell then pulled a bed into the kitchen and left the oven door open and inhaled the gas but i have heard that actually sylvia stuck her head in the oven. Anyway, i agreee with what most people have said, it was a really good book that was quite depressing at times. I cant beleive how smart and talented she was, like passing chemistry, botany, english etc, getting scholarships and the job in nyc. Its very sad how someone so smart and tallented could become suicidal.

 

[*10#]

i dont think you can say plath was an "absolute loony" - its convenient for society to label people with a mental illness as lunatics or crazy but really there is a lot more to it than that. i also did hughes for the truth unit and absolutely loved it.

sylvia was not just a crackpot but a very intense and passionate person with a violent yet loving personality. her depths of emotional experience although eventually destroying her enabled her to write her incredible poetry.
ted cannot be blamed for death but he is intertwined in her story and not just the innocent bystander that he depicts himself as in birthday letters.

i agree plath taps into some teenage angst issues, emotions and experiences that i can certainly relate to. however i feel that her poetry is still imature, not in its form and language usage but in its issues - basically centered around her own emotional state. like a depressed teenager plath is caught in her own world a world she cant break out of and a world that eventually kills her

- oh i cant wait to see the movie

 

[veanz]

Originally posted by *10#


however i feel that her poetry is still imature, teenager plath is caught in her own world a world she cant break out of and a world that eventually kills her

- oh i cant wait to see the movie

what do you mean by 'still immature' - do you think it can change?

i strongly disagree with her poetry being 'immature' and 'teenage'. Its not fair to stereotypically equate the two. Anyway, the beauty of Plath poetry is the timelessness of the issues she deals with - conflicting insecurities and vulnerabilities; the message that arnt we all living in our own little world and that we are controlling no matter how much we deny it? is not the 'outside' world we're living now, going to eventually kill us anyway? that's what is amazing about her poetry...

 

[PoisonIvy]

I read the Bell Jar about a month ago because I'm sposed to be doing Hughes this year, and I thought it was the most immensely honest work I've read, apart from perhaps The Hours or some of Woolf's novels....I thought it was "better" (though how can one ever really use that term?) than her poems, but what troubles me most is the common that a "depressive" poem is disturbing, when the fact is, it is probably more "truthful" than the majority of poetry...... I think PLath's poetry and TBJ both have a lot to teach us about the human condition and it's weknesses- it shows us that we are not invincible.

 

[christ_ine]

I've never gotten around to reading The Bell Jar minus the fact that I studied Plath for my HSC back in 01. Most people I spoke to who read it to 'enrich their HSC experience' thought it was good. I may read it later.