Review: “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath

Review: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Can a novel really hold the weight of someone’s darkest thoughts? The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath takes that bet—and doesn’t flinch.

This book cuts deep. It stares mental illness straight in the face, wraps it in the everyday chaos of being a young woman, and hands it to you with trembling, steady hands. It’s heavy. It’s honest. And somehow, it’s still breathtaking.

The Brutal Truth About Depression

From the get-go, Plath throws you into Esther Greenwood’s orbit. The shiny allure of a New York City internship unravels fast—what felt like possibility curdles into something stifling. She starts slipping.
There’s no sugarcoating here. Esther’s descent is gradual, and terrifying in how real it feels. The numbness, the disconnection, the casual mentions of suicide—they’re not dramatized. They’re disarmingly quiet. And that’s what makes them hit harder. Plath isn’t just writing fiction—she’s writing what it feels like when the walls start closing in.

1950s Mental Health: A Mirror, Cracked

The book doesn’t just capture what it’s like to spiral—it shows the cold reality of what “help” looked like back then. Esther’s first experience with therapy is a disaster. Dr. Gordon is detached, clinical—a man more interested in protocols than people. Then there’s Dr. Nolan, thankfully, who brings in some much-needed warmth. But even with progress, there’s a sense that something’s missing.

Electroshock therapy, for instance—it works, kind of. But Esther’s left feeling like a ghost in her own skin. She’s alive, sure, but not quite there. That lingering fascination she has with a knife is eerie and telling. And Valerie’s lobotomy—well, it “fixes” her, but what’s left afterward is more mannequin than person.

Esther wanted clarity. What she got was… coping. The symptoms fade, but the roots are untouched. And she can’t shake the thought: if the world around her stays the same, how much can she really change?

When Society’s the Sickness

Esther is suffocating under all these “rules” about what a woman should want, should be. Wife. Mother. Grateful. Quiet. Every expectation is another crack in her psyche. Plath nails this—how society doesn’t just ignore mental health, it actively makes it worse.

What’s wild is how much of this still resonates. Sure, the details have changed. But the pressure and the feeling of being boxed in and shaped into someone else’s idea of “normal” are still very real.

Screaming Without Sound

Plath’s prose doesn’t scream. It simmers. There’s pain in the quietest corners. Take the scene where Esther nearly gets raped. In today’s world, there might be support, maybe even justice. But back then, she hides the evidence, wraps her shame in silence. Her silence doesn’t just sit there—it hums with weight, like the stillness right before something breaks.

Hard to Read, Impossible to Forget

The Bell Jar isn’t the kind of book you breeze through. But there’s beauty in that. There’s release.

Esther’s struggles are rooted in her time, but they feel hauntingly familiar. Identity, autonomy, mental health—they’re not relics of the past. They’re questions we’re still asking.

A Personal Reflection

I knew it was going to be heavy. I was bracing myself for that. But I didn’t expect to feel so seen in some of the quietest, darkest moments of the story.

What really struck me was how Plath managed to describe depression. It’s haunting because it’s not exaggerated. It’s quiet. It’s real.

There were scenes that made my stomach drop. Like when Esther describes her suicidal thoughts with a sort of eerie calm. Or when she hides evidence of a sexual assault because, in the 1950s, reporting it wasn’t really “an option.” Those moments felt like they carried generations of silence, and reading them was like holding something fragile and sharp at the same time.

And yet, amidst all that pain, The Bell Jar is weirdly beautiful. Plath’s writing is absolutely stunning—poetic without being flowery, clear without being clinical. She had this gift for making pain sound lyrical, which honestly made it hit even harder.

Would I recommend this book? Yes. Absolutely. But not lightly. It’s not a beach read. It’s not even something I could speed through. I had to sit with certain lines. And honestly, I think that’s part of what makes this novel so powerful.

If you’ve ever felt like you were slipping, like the world didn’t quite fit, or like no one saw what was really happening behind your eyes—this book will hit you hard. But maybe in the way you need.

3 Books to Read After The Bell Jar

So you finished The Bell Jar and now you’re kind of floating in that post-read haze? Been there. It’s one of those books that doesn’t just end—it lingers. If you’re craving more stories that dig into the dark, messy parts of being human (especially being a woman), here are three books that hit me in that same raw, quiet, sometimes poetic way.

1. My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

This one is dark, weird, and oddly hilarious. It follows a young woman in early 2000s NYC who decides to basically drug herself into a year-long nap. Sounds absurd, but underneath the surface is a brutal exploration of grief, apathy, and the desire to escape reality entirely.

2. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

This memoir is sharp, fragmented, and painfully honest. It’s about a psychiatric hospital in the ’60s, and Kaysen doesn’t glamorize anything—she just tells it like it is. It made me want to scream and underline entire pages at the same time.

3. Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion

This book is pure existential dread wrapped in Didion’s ice-cold prose. Maria, the main character, is unraveling in the glossy, empty world of 1960s Hollywood. It’s not loud. It’s quiet. Emotionally numbing. And that makes it hit even harder. There’s a stillness to it, like being underwater—and Didion never once tells you how to feel. You just do.