The Bell Jar
- by Sylvia Plath, 1963
BEFORE reading
1. What is a bell jar? And which connotations do you think it has here?
2. Google “Rosenbergs’ execution” -> what year are we in?
Overall Questions (while or post-reading)
1. What role does her father’s death play in the story for Esther?
2. How does Esther describe herself and her surroundings throughout the book?
3. Discuss feminism in the book.
Chapter One (1-11)
3. Read the first paragraph again (p. 1, ll. 1-9): what is your impression? Which themes
dominate?
4. Where does she work and why? (3)
She works in New York after she won a fashion magazine contest.
5. What do we learn about men and women at this time? (4+)
That men and women often isn’t allowed to stay in the same hotels because the girl’s parents were
afraid the men would get to them and deceive them.
6. Who is Jay Cee? (5+)
Jay Cee is Esther’s boss and is a self-made, success and clever woman. Esther respects her and she
her like a mentor.
7. What kind of life does Esther Greenwood seek or value?
8. Why does she lie about herself in the bar? (11)
Because she didn’t want anything she said or did that night to be associated with her and her real
life and the fact that she came from Boston.
9. How would you characterize Esther based on the first chapter?
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She seems confused, because she can’t decide what she want to do and do what she thinks
other would like her to do (strong willed but hesitant).
Doesn’t like that men and women isn’t treated the same (feminist against patriarchal in
America society)
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Insecurity  Tries to act cool, she follows Doreen’s lead, judgmental, scared of being
judge/concerned with her image and how she is being rewed.
10. What kind of narrative technique is used?
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First person narrator
Seem reliable
Subjected
Intrusive narrator = “the laugh should have warned me” used to add drama
Flashback  chaotic, sometimes out of context, signals her disorientated oniel over thinking
Perhaps
Chapter Two (12-21)
1. Why does she go with Doreen and Lenny to his apartment? (12+)
She wanted to see as much as she could of New York
2. What calms down Esther when she is sad or depressed?
A hot bath
3. Why does Esther make the decision she makes? (21)
Because Doreen is so much different than her and she does thing she is not supposed to do and
therefore Esther decides that she need to stay a good girl as Betsy is.
Chapter Three (22-34)
1. What do we learn about Esther on page 22 and what does that tell us about her?
We learn that Esther never have eaten in a proper restaurant and the only restaurant she goes to
serves fast food. This tells us that her family probably don’t have a lot of money and therefore can’t
afford to go to proper restaurants.
2. What do we learn about her mom and dad? (30)
That her mother spoke German during her childhood I America and was stoned for it during the
first world war by the children at school. Her dad also spoke German and died when she was nine.
3. What kind of flashback occurs in this chapter? (31-34)
It’s a flashback to her life in collage and she explained how she only gets straight A’s and that her
teachers and class Dean likes her a lot.
4. What are Esther’s plans for the future?
She always thought about getting a big scholarship to graduate school or a grant to study all over
Europe and that she would either be a professor and write books of poems or write books of
poems and be an editor of some sort.
Chapter Four (35-46)
1. What do we learn about her family’s past on page 36?
That after her father’s dead her mother had to learn shorthand and typing to support them,
because her father hadn’t left them any money, because he didn’t trust life insurance and her
mother secretly hated her new job and she hated her husband for it.
2. Who is Philomena Guinea? (37)
Esther has Philomena Guinea scholarship.
Philomena Guinea is a wealthy novelist who went to Esther’s collage in the early nineteenhundreds.
3. What happens on page 42 and what caused it? (42-44)
Esther felt sick after the ladies day dinner and went home early from the movie with Betsy who also
felt sick. After puking all the way home in the cab, Esther goes to the bathroom the throw up again
and after she tries to walk down the hallway to her room, she ends up passing out on the floor and
the next thing she remembers is the hotel nurse and doctor standing over her. The reason why
Esther and the other girls got sick were because of the crabmeat were chock-full of the poison
ptomaine.
4. Comment on the line on page 45, “I felt so pure as a result”.
Her body has been cleansed from the food poison and the throwing up, therefore she feels pure
because all the bad stuff she had been eating and drinking is now out of her system.
A metaphorical cleansing. The “disease” has left her body, she also enjoy being passive and cared
for because she gets a break from her worries.
Chapter Five (47-58)
1.
Who is Constantin? (47)
He is a simultaneous interpreter working at the UN and Mrs. Willard had given Esther’s number to
him.
2. Why has Esther changed her opinion of Buddy after she spent years hoping he would
notice her? (49)
She had discovered quite by accident that Buddy was an awful hypocrite and she now hated his
guts. Because he expects a traditional marriage (no sex before) but he has slept with a woman
3. Why do you think she spends so much time thinking about Buddy given her negative
feelings towards him?
4. What has happened between Esther and Buddy in the past?
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Their moms are friends.
Esther has seen Buddy in Sunday church throughout her childhood
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He invited Esther to prom where he kissed her
Chapter Six (59-69)
1. Why do you think Esther has kept begging Buddy to show her some hospital rooms? (59)
Because she is interest in Buddy and would like to spend more time with him and see what he does
at the hospital. Or because she has a fascination with dead.
2. Why does she feel very depressed at the end of page 64?
She feels depressed after she have seen Buddy naked probably because she is very disponed and
expected more. She thinks his penis looks very ugly.
3. Why does she get so mad that Buddy has slept with a woman before? (66-67)
It’s about the double standard for men and women at the time.
He has been lying about being pure
4. What do the last three lines of page 68 and until the ending of the chapter on page 69
say about Esther?
Double life is a big exaggeration which shows Esther’s emotional nature/identity crisis
Chapter Seven (70-82)
1. What does “raking Mrs Williard over the coals” (ll. 10-11) mean? (70)
Raking over the coals means giving someone a hard time about something they did. So, Esther
probably thought they would talk bad about Mrs. Willard
2. Explain why Esther wants to be like the Russian interpreter so much? Consider the entire
page (71) and especially lines 13-16:
And I wished with all my heart I could crawl into her
and spend the rest of my life barking out one idiom after
another. It mightn’t make me any happier, but it would be one
more little pebble of efficiency among all the other pebbles.
Esther’s life would be much easy if she was the Russian interpreter because then she would have a
great job and be good at some and know what she should do for the rest of her life. It would be so
much easy then the thinks she wants to become in the future.
3. What do we learn about Esther on pages 72-73? What causes her such despair?
She has a hard time deciding what she group (fig leave) she wants to fit in to because she hates
the idea of serving men in any way, because she wants to do the things that mostly men did at
that time. She wants to be her own boss and not just a shorthand writer for some man.
She wants to fit in to every group (fig leaves) but that’s not possible and she has a hard time
choosing because if she chooses one, she would lose the others.
4. Comment on Esther’s conversation with Eric about sex. (74-76)
Eric sees sex not as something romantic and he said that he would never have sex with
someone he loves. When Eric talks about sex he is not like the other boys because he didn’t
seem dirty-minded or silly and therefor Esther thinks he would be a good person to go to bed
with because he had already done it and seem more mature then other guys at his age.
5. We learn a lot about Esther’s feelings in this chapter. She wants to be like the Russian
interpreter, she wants to have had sex, she wants a different life, she thinks about children.
How do you interpret this and what do you think it says about her?
It seems like Esther wants a lot of things, but they might not fit together because back in the
1950’s she would not be able to have the carrier she wanted and at the same time have
children. The fact that she wanted to have sex could also ruin her idea of a different life
because back then there wasn’t any protection and therefore there was a possibility of getting
pregnant. All of this tells me that Esther has a hard time deciding what she want to do with her
life and haven’t quite yet figured out what she wants and what she doesn’t want with her life.
Chapter Eight (83-94)
1. Why does she tell Buddy that she will never get married? (89)
I think she doesn’t want to get married ever because she is scared/anxieties for ending up like
her mother and other women she knows and don’t get the future she wants and therefore
have ruined her life for a man because she doesn’t want to serve a man (page 72)
2. What happens when Esther and Buddy go skiing? (90-94)
Buddy teaches Esther how to ski even though he can’t ski himself. After a while of trying to ski
Buddy suggest that Esther should try the rope tow to get higher op the mountain even though
she doesn’t know how to zigzag. Esther ends up doing it and goes down the mountain really
fast and with no control but she enjoys it and after her fall she doesn’t even notices that she
broke her foot and wants to do it again.
Chapter Nine (95-107)
1. This chapter contains some foreshadowing or clues as to how Esther’s mental state is
developing and going to develop. Which ones did you notice?
2. Explain why Esther feels “grateful [Marco] hadn’t asked what sort of drink I wanted that I
didn’t say a word. (p. 102, ll. 15-16)
3. What happens between Esther and Marco? (101-6)
4. Why do you think Esther throws her clothes out from the rooftop of the hotel? (106-7)
Chapter Ten (108-121) Back home breaking down
1. What is your impression of Esther’s state of mind in the first two pages of the chapter?
She seems empty and not like herself but that is quite understanding when you consider the
fact that she was almost raped the night before. She doesn’t care that other people see the
blood on the cheeks and that does not seem like Esther because normally she is scared of
being judged by others.
2. Comment on the line, “Dodo interested me in spite of myself” (middle of page 112).
3. What seems to cause Esther’s despair?
She still don’t really know what she wants to do with her life especially after the turn down for
the summer course and she gets a lot of ideas of what she could do, but it seems like she has a
hard time deciding on what to do because none of them seems interests for her.
Chapter Eleven (122-134) At Doctor Gordon’s
1. Describe Esther’s physical appearance at Dr. Gordon’s (122).
She is still wearing the clothes she got form Betsy in New York and haven’t washed them
for 3 weeks. She hasn’t either washed her hair for 3 weekends and haven’t slept for 7 days,
so I would say she would have looked very worn out.
2. Describe Esther’s thoughts at Dr. Gordon’s.
She somehow felt safe after interning the waiting room at Dr. Gordon’s.
She has an anger against the doctor from the first moment she meets him.
Chapter Twelve (135-147) Shock treatment
1. Comment on the comment by Esther’s mother, “I knew you’d decide to be all right again”
om page 140.
Esther’s mother thinks that Esther being sick(depression) is just something she decided on
her own and that she just can turn the depression off
2. What does Esther mean when she thinks, “that morning I had made a start” (p. 142, l. 3)?
That she had prepared herself on her suicide attempt and had thought about how she
would do it
3. Why does she go to Deer Prison Island?
She says her father is there as an excuse for people to help her get to the prison. She
seems very interested in the prison and how you get in to the prison and why people are in
there. After talking to the prison guard about the prison and how it’s like on the inside
Esther thinks that the prison is nice.
Chapter Thirteen (148-163)
1. Comment on lines 10-13 on page 149 from “I managed...”
Esther is having a hard time doing stuff after her lack of sleep and her depression. So, she I
proud that she managed to cook her hotdog without burning it of dropping it in the fire.
Because of her lack of sleep and her depression she doesn’t eat so when nobody was
looking, she buried it in sand, so it would look like she ate the hotdog.
Overthinks and highlighting her increasingly disturbed mind.
2. Comment on line 6 on page 153, “I would simply have to ambush it.” What does she
mean here?
She has to surprise and attack her body in a way so it doesn’t have time to defend itself
when she tries to kill herself
3. What metaphor does Esther use about Cal and the other people on the beach? (154)
Worms  shows her estrangement from the human body
4. In which ways do Esther try to kill herself and why are they unsuccessful?
 Cutting her wrist
 Hang herself/strangle herself
 Drown herself
Her body tries to prevent the suicide her brain wants to commit
Chapter Fourteen (164-176)
1. What signs of Esther’s deteriorating mental state do we learn in this chapter?
Her negative thoughts grow in intensity and her detachment from her own body strengthens
as shown when she describes her legs, “disgusting and ugly. ‘That’s me I thought’” (ll. 5-6).
Then she tells the doctor to get out after initially believing he was somebody who was just
playing doctor, and not a real doctor. Later when she is allowed to see herself in the mirror she
describes herself in the third person as not really her, “One side of the person’s face” (l. 18).
Finally, Esther breaks the mirror, and is moved to the city hospital because of the seriousness
of her situation.
Later, when she has finally managed to sleep and eat, she doesn’t remember it at first and
believes she still hasn’t slept or eaten. She displays her paranoia when she believes the nurse is
imitating and making fun of her mom, and similarly, continues to believe the doctors are not
really doctors. In addition, she kicks one of the workers who is collecting the plates and glasses
from the room.
Chapter Fifteen (177-187)
1. What does Esther mean when she says, “it wouldn’t have made one scrap of difference
[...] because wherever I sat [...] I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in
my own sour air. (178)
Esther is, correctly, contemplating that it doesn’t matter what she could have done, or
what could have happened differently because she is trapped in her own mind, and until
that changes nothing really matters.
2. How does Esther react to her first female doctor, Dr. Nolan?
She likes her. When introduced Esther is surprised about a woman being her doctor, but
she doesn’t have a negative reaction as she had to her earlier doctors. Later, at their first
real meeting she hopes Dr. Nolan will “stay longer” (l. 21).
3. What is a lobotomy (185) and when did they stop being performed in the US?
A lobotomy is a surgical procedure where you insert a metal rod into the brain through the
nose, and severs part of the prefrontal cortex thereby severing the parts that cause
depression and other mental disorders. However, this procedure came with significant side
effects as it hurt, or downright removed, a person’s personality and intellect. In other
words, it turned the patients into zombies. In addition, some patients died during the
procedure.
The last lobotomy in the traditional sense was performed in 1967 in the US (the patient
died). A much more delicate and scaled-down version is still performed today in rare cases,
but it is a much less invasive procedure than originally.
4. Who does Esther meet that she knows, and from where does she know her? (187)
She meets Joan who is one year ahead of her at collage and had also dated Buddy
Chapter Sixteen (188-95)
1. How did Joan end up in the psychiatric ward? (188-193)
Joan (who was a year ahead of Esther in college, and whom Buddy dated before) read
about Esther in the newspapers and became inspired to try and kill herself after which, she
was hospitalized.
2. What does Dr. Nolan tell Esther? (194-96)
Dr. Nolan tells Esther that she won’t have any more visitors to give Esther some peace from
visitors that don’t understand Esther or what she is going through. Esther is pleased by this
decision.
Chapter Seventeen (196-205)
1. Why doesn’t Esther want to move to Belsize? (196)
She doesn’t think she is well enough to go to Belsize because Belsize is the last stop
because getting out in the real world
2. Why does Esther panic when she isn’t served breakfast? (201-2)
Because she knows she I going to have shock treatment
Chapter Eighteen (206-213)
1. Comment on the line, “the bell jar hung, suspended, a few feet above my head” (p. 206, l.
12).
She feels better after the shock treatment and feels like she can breathe again
She feels like her burdens has been lifted, but not removed.
2. What happens when Esther walks into DeeDee’s room to borrow her music? (209)
She sees Deedee and Joan in bed with each other and can’t understand why woman and
woman would be together.
3. Why is it important to Esther to get a diaphragm? (212-13)
Because she doesn’t want have children so she gets birth control to protect herself and
prepare herself for sex.
4. How does Esther seem to be doing, according to you?
It seems like she is doing better after the treatment and I being to become more her old
self.
Chapter Nineteen (214-225)
1. What happens between Esther and Irwin? (215-223)
They meet each other at the steps of the Widener Library and then they grab coffee and
went back to Irwin’s place and had some beer and wine and later ended up in bed with
each other. Esther starts to bleed a lot after she slept with Irwin and need to go to the
emergency room and is 1/1.000.000 to get complications after sex.
2. What happens to Joan? (223-25)
after the episode with Esther Joan went back to Belsize and when she was allowed to go to
the movies she didn’t come back, because she hung herself at night in the woods
Chapter Twenty (226-234)
1. How does Esther feel about leaving the asylum?
She had hoped she would fell sure and knowledgeable about the future but all she could
see was question marks.
She is also worried about if the bell jar would descend again in the future and she also
doesn’t know who would like to marry her after she had been to the asylum.