Trending on social media, nearly early young person can relate to Plath’s analogy of a fig tree: the suffocating feeling that every decision for the future means giving up on all other aspirations and being forced to a life that is ultimately unsatisfying. The Bell Jar, the only novel written by Sylvia Plath, is a harrowing depiction of a young woman’s struggle with depression and downward spiral. The story is told from the perspective of Esther Greenwood when she’s selected for a month-long summer internship as a guest editor of Ladies’ Day magazine, but she finds her time in New York City unfulfilling as she struggles with her identity and fitting in with societal norms. Though the novel chronicles Greenwood’s mental illness and eventual hospitalization, Plath also highlights the possibility of recovery and hope as Esther leaves the mental institution excited for her future.
Opening Line: “It was a queer, sultry summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York”
Favorite Line: “I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor… I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet”
Why I Like It: Although the novel is depressing, through speaking about recovery after an explosion of self-destruction, Plath ensures the readers that no matter how hopeless or permanent a situation may feel, there is always a way out.
Read If You Like: My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, Girl Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, and The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides