The Ball Jar      
     The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is a novel from the 1960's. The novel takes us on a journey of the life of Esther Greenwood, a small town girl from the suburbs of Boston Massachusetts. In the story Esther has been given the chance of a lifetime to fulfill her life long dream of becoming a writer. She has been chosen from hundreds of girls to take an all expenses paid trip and stay at the prestigious Amazon hotel in New York City. Most people would think that given this opportunity that Esther would be extremely happy but surprisingly she is not happy at all, in fact she fallen into deep depression. Throughout her stay in New York Esther experiences many frightening and traumatizing events that disorient her. Once the trip is over she looks back on her life and realizes she doesn't know what she wants to do with her future. Her inspiration for writing has disappeared after she realizes she doesn't have enough life experience to write a successful writer. To add to her depression Esther's ex boyfriend whom she feel she loved no longer appealed to her and she has been rejected for a scholarship she applied for during her stay at New York. This is difficult for Esther because all her life Esther has been an example student, she has had straight A's all her life and won many prestigious awards, she feels like all her hard work was for nothing. Esther falls into even more depression and begins to think in detail of ways she can end her own life. She is sent to a psychiatric hospital where she is going through electrostatic therapy. Esther's mental state gets worse and she attempts killing herself in many ways such as drowning herself, hanging herself, and swallowing 50 sleeping pills but survives. Esther soon realizes that she doesn't really want to die but she wants all her problems to go away and death seems like the only solution. The novel ends by Esther going into a room for an interview to talk with doctor's s they could try and figure out her mental state.

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The Bell Jar novel by Sylvia Plath