Sylvia Plath Theme of Honesty

Jade Bevan Word count 2821 Plath uses satin flower in the character or Esther to reflect her personal anxieties. Explore the theme of honesty in The chime Jar by Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinsons Selected Poems. In the course of your authorship show how your ideas have been illuminated by your response to Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger and other readings of both texts. The theme of honesty is one that is echoed throughout all told three of the authors writing, except is expressed in different ways. Sylvia Plaths character Esther Greenwood in The Bell Jar is much like J.D. Salingers character Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye. Both characters have a cynical trend to constantly reveal their inner most opinions about the smart set around them, hold forthing their emotions about personalities and appearances. Plath and Salinger were both born in the early twentieth century, despite this had alone argue back establishs and upbringings. Plath experienced a quiet and s ubtle early life in Winthrop Massachusetts, a small seaport town. Whereas Salinger endu rose-cheeked a mainstream, fast paced and fashion fit outgrowth in the city of New York.Both these places can make a person incredibly sociable or utterly isolated. Emily Dickinsons Selected Poems also reveals honesty and she confesses her outgrowth gear in truth(prenominal) openly and concisely. Being born in the nineteenth century, Dickinson often expresses her opinions of the social place workforcet of women and their napricted lives. She is unlike the stereotypical woman of her era, and retaliates in her writing against the inequalities among the sexes. Many critics believe her to be a feminist.Throughout the Coming of age novel The Bell Jar, Greenwood, the protagonist narrator, is constantly breaking down situations, populate and objects around her, like saliva to food. She over analyses the nature of society all around her, and enjoys criticising. When Greenwood first introduces the reader to Doreen, the mischievous opposite to Greenwood, she contradicts her description beginning with I guess one of my troubles was Doreen. This disputation makes the reader begin to build a negative, unpleasant personality in their minds. However she concludes her escription with a mysterious sneer, as if all the pot around her were pretty silly and she could tell some good jokes on them if she wanted to. This statement shows a clear admiration for Doreen, differing from the initial introduction, nonetheless also shows Esther expressing her opinion of Doreen being a entertain chassis of person, but likes that about her. This could be considered to be a hidden metaphor, for Greenwoods slow fair into depression and madness, beginning with confusion and uncertainty, typical signs of lunacy, which reflects the rest of her story. This is an upfront and honest introduction to the novel.This shows a friendship between the two characters, but a kind that is of a girlish jealous nature. Greenwood clearly admires Doreens personality but envies her social power at the same time. Plath also reveals Greenwoods detachment and disaffection from others throughout the novel, isolating her character. This could be to remind the reader of her insane self compared to the sane society and people around her. This can be explained through Greenwood stating I felt myself shrinking to a small black dot against all those red and white rugs, and that pine-panelling.I felt like a hole in the ground, in this short description of her feelings, she shows vast indications of isolation and depression. The use of the words shrinking and small reflect her feelings of disappearing and becoming non-existent to the world. Also, describing herself as black compared to the red and white rugs is a use of juxtaposition in the colours, which show how uninteresting she finds herself, being dull and dark in comparison to the bright vibrant rugs, which could postulate the rest of society ar ound her. This identification of herself could be considered an honest view of how others perceive her.A nonher character that is slated by Esthers criticism is Dr. Gordon. She belittles him by saying How could this Dr. Gordon assistant me anyway? With his beautiful wife, and his beautiful children, and his beautiful dog, haloing him like a Christmas card. Dr. Gordon is the psychiatrist who made a mistake during Esthers electroshock therapy in a terrible way. As the patriarch of the ideal American family, Dr. Gordon seems to represent American society, punishing Esther for going against social expectations, rejecting marriage and family.This shows her honesty and awareness of her social differences and views with the rest of society, and is mocking them for being so stereotypical. Her repetition of the word and reminds the reader of a list, almost as though Esther is expressing that on that point are endless differences between society and herself. J. D. Salinger uses the characte r of Holden Caulfield in parallel with Plaths character Greenwood, a first person, and protagonist narrator. Holden also fend fors with the illness of contradiction, alongside insanity of course, this is a nonher similarity the two characters share.The reader is introduced to an upfront, confident Holden, whom from the setting of the novel, is obviously tense with the topic of family, and starts by stating I dont feel like going into all of it, hence continues to go into it all by describe how annoyed his parents would be if he disc fall behindd any personal in classation, Especially my father. He is building a personality of his father without realizing, showing a particular conflict with his father, more so than other members of the family. He is also separating himself from his family in that he would openly discuss their issues, whereas his family would not.Essentially, the readers receive an immediate separation and self alienation from his family, and recognise Holdens criti cal personality from the start. It is clear that throughout The Bell Jar, the character of Esther is use by Plath to explore the theme of cozyity, and the effect the 1950s mental post towards sex had on the women of that time. Then he just stood there in front of me and I kept staring at him. The only thing I could think of was turkey neck and turkey gizzards and I felt very depressed. This description of buddys penis does not only reveal Esthers criticisms of other barely, but we begin to see her real attitude towards sex and Buddy himself. The cosmopolitan theme between Esther and Buddy is that of sexual tension and virginity, however, although Esther is supposed to be in love with buddy, its quite clear that she is not attracted to him and is not very fond of him altogether, we see this at the point where she is supposed to be at her most happy or intimate, when Buddy becomes naked in front of her, she feels very depressed.This may not be completely down to the appearance o f Buddys private parts, but may be Esthers attitude towards sex altogether, that she is only so eager to lose her virginity because it was the social norm, and wanted to be part of a great tradition. Esther shows her honest view upon societies attitude towards sex and its sexist inequalities towards sex when she says I couldnt stand the idea of a woman having to have a single pure life and a man being able to have a double life, one pure one not. Plath is trying to portray through Esther her rebellious opinions towards sexual inequalities between men and women.In the novel, Esther discovers that sexuality is divorced from any expression of love and passion. Sex for women is only a necessity within marriage to have children, and has no relevancy with romance or intimacy, Esther could be showing the reader her honest feelings of wanting to have a double life like the men of her era, and be able to experience sexual encounters out of passion and love, no just for starting a family, wi thout being judged. However could also be suggesting her view that all people should remain celibate until marriage, both men and women, but on both interpretations, she is yearning for equality amongst the sexes.With Emily Dickinsons unconventional style of writing and rebellious grammar, it is not a surprise that her metrical compositions do not meet the same literacy concepts as Plath and Salinger. Her poem A Narrow fellow In the Grass reflects her individuality and opposing touch of honesty towards sexuality in every stanza. The literal and logical interpretation for the poem is her longing to see a snake in the betray, but only being able to glance at sections of the snake. However, Luann Suhr claims that the poem is in fact about the fear a virgin has towards sex.This differs from Plath and Salingers utilization of blurting constant criticism of others, and shows a clear self aggravation and criticism. There are many literary devices used to allude to its sexual theme. Dic kinson shows the fear of a virgin by knowing the naturalness of sex yet still being afraid of it. This is accomplished through the literary devices of avatar, metaphor, and visual imagery. In the first line of the first stanza, by using the word fellow in her description of the snake she alludes to the snake in regards to man. In colloquial terms, the word snake is often used with regards to male genitalia.A narrow fellow can therefore be read as the male penis. This could also relate to her opinion of men being sneaky like snakes towards the concept of sex, compared to the expectations of a woman to remain celibate, showing her honest neglect of the sexist attitude that society has to sexuality. The second stanza The grass divides as with a comb- Aspotted shaft is seen- And then it closes at your feet and opens further on Dickinson has purposely used opposing adjectives to represent her curiosity about sex, how one mo she is captivated by the idea of losing her virginity, then th e succeeding(a) her mind closes her imagination because she knows she must remain celibate until marriage. It could also represent a previous sexual encounter that was never fulfilled, she is giving the reader an insight into her mind and how dividing her mind like this could cause her mental illness to thrive. Once she has captured a small snipping of understanding Aspotted shaft, her sub conscious closes her out. Dickinsons confusion is clear, it sounds almost as though she is at war with herself, insanity, society and again differs from Plath and Salinger in that she does not alienate herself from society, but from her own emotions and desires.Despite this, she carries on fantasizing about this sexual encounter by saying sudden is Dickinson is stating that this male is quick to ejaculate. This can be further proved by the line before which says, you may have met him. The word met can be referring to the sexual meeting, and therefore puts a sexual connotation to the next line. Wh en Dickinson reaches for this thing that scares her so much, it disappears. In the end of stanza four, she says, it wrinkled, and was gone. This is the visual imagery of a penis becoming flaccid.This man she is describing may represent her constant imply to please, and fit in. Her honest desperation to communicate her frame of mind seeps through, when the reader finishes the poem to discover, that not even in the final stanza, does she reveal the root of the poem or what its meaning is, leaving readers to feel her confusion, to have a sense of what it would be like to suffer from mental illness, not knowing why or understanding the thoughts she has. Her complete sincerity leaves the reader, in a state of confusion, reflecting her everyday agenda.An aspect of honesty which can be related to all three authors is the honesty with the self and self reflection. Sylvia Plath uses the character of Esther Greenwood to portray her own personal attributes that she struggled to express in rea lity. We see this when greenwood describes her drink as wet an depressing, the very statement that a drink is depressing shows how irritating her character is, in the sense that she complains and reverts anything and everything she sees or touches to seem as depressing as she is.This could be Plath expressing through Greenwood that she is riled by herself and her own character, the illness is not only discovered, but it irritates her, revealing a full acknowledgement of its existence. This honest analysis in itself portrays that Greenwood sees herself as an bother to society and this could explain her isolated behaviour, a fear of not being accepted. Another self reflective part of the novel is stage in which Esther begins to lose touch with herself worth, I started adding up all the things I couldnt do I felt inadequate. Up until the summer before Esthers of age(p) year, she had done a good job at being a student of literature. However the thought of entering the real world terr ifies her. The world she lives in seems to have no place for the literary ideals that she cherishes, which of course is her being pessimistic. This could be forcing her to doubt herself, and self worth towards the world, which may represent Plath attempting to portray Esther as feeling worthless and useless.Or, another view could be that Esther sees herself as being too complex and misunderstood for the simple minds and dreams of the typical American girl of that era. Emily Dickinson shows honesty with the self and self reflection in the poem The soul has Bandaged moments which explores through symbolism, an internalised spiritual and psychological state of experiences of the soul. Which is personified as a woman, and some may interoperate the personification to be Dickinson herself. In the first stanza it says The soul has bandaged moments which shows a physical and abstract out case and insight of the soul.It also implies injury and pain that could metaphorically mean that the sou l being personified as Dickinson, she is hurt by her mental illness and attempts to heal herself when she feels some ghastly fright come up to stop and look at her. This could represent her soul searching and not being fond of what she finds in her mind, or it could alternatively represent her mental illness of depression weirdie up on her, it has a sinister feel and may be considered that the mental illness is trespassing, on the privacy of her soul and self.She views this as a form of psychological assault and molester by using words in stanza two such(prenominal) as, caress and hovered-oer. These bring feelings of uncomfortability and helplessness to the reader. Dickinson is trying to express the unmercifulness of insanity. This shows Dickinsons fear of herself and her capability, some may view it as a panic towards her ever-growing stronger insanity and her ever-growing weaker free will against is. To conclude, a critic once claimed that Writers, who suffer with mental illness , are likely to revolve their writing around complete honesty of their mind.Which, in a sense, creates more emotional and believable connections with the reader, making the insanity seem normal, and allow the reader to feel an attachment with the author, some may consider this statement to be complete nonsense, however, the analytical evidence shows that there may be some truth in this observation. One may find the ability for Plath, Dickinson and Salinger, all of different era and lifestyle, to have managed to create such personalities and mind wondering scenarios with just the use of a single concept of honesty to be greatly admired.