『ベル・ジャー』―エスタ・グリーンウッドのアイデンティティー探索をめぐって―

Abstract

The Bell Jar (1963) is the only novel by the well-known American poet, Sylvia Plath (1932-1963). This novel is autobiographical, written about her attempted suicide (1953) when she was a student at Smith College and how it came about. In the 1950s and early 1960s, women were not treated equally to the same extent as they are today in North America and most other modern countries. Esther, the heroine of the story, is a college student living in the outskirts of Boston. Desiring a life on equal terms with men, she searches for her own identity. Her failure to find it results in her nervous breakdown and attempted suicide. Afterwards, she is sent from one hospital to another. Due in part to the treatment she receives in the hospitals, in part to her comfortable environment, and in part to something inside her set on recovery and other factors, she becomes well enough to return to her old life, continuing her courses at the college if she passes her interview with the doctors. Throughout the story Esther is lonely. Her father died early in her childhood. She craves the love and company of her mother, who is a very traditional woman, yet it is precisely this type of woman that Esther dislikes most, and her love for her mother often changes completely into feelings of resentment and hate. It might be said that in exposing her own life through this novel, Plath was making a statement to the world against the violence of a male-dominated society.