Later, Marco takes her outside and tries to rape her before she breaks his nose and leaves. Shortly before the internship ends, she attends a country club party with Doreen and is set up with a man named Marco who treats her roughly. Esther's internal monologue often lingers on musings of death and violence, as well as conflictions with the roles of women in her society. Much of the story is spent in flashbacks, where Esther reminisces about her boyfriend Buddy, whom she has dated more or less seriously, and who considers himself her de facto fiancé. Another incident occurs when a mass food-poisoning occurs during a lunch thrown by the staff of the magazine. In the beginning, she and Doreen meet Lenny, a gallant radio host who tries to seduce them, and who ends up dating Doreen.
Esther has a benefactress in Philomena Guinea, a formerly successful writer of women's fiction, who funds the scholarship through which Esther – from a working-class family – is enrolled at her college.Įsther describes in detail several seriocomic incidents that occur during her internship. Esther appreciates the witty sarcasm and adventurousness of another intern, Doreen, but also identifies with the piety of Betsy, an old-fashioned and naïve young woman. She finds herself struggling to feel anything at all aside from anxiety and disorientation.
During the internship, Esther feels neither stimulated nor excited by the work, fashion, and big-city lifestyle that her peers in the program seem to adore. In 1953, Esther Greenwood, a nineteen-year-old undergraduate student from the suburbs of Boston, is awarded a summer internship at the fictional Ladies' Day magazine in New York City. The novel has been translated into nearly a dozen languages. The novel was published under Plath's name for the first time in 1967 and was not published in the United States until 1971, in accordance with the wishes of both Plath's husband, Ted Hughes, and her mother. Plath died by suicide a month after its first United Kingdom publication. The book is often regarded as a roman à clef because the protagonist's descent into mental illness parallels Plath's own experiences with what may have been clinical depression or bipolar II disorder. Originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963, the novel is semi-autobiographical with the names of places and people changed.
The Bell Jar is the only novel written by the American writer and poet Sylvia Plath.
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