num_pages: 294
description: The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.
language: English
title: The Bell Jar
titlecomplete: The Bell Jar
characters: Joan Gilling, Esther Greenwood, Buddy Willard
genres: Mental Health, Literary Fiction, Novels, Mental Illness, Poetry, Literature, Psychology, Classics, Feminism, Fiction
ratings_count: 882059
places: New York (State), The United States of America, New York City, New York, Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts
publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics