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Sylvia's Social Satire Success

     The Bell Jar is an excellent novel about coming-of-age and struggling with mental health,  but it would be a shame to leave it at just that. To me, it has various other unseen virtues. For example, I found it to be rather darkly funny and an excellent use of satire. Throughout the book, it is abundantly clear that Esther finds society to be absurd and almost grotesque, and Plath does an impressive job of conveying this through Esther’s language and inner thoughts.      Probably one of the most, if not the most, targeted subject of Plath’s sharp humor is the set of norms and expectations laid out for Esther and other women of the time period. One example is how Esther perceives motherhood and the process of childbirth. Describing the delivery of a baby, she says: “The woman’s stomach stuck up so high I couldn’t see her face or the upper part of her body at all. She seemed to have nothing but an enormous spider-fat stomach and two little ugly spindl...
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Holden Caulfield and the Fountain of Youth

Allie, Phoebe, Jane, James Castle. All legends in the world of Holden Caulfield. All connected by a common theme: their perpetual youth and purity. Throughout the novel, we get a detailed (and almost exhausting) account of the many things that contribute to Holden’s cynicism. However, a select few are safe from Holden’s overgeneralized criticisms of the world. These few, to Holden, are almost frozen in time, forever innocent and free. To Holden, Allie and James Castle’s early deaths leave only an impression of their character before they died. Allie was young, joyful, and shared many of Holden’s passions. Perhaps he might have grown up and stayed the same, but he could very well have changed into a different person, just as D.B. did. Holden was forced to deal with D.B. growing up and working in Hollywood, destroying his idol: young D.B., who was an authentic, passionate storywriter. But in a somewhat ironic way, young Allie will be forever immortalized to Holden as a result of his unti...
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