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It's about the 1950s and how it influenced Sylvia Plath's voice in The Bell Jar.
Life for women in the 20th century was full of opportunities, but lacked the proper means to accomplish such glories due to firm traditionalist views. A few courageous women were able to succeed in this pressing time, home to the beginnings of a new era of women, but many were held back by their underlying fears and dreads of what might happen if they venture forward into the unknown. Women constantly searched for outer beauty as the media advertised new products and new ideas. Men sought out the beautiful women, the trophy wives, who would make good housewives and mothers. Along with this concept of superficial beauty, came the search for female sexuality. Women began to see themselves as individuals, in control of their minds and bodies. But this idea of female sexuality was consistently opposed by conservatives and their beliefs. This time period of possibility and uncertainty greatly influenced Sylvia Plath?s writing of her novel, The Bell Jar, which tells the dreadful tale of a young woman who dared to venture into this unknown world of men, a world she soon realized was harder to survive in than first expected. In a society where difference is unacceptable, and ambition by women is crushed by traditional views, Esther Greenwood hardly has a chance to make it. History of women in this era influenced Plath?s character, Esther, in that she has the ambition necessary to succeed, like many women in the 20th century, but lacks the proper stability, eventually going insane.
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