Like many others after finishing the book, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I searched online for a few interpretations and analysis. I know, maybe the internet can give conflicting answers. But I don’t know where else to look.
However, many of them agreed that the main take from the book, is about a) mental illness or b) the transition from childood to an adult woman. I couldn’t find any other interpretations, and while I think those are predominant throughout her story, I still couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the way she described the suffocating feeling of living under the bell jar of reality. On how the world was so interesting (her studies, her knowledge and insatiable curiosity all during college) and so vast (the fig tree). And yet, afterwards, it turned void, grey and superficial (marriage, the woman with a baby trolley from who she hid, “look at yourself, who is going to marry you now, Esther”). Like if she had to leave a huge and beautiful jungle and go live in a grey windowless building.
There was this scene that really stayed with me, where she was letting some clothes fly off the top of a building, just peacefully watching the city. Another source called that irrational. But, why? I thought about it for some time, but I don’t understand why that’s irrational. It was just clothes. To Sylvia, they meant less than nothing. Seeing them fly away was a more enjoyable sight than just seeing them on herself, in front of the mirror. It was pretty clear during the previous scenes she didn’t care about the world of fashion. She simply enjoyed the challenge of making it and “collecting” her prize of going to the city.
I still don’t know how to pinpoint the feeling, and could not get myself to interpret this book about how Sylvia wrote about how terrible it was to be in her mind and how terrible mental illness was. To me, it felt as if she was describing the reason why she suffocated under the reality of the society she had to live with, when she herself was incredibly intelligent and ambitious.
I don’t think it was about what was wrong with her, but what was wrong with what surrounded her.
Does anyone else have another vision? Anyone else who can’t stop thinking about the book or has other interpretations? I’m so eager to discuss it, I am obsessed with it. I feelt it deep in my soul and I’ll read it again, because I connect with it to a spiritual level.
by DieBlackfisk