The Bell Jar

　　
　　
　　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 experiece as going to the movi... (展开全部) 　　
　　
　　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 experiece 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.</P>　　

　　Plath's only novel, published shortly before her suicide, THE BELL JAR tells the story, based on the author's own experiences, about a young woman's descent into madness. Esther Greenwood spends a month in New York City as a guest magazine editor--just as Plath did as a Mademoiselle magazine intern--and gradually loses her grip on reality. THE BELL JAR was so autobiographical that, when it was first published in 1963 in England, it appeared under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas.