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1、* 师 范 大 学本 科 生 毕 业 论 文令人窒息的罩子钟形罩中埃斯特悲剧的根源姓 名： * 学 号： 0000000000000 专 业： 英语 年 级： 00000 系 别： 英语系 完成日期： 0000年0月 指导教师： *（讲师） Suffocating JarThe Root to Esthers Tragedy in The Bell JarA Thesis Submittedto Faculty of School of Foreign Languages, Hainan Normal University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requi
2、rementsfor the Degree of Bachelor of ArtsBy*Supervisor： * (Lecturer)00000000000本科生毕业论文独创性声明本人声明所呈交的毕业论文是本人在导师指导下进行的研究工作及取得的研究成果，除了文中特别加以标注和致谢的地方外，本论文中没有抄袭他人研究成果和伪造数据等行为 。论文作者签名： 日期： 本科生毕业论文使用授权声明海南师范大学有权保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交毕业论文的复印件和磁盘，允许毕业论文被查阅和借阅。本人授权海南师范大学可以将本毕业论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检索，可以采用影印、缩印或其他复印手段保存、
3、汇编毕业论文。论文作者签名： 日期： 指导教师签名： 日期： AcknowledgementsIn writing this paper, I have benefited from the presence of my teachers and my classmates. They generously helped me collect materials I needed and made many invaluable suggestions. I hereby extend my grateful thanks to them for their kind help, withou
4、t which the paper would not have been what it is.Particularly, I am deeply indebted to Lecturer *, my supervisor, who guided me throughout my writing of this thesis. She carefully read the whole draft and offered painstaking and precious criticism. Her standards of academic excellence have made my r
5、evision and exciting and gratifying experience. Then, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my classmates and friends *, whose brilliant ideas and perceptive observations have proved immensely constructive. Next, my thanks would go to my beloved mother for her loving considerations and g
6、reat confidence in me all through these years. She took good care of my life and gave me a lot of encouragement when I was working at this thesis. She always shared my weal and woe. I feel much grateful and heartily owe my achievement to her.Finally, none of this would have been possible without the
7、 help of those individuals and organizations hereafter mentioned with gratitude: our school library and its staff.令人窒息的罩子钟形罩中埃斯特悲剧的根源作者：* 指导教师：*（讲师）（*大学外国语学院，*，0000)摘 要：钟形罩是美国当代女作家西尔维娅普拉斯的一部自传体小说。小说讲述了女主人公埃斯特在传统习俗的压迫下从一个才华横溢的女性逐步变成精神分裂者的悲剧故事。本文将从埃斯特的家庭、职业和爱情三大方面着手分析，探寻其深藏背后的社会根源。借此一窥当时美国社会中女性的真实境况，同
8、时警示依然活在钟形罩中的女性反抗压迫、实现自我价值的紧迫性和必要性。关键词：女性主义; 悲剧；根源；女性意识Suffocating Jar The Root to Esthers Tragedy in The Bell JarAuthor: * Supervisor: * (Lecturer) (School of Foreign Languages, *University，* 0000000) Abstract: The Bell Jar is an autobiographical novel of Sylvia Plath. It tells a tragic story of how
9、 Esther, a brilliant heroine in this novel, gradually becomes a schizophrenic under the oppression of traditional custom. This paper aims to dig out the deep root hiding behind the three superficial reasons of her family, career and love in order to explore the plight and the fundamental cause of fe
10、male initiation in the 1950s and 1960s American society as well as give a warning of the urgency and necessity for women who are still living in the bell jar to fight back and realize their own values.Key words: feminism; tragedy; root; womens consciousnessContents1. Introduction132. The Tragedy of
11、the Heroine133. The Superficial Reasons of the Tragedy133.1 No Pleasing Guide in Family133.2 No Proper Aim in Career133.3 No Satisfying Partner in Love134. The Fundamental Reason of the Tragedy134.1 The Analysis of the Superficial Reasons134.1.1 The Family Situation of Esther134.1.2 The Career Situa
12、tion of Esther134.1.3 The Love Situation of Esther134.2 The Root to the Tragedy135. Conclusion13Bibliography131. IntroductionBased on Sylvia Plaths early life experience, The Bell Jar tells a story of a 19-year-old college girl, Esthers tragic life in which she was unable to pursue what she wanted i
13、n family, career and love. She had all her dream broken and then began to search for herself. The feelings are so true and natural with the heroines loneliness, desperateness and struggle in the authors world. This leaves me the consideration in the causes of her tragedy. During the past years, many
14、 people have written articles about The Bell Jar, including the analysis of Esthers experiences and encounters combined with its authors personal ones (Fu Si, 2007), the exploration of Esthers growing process from the mental level (Xin Yingyang, 2009; Zhao Wenwei, 2009), the symbolism (Wu Qinhua, 20
15、05) as well as its feminism (Zheng Li, 2010). However, little of them relate to the causes of Esthers tragic life, not to mention to dig deeper to its basic reason. For this reason, this paper aims to look into the root of Esthers tragedy from the three superficial reasons mentioned in the novel. Th
16、ats her family, career and love. And then it comes to the root of her tragedy and the necessity of her resistance and counterattack after witnessing the soul journey of the heroine under the oppression of the male-oriented society and culture. In addition, this paper is to see through the heroines t
17、ypical individual experience to explore the plight and the fundamental cause of female initiation in the 1950s and 1960s American society as well as give a warning to women who are in a similar situation like the heroine: its time to fight back.2. The Tragedy of the HeroineThe 19-year-old girl Esthe
18、r was born in the suburbs of Boston. Her father died when she was 8. So her mother had to support Esther and her little brother by teaching shorthand and type. Before Esther got mad, she was the envy of countless American girls. She had excellent examination results for 15 years and she also had a d
19、ecent and handsome boyfriend who would certainly earn a lot of money some day. She was a talented girl who once worked as a reporter of town newspaper and an editor of the school literary magazine. Whats more, she was one of the twelve girls who won a free chance to gain experience in New York for o
20、ne month. However, it was this chance made Esther feel herself rarely corresponded to the surrounding environment. In New York, Esther not only felt the great impact of the big city, but after meeting people in different kinds and different occupations, she also began to doubt herself in realizing t
21、he dream of being an edit or even a writer. What was worse, after meeting men of every description and when she recalled her dating experience with her boyfriend Buddy, what she could feel was nothing except extreme powerlessness, frustration and self-lostness. With her memory of the past occasional
22、ly intertwined with the present reality, Esther could figure out neither the meaning of the reality nor the direction of her life. As soon as Esther finished her one-month probation and returned to her hometown, the new blow got in her face. The writing course on which she had pinned great hope on d
23、idnt accept her application. The conservative atmosphere of the small town and the suspicion and horror towards the future made her almost out of breath. Facing a nervous breakdown, Esther explored every possibility of various suicide methods with her perseverance typically of an excellent student.
24、She tried to escape the bell-jar-like society in this way. After being rescued, Esther found herself in a hospital. Although, she got better under Doctor Nolans meticulous treatment in a private hospital and even got a chance to go to town, however, it was only her physical pain that got healed soon
25、; her psychological pain was still serious. Esther then went to a gynecologist to have her diaphragm capped on and had her first sexual experience with Irwin, a math professor she met by chance. She suffered from hemorrhea right after she lost her virginity. After getting out of danger, Esther went
26、back to asylum. Days later, there came the news that Joan, the psychotic wardmate as well as town fellow and school fellow of hers, hanged herself at the lake after she moved out of the asylum. The novel ends with Esthers superficial recovery and rebirth. However, the shadow cast by those blows and
27、mental damage as well as the confusion to the future still enveloped her occasionally. But the fact was just as Esther wondered, “How did I know that somedayat college, in Europe, somewhere, anywherethe bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldnt descend again” (Plath, 2005, p.241). 3. The Supe
28、rficial Reasons of the TragedyAs the author describes, there are three major causes of Esthers tragedy. First of all, Esther has no pleasing guide in family. Secondly, she doesnt have a proper aim in career. Finally, she fails to find a satisfying partner in love. Given all these, Esther lives a mis
29、erable life.3.1 No Pleasing Guide in Family During the growing process of Esther, there lacked a mothers guidance and demonstration. Esthers father died at an early age, leaving no money for the family. Therefore, Esthers mother had to support the family all alone. She was too busy to care about Est
30、her. Hence, Esther and her mother lacked understanding between each other. As a direct result of this, Esther did not turn to her mother even when she felt desperately lost in life.The mothers around Esther couldnt guide her path either. Taking her boyfriend Buddy Willards mother as an example, Mrs.
31、 Willard was a wife of a university professor, which was really a decent identity from the outside. Whats more, she also taught in a private school at one time. In spite of all these, what she did from sunup to sundown was cooking, washing and cleaning, which made her nothing different from other un
32、der-cultured or even the uncultured housewives. It was just like the blanket she knitted. Rather than serving as a piece of art, the blanket was used as a carpet in the kitchen with stain and tarnish instead of being hung on the wall as a combination of her ability and wisdom. Similarly, there were
33、no good neighbors for Esther to learn from as well. Just as an example, Dodo Conway had gone to Barnard and was well-educated. She then married an architect who had gone to Columbia. It seemed she should have a different life from other wife or mother. However, she raised six children. And with her
34、protruding stomach, she would no doubt raise her seventh. She has become a complete typical housewife both from her body configuration and her temperament.No matter it was Esthers mother, her boyfriends mother or her neighbor, everyone lived a same boring life as an absolute housewife. It wasnt what
35、 Esther wanted. Therefore, none of them could be a guide for Esther in the field of family.3.2 No Proper Aim in CareerWhen Esther went out of the family and got in touch with the external world, she could not decide which road to go when choosing a career. The successful business woman Jay Cee was E
36、sthers idol for a time. In Esthers eyes, she was absolutely an informed woman who could not only speak several languages but also knew all the first-class writers in fashion magazine industry. Although she was not like other self-dramatizing women in this line, she had ugly appearance and lacked fem
37、inity. Therefore, no matter how much Esther admired Jay Cee in career, she would never be a woman unlike woman.As for another famous poetess in Esthers college, although she was also successful, she was a lesbian and hated marriage. When Esther thought maybe she should get married, the poetess looke
38、d really feared and felt quite worried about her career after marriage. And when Esther showed interest in being a poetess, she met with ruthless reality. Her boyfriend Buddy always liked to put her down when they talked about it. He would ridicule Esther and take her poem as a dust. This made Esthe
39、r really upset.In this way, Esther failed to find her position and could not see her future. She was lost in the way forward from time to time. And her failure to go to the writing course became the last straw that breaks the camels back. When Esther mother told her that she didnt make the writing c
40、ourse, she was thrown into confusion. The sudden shock broke her last hope. Although she grasped her only remaining reason to make a series of plans for the summer, unfortunately, none of them came true. Soon, Esther got a nervous breakdown.3.3 No Satisfying Partner in LoveEsthers boyfriend Buddy se
41、emed to be handsome, honest and intelligent. And he would certainly have a bright future by being a member of American Medical Association. Before Buddy came to Esther, she had fallen in love with him secretly for many years. But when Esther thought she found the love she had been dreaming of, Buddy
42、 admitted that he had slept with a waitress at the hotel he worked for a couple of times a week the whole summer vacation. Buddys affair with the waitress and his hypocrisy hurt Esther, making her dream of love totally broken. What was worse, Buddy was always saying what his mother said about “happy
43、 housewife” to Esther. Such as “ What a man wants is a mate and what a woman wants if infinite security, and, What a man is is an arrow in to the future and what a woman is is the place the arrow shoots off from ” (Plath, 2005, p.72). He wouldnt stop saying this until it made Esther tired. However,
44、to devote all ones good time and talents to household chore is totally a dreary and wasted life for a girl like Esther with fifteen years straight As. And for Esther, she hated the so-called infinite security. What she really wanted was free and independent life with all challenges and passion. The
45、simultaneous interpreter named Constaintin, introduced by Mrs. Willard, was a knowledgeable and mature man. Unfortunately, he also expected his future wife to play a traditional house-wife-mother role. It would mean getting up at seven and cooking him eggs and bacon and toast and coffee and dawdling
46、 about in my night-grown and curlers after hed left for work to wash up the dirty plates and make the bed, and then when he came home after a lively, fascinating day hed expect a big dinner, and Id spend the evening washing up even more dirty plates till I fell into bed, utterly exhausted (Plath, 20
47、05, p.84). A marriage was doomed to be so. But for Esther, she could never stand a life like this. The Southerner from Yale named Eric once impressed Esther, making Esther feeling him a proper man to go to bed with. But he only divided women into two kinds. For him, the woman he loved should stay pure all the time. Once he fell in love with her, he would never sleep with her. Otherwise, he would think her nothing different from other women. As for the
