It is, after all, about madness-not to mention electric shock therapy, and suicide, and ambition, and how anyone can manage to survive in the world with all its contradictory restrictions and expectations. But this always feels kind of strange because of course, though it concerns a “college girl,” The Bell Jar is not particularly girly. Perhaps because of its perennial popularity with high school students, and high school girls in particular, The Bell Jar has sometimes been given a “girly” cover treatment-notably for its 50th anniversary five years ago (see below). Most of us read this blistering semi-autobiographical novel-originally published under the pseudonym “Victoria Lucas,” so that, according to one close friend, Plath’s mother would not know she had written it-in high school, whether in class, or after a heart-to-heart with the local feminist librarian, or you know, after seeing Kat Stratford read it in 10 Things I Hate About You. This Sunday is the 55th anniversary of the publication of Sylvia Plath’s first and only novel, The Bell Jar, which seems as good an excuse as any to revisit it.

The bell jar near me