Book Report: Independent Reading by Yehloe Baca-Bautista

The Bell Jar

27yehloeb316 — 2025-06-12 15:44:37 UTC

The Bell Jar is the ONLY novel ever written by the writer and poet Sylvia Plath. Originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963. The book is about a woman named esther who lives with multiple girls in an all women's hotel, where she and other girls write newspaper articles about models, england, or models in england. Esther is 19, and is incredibly racist.

Chapter 1

27yehloeb316 — 2025-06-16 15:57:57 UTC

The book starts off with introducing the readers to a girl named Esther. She works for a large company that depends on girls to write for magazines about models. She lives in an all girls hotel. Her friend, doreen, who she admires / envies, takes her to a bar where they meet a man named lenny, who buys the two of them drinks. Doreen, esther, and lenny go back to his place and drink. Esther only drinks vodka, while doreen drinks martinis (or cocktails). Esther decides to leave the apartment and go back to her hotel because doreen and the man had started getting freaky. After esther talks about her love for baths, she gets a knock on the door from one of the cleaners that her friend doreen wants to come in. After esther lets her in, doreen throws up and falls asleep on her floor.

Chapter 2

27yehloeb316 — 2025-06-17 15:54:39 UTC

Esther is invited to the hotel's dinner for Ladies day, where they have a lot of caviar and a crazy amount of healthy foods. The food reminds her of doreen and she starts realizing she misses doreen, who was now hanging out with lenny everyday. Esther loves caviar, and ate at least a bowl caviar. Esther mentions her family for the first time, explaining how she was a german descent and her mother and father were both German. She was never taught german at a young age because her father had passed when she was 9, and her mother was usually focused on her brother. Esther had a close relationship with her grandfather, and she talks about how her and her grandpa made this proposition that if she gets married he will deliver her a large amount of caviar for her engagement.

Esther Greenwood

27yehloeb316 — 2025-06-18 16:00:14 UTC

Esther Greenwood is the narrator of Bell Jar. She is kind, awkward, and very mature. She speaks from a closed mindset, and often judges people based on their looks. When she first meets somebody, she usually looks for what they're wearing instead of what kind of person they are. Esther affects others positively, and she tries to make everybody comfortable around her. Esther often reacts verbally rather than physically, and she usually masks her real emotions. Esther is a lanky, 19 year old girl, and i imagine her to be around 5'5 and a brunette.

Esthers reflection

27yehloeb316 — 2025-06-23 16:05:08 UTC

Esther Greenwood is a Static character. Throughout the story everybody around her changes, while she stays in the same cycles.

27yehloeb316 — 2025-06-25 16:09:04 UTC

Some things that have surprised me about esther is her personality and her outlook on her life. She's very gloomy and she doesn't enjoy where her life has turned out. Some things that have left me intrigued is the way she treats her friends. Everytime something doesn't go her way, she'll blame it on another person and excuse her actions. The overall writing style of the author shows her true actions and the way she represents herself in real life. The underlying themes in this story could be don't judge others or stay true to yourself. I enjoy this novel a lot, and it expresses that main characters or known characters arent always nice or the good ones.

27yehloeb316 — 2025-06-26 15:40:43 UTC

Throughout the book, it has taken a lot of different steps. First, she was selected to be an intern in new york (she is getting an upgrade) She is supposed to feel happy about it, but she feels "alienated" and uncomfortable with it. She believes that the fashion and social industry and its events (like new shoes or cute print styles) are useless and fake, and she obviously struggles with her identity and how this could change her. She also feels really disconnected between women around her (she thinks shes better than them). Then esther gets into a conflicting relationship with two men. The first dude's name is buddy, who is a good guy in her standards. She gets to know him more and she hates him because he has a "normal outlook like all men do" (as in he sees women as objects) and hates herself because she was gonna marry him. The next guy is irwin, hwo is really just a side character and she just gets with him because she wants to get freaky. After that she becomes depressed and she stops bathing, sleeping, or even eating. She becomes obsessed with wanting to die and she commits suicide attempts at least daily. She hid in a crawl space in her basement after swallowng a bottle of sleeping pills.

27yehloeb316 — 2025-06-30 05:05:14 UTC

Esther has evolved for the worse. Her mental state has been going downhill and she searches for more bad situations to be in. None of her choices, actions, emotions and feelings really resonate to me. I like that joan and esther have become friends because joan can be a beneficial support to esther. Joan is becoming a psychiatrist after she gets out of the mental hospital and is going to help people like her and esther.