The Struggle Of Esther Greenwood Against Social Oppression In Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1Background of the Study

Human life cannot be separated from the existence of a work of art, and literature is a work of art that uses language as its media. Literature is one of the most creative and universal ways of expressing the emotions, spirituality, and intellectual concerning humankind. Literature is the coloring of one’s imagination in an attempt to make sense of one’s lives. Literature itself has been traditionally classified into three genres; prose, poetry, and drama. Each genre still has subgenres and one of the subgenres of prose is novel. In Mastering English Literature, Richard Gill states that a novel is a world specially made in words by the author (1985:77). Peck and Coyle stated that novels present a documentary picture of life.

Alongside the fact that novels look at the people in society, the other major characteristic of the genre is that novels tell a story. Most novelist focus on the tension between individuals and the society in which they live, and the novelist tell and describe the social life and society, Peck and Coyle, (1984:102). The novel basically can portray the reality of everyday life, because they can be used as a document to study issues in society. The novelists themselves might have inherited a recording of reality that made an impression on them and chooses to expand it into a literary work of art, splashed around in a canvas what will eventually turn into a living masterpiece.

In relation to the focus, the phenomenon of feminism has become a major subject in today’s society since it rose up in the nineteenth century. Feminist theory now aims to question gender inequalities and to cause change in areas where there are

differences of power in gender and sexuality. The real question related to feminism might not be ‘what is feminism?’ but why have women not been treated as equals and what has been the source of men’s prejudice against women? Feminism has argued that women are basically useful as men on the basis that there are no differences between men and women. However in this context, Nugroho (2008:62) have stated that this is not biological or sexual difference but more of a cultural construction. Any form of stereotyping, objectification, breach of human rights, or gender/sexuality-based oppression is a feminist issue.

The issues of feminism can be based on many aspects but in this study linking to the literary source that is being analyzed, the issue is mainly based on women’s role in society and how particular oppression is put on them and affecting their life. The Bell Jar consists of this issue where women experience a situation where they feel like they don’t belong to a certain society because of the various social oppressions that is forced on them. The reality that we live in now still consists of these kinds of problem where there occurs a conflict between a women and herself about what she wants to do in life but instead the society around her chooses the life she should be living. These things might not occur very often nowadays because we have already entered the modern era where women are successful, but to some women’s experience there are struggle and pressure for her to live the life she truly desire. The society forces her to do what they want.

Feminist literary criticism focuses on the struggle of women to free themselves from the domination of patriarchal culture. Looking more into the power of feminist critique it is clear that there is no separation between literature and the society therefore literary works should be studied along with its cultural context.

The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath’s first novel that went on to become a shocking, realistic and popular novel. It is actually a semi-autobiographical novel based on her own life experience but she used different names and places. The book shows many reference to real people and events in Plath’s life distorted through the glass of a ‘bell jar’. It was first published in London in 1963 by William Heinemann Limited. Sylvia Plath used the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, this is because she did not think it was a ‘serious work’ and she also worried that the people close to her might be offended by the personalities she included in the book. In fact, Plath had put so many details of the people's real lives into The Bell Jar that "they could never look at each other again", and that it had caused the breakup of her marriage and possibly others. The story is written and takes place in New York and Boston in the 1950s where in America at the time still had a defined role for men and women. The society had been stuck to this idea that it affects the main character and her journey of becoming someone she desires. It was also the time in America where women were trying to step up their social status. The book tells the events of what the main character ‘Esther Greenwood’ experience in a time period of six months and is told directly from her point of view. She struggles to face society that gives her problems as well as struggle to live by the existing constructed social norms and traditions.

Plath told the reasons for writing The Bell Jar to her mother, “What I've done is to throw together events from my own life, fictionalizing to add colour- it's a pot boiler really, but I think it will show how isolated a person feels when he is suffering a breakdown.... I've tried to picture my world and the people in it as seen through the distorting lens of a bell jar". She also stated her novel as "an autobiographical apprentice work which I had to write in order to free myself from the past".

women, but it is also a portrayal of social realities. Novel is a work of art which enables us to enter into the world that is created by the writer and can feel what the writer want to express about the writer’s own life. It shows how Plath herself has experienced as her character in the novel. Esther falls into mental breakdown just the same as Plath's own experiences that underwent mental depression. Although the ending is different, Plath chose to end her own life whereas Esther’s life will be determined by the readers how she will continue it.

In this study, the writer wants to explain that novel is one of the most effective tools in presenting certain problems or ideas. Novels can also bring certain messages and hidden intentions from the author or certain social situations. The Bell Jar is one of the countless novels launched in the world of literature that has touched so many aspects of reality from its intrinsic sides and also its extrinsic. This study is hoped to send a message or a lesson for women living in society. Sylvia Plath has not only transferred her own life’s reflection “through the distorting lens of a bell jar” in the novel but she has made readers enter her world and mind, we can understand what she thought about the society.

1.2 Problem of the Study

Based on the topic and background of the study, the writer tries to formulate the problems of the study:

1. How does social construction decide everything for women’s life?

2. What are the struggles of the Esther Greenwood in facing social oppression?

1.3 Objective of the Study

The purposes of this study are:

1. To describe how social constructions decide everything for women’s life.

2. To explain the struggles of the Esther Greenwood in facing social oppression.

1.4 Scope of the Study

In doing an analysis, it is necessary to limit the focus that is going to be analyzed in order that the study is not out of context.

Throughout the story The Bell Jar tells about the main character called Esther Greenwood and her struggles in New York City and Boston as a successful, intelligent young woman. The study analyzes Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and the writer focus only on the main character’s struggles in facing the social oppression. Other characters involvement will also be used in the study to support the analysis. The writer would like to identify the Esther’s problems and struggles in a society that is full of oppression and judgments. These are events leading to her mental breakdown until the attempts of trying to end her life. The writer will also try to show how Sylvia Plath’s work is influenced by feminism ideology and illustrate the phenomenon of social construction of women’s life during the social condition of the novel in American society.

1.5 Significance of the Study

The result of this thesis is expected to enrich the reader’s knowledge about the novel The Bell Jar as well as learning a lesson about women in society. Firstly, the significance of this study is to give readers an insight and exploration about the social

oppression to the main character in the novel and the struggle of the main character to live her life. Secondly, through this research the writer hopes that the readers will be more aware of how certain roles or lives in certain society is very hard to achieve by women in a world where there is already a determined social construction of it.

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

In doing an analysis, it is important for reviews or theories that are related to the subject of discussion to support the study.

2.1 Sociology of Literature

The term of literature and sociology are two fields of knowledge that cannot be separated from each other. They are two studies that are different but have a very close relation. Sociology derives from Greek ‘socious’ (society) and ‘logos’ (science) which means the study of all the aspects of human and their relation in community. Literature derives from Latin ‘littera’ which mainly refers to written or printed words. Some relations between literature and society are: literary work is part of society and it uses language, which is part of social institution, and literary works is a picture of society. Novels and other literary works from a social phenomenon are strongly tied to a specific time in social history. The form and content of the novel comes from a social phenomenon and often related with moments in the history of society. According to Wellek & Warren, literary sociology has the task to explore classes of social status, to examine the dependency towards ruling classes, as well as study economical sources and prestiges in society (1989:115).

A literary work is an expression of social reality that has existed in the mind of the novelist; the forms and meanings are expressed from his own experience. Literary works are also trying to express reality as it is; it shows hidden things in life that may not be acceptable in our society.

The quote below suggests that a novelist will show how society is actually like, how the men and women are. Through a society in the work they portray or imitate the truth about our real life society.

We do not look to the novel primarily for social documents; social historians and sociologists can tell us about particular societies. Novelists teach us the varied meanings that society has for individuals and for human life, they instruct us in the mutual responsibilities of individuals and societies; they use depictions of society to speak truths about what men and women are, singly and communally, and what they might be. We look to the novel for what we ultimately find there, imitations and intimations of human life in society. Langland (221:1984)

Literary works show a significant relationship between cause and effect, it also shows us what is going on where it is taking us. Modern novel like The Bell Jar

consists of these elements where there are cause and effect leading to the next social situation, every saying or event is tied to one another. The existence of the novel is said, as there is no society without history and no history without society. It is through the novel the public enters into history that flows on to society. Just like in The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath include some flashbacks of the main character’s experience to support events in the future to be more meaningful and relatable. The novel also links the condition and history of American society during the mid 20th century. The portal of history will always be in the novel but using different techniques by different novelists. According to Goldmann, there is no realistic social research that is not historical and there is no scientific research that is both historical and realistic if it does not contain elements of sociology. Therefore, in studying the facts and reality of humanity requires methods that are both sociological and historical. Wellek & Warren states that, a literary historian will never be satisfied judging a literary work just from

a contemporary perspective. They will evaluate the history in accordance with the needs and style of contemporary literary movement. (1989:43).

2.2 Dynamic Structuralism

The first steps in carrying out a literary analysis is to identify the elements that are in the literary works. These are important because they are the raw data that are going to interpreted in the study. These elements consist of character, plot, setting, theme, background and so on. The theories that are going to be used to analyze this literary work will help peel as much detail as possible in order to gain new meaning and conclusions.

Etymologically speaking, structure came from word, structura (Latin), means form or building. Structuralism is an understanding of elements of the structure itself. Definitively, structuralism gives attention to the analysis of elements in literary works. The elements of prose are theme, conflict, setting, characters, plot, point of view, and style of language. According to Mukarovsky and Felik Vodicka, literary works are the process of communication, fact of semiotic, consists of sign, structure, and values. The analysis of literary works should focus on the work itself without attention to things outside of work called extrinsic. This can be done by way of close reading, which is reading in detail.

Structural Analysis aims to unpack and explain as carefully, as precisely, as much detail, and in-depth and entanglement all elements and aspects of literature that together produce a comprehensive meaning. Teeuw (1984:135)

In dynamic structuralism, according Mukarovsky, the chain of relationship is between four factors: the creator, literature, readers, and reality. Manifested as a sign of literary works in its intrinsic structure, in conjunction with the reality, society,

creators, and readers (Teeuw, 1984:190).

From the description above, before applying dynamic structuralism in studying

The Bell Jar, the researcher has to look at structural aspects that consist of plot, character, setting, theme, style, and point of view. From these aspects, the researcher will discuss about the phenomenon of female social construction and the main character’s struggles of social oppression in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.

2.3 Feminism

Feminism consists of ideas and beliefs about what culture is like for women just because they are women, compared to what the world is like for men just because they are men. However, feminism is actually a transformation movement and not a movement to seek revenge towards the male. We can say that feminism is a process that aims to create a better relationship between both genders to improve and better the society (Nugroho, 2008:61). It is the women’s movement for political and social freedom that began in the nineteenth century; firstly gaining strength in the protest for the right to vote also known as the first wave of feminism. It was reborn in 1960’s and 1970’s in the women’s movement for sexual equality which is the second wave. From the 1990’s the movement has expanded into every discipline and activity in many parts of the world that is the third wave, Whitla (2010:287).

It is quite clear that throughout history men have oppressed women, as they have not had the same employment opportunities, educational opportunities, or even the right to vote. Indeed women have been treated like second-class citizens, and still are in many countries where the ideologies of feminism are not generally accepted. Dorothy Smith a linguistic feminist quotes that, “women have largely been excluded from the work of producing forms of thought and the images and symbols which

thought is expressed and realized, and feminist would state unequivocally that has been no accident”. Feminism assumes that such treatment of gender inequality is actually a cultural factor and is possible to change. Feminism looks and works towards activism in groups, to make personal and social change towards that more desirable culture. The changes achieved in activism can be different depending on the groups. The most is about having equal treatment of men and women, equal respects in any roles desired by men and women, fighting against unfairness, discrimination or oppression of women, respects to women of different races, classes, age group, experiences and so on.

Besides being a cultural movement, feminism is also one of the leading literary theories to the study of literary analysis that focuses on women's issues. Feminist literary criticism is expected to bring new perceptions and expectations in literary analysis. Feminist criticism focuses on reading as a woman. The term does not refer to a biological female but more to the approach and ideology. It is reading from women’s perspective at the same time putting their selves in the minds of the women, feeling their struggles and approaching a move from that point. Awareness of the role of gender and the social construction of culture is what a feminist strategy socialized in their struggle.

But a person’s view in literary works is still being differentiated, especially in describing women and men’s character in the literary work. Sometimes the description is not equal and it is still influenced by patriarchal view and gender discrimination.

Feminist criticism might seem only to be concerned with demonstrating that literature is sexist in the portrayal of women, or with showing how texts reveal the injustices of a male society where women are regarded as inferior.... (Peck & Coyle, 1984: 152).

Feminist theory was blown up to deconstruct the opposition of men or women and the oppositions connected with it in the history of western culture. To understand literature properly, requires a broad knowledge of the social culture and history. Similar to those expressed by other literary critics that the analysis of literary works cannot be separated from the social and cultural context in which it was originally created.

In a general sense, feminism is an ideology that drives women to reject patriarchal culture that have marginalized, subordinated, and degraded the position of women in the political, economic, and social life. Feminism grew as a movement and an approach that tries to change the existing structure because it has been regarded to cause inequality towards the female gender (Nugroho, 2008:62). There are many flow of feminism that have evolved with the modern culture, such as liberal feminism, radical feminism, Marxist and socialist feminism, multicultural feminism, existentialist feminism, postmodern feminism and so on. In the novel, Sylvia Plath has included issues that surround liberal feminism.

2.3.1 Liberal Feminism

Liberalism is attitude, philosophy, or movement that has as its basic concern the development of personal freedom and social growth. A distinction must be made between liberalism, in which social change is seen of as steady, flexible, and adaptive, and radicalism, in which social change is seen as basic and based on new principles of authority. This flow of feminism is one of the most known in the aspects of literature about women as well as radical feminism and Marxist and socialist feminism. Liberal feminism developed in the west during the 18th century, the same time with the popular concept of ‘enlightenment’ or ‘age of reason’. This type of feminism is

mainly about fighting for freedom. They believe that everyone has equal rights, there is no such thing as male domination or that men are more superior to women.

According to this movement, in order to achieve equal rights between men and women, it needs to be supported with a powerful fundamental law. This is why liberal feminism focuses more on changing the laws that support patriarchal family institutions, such as changing the role of men as the head of the family (Nugroho, 2008:63). It works towards an equal society, which would uphold the right of individuals to fulfill their potential. It is an individualistic form of feminism and theory, which focuses on women’s ability to show and maintain their equality through their own actions and choices.

This theory also states that women have been excluded in almost all aspects of life, and believe that in order to equalize men and women, all arrangements or systems that limit women's self-actualization should be abolished (Nugroho, 2008:66). According to Tong (1998) in Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction, women subordination occurred because of the existence of particular cultures and laws that limits access and success of women in a public sector. This kind of subordination towards women happens because there is a mistaken belief that claims women are not as strong and intelligent as men.

Liberal feminism wishes to liberate women from oppressive gender roles - that of the roles that are used as an excuse or justification to provide a lower level, or provide no place at all for women, within an education, a forum, or market. They emphasized that patriarchal society confuses sex and gender, and only consider jobs associated with feminine personality are suitable for women. Therefore, in America, for example, women are encouraged to work as nurses, teachers, and caregivers, and the legislation that specifically prohibits women from work 'masculine', such as mining and bartending or inhibit women to work night shifts or overtime can be easily passed. Tong (48:1998)

However, there are also problems with liberal feminism, the fact that when a system considered as biased is removed, or regulation of encouraging the creation of gender equality legislation, there is no guarantee of progress for women. And of the whole of reality, the most depressing is that liberal feminism seems to be referring to elements outside the woman, without looking deeper at the dynamics in the woman themselves. Because the limitation of a woman is not always in the form of oppressive regulations or even repressive, its actually in the form and manner of recognizing themselves are built from a very young, or even as a baby. Here is an issue of how social values affect the traditions and concepts of how a woman should recognize herself as from a young age.

2.4 Concept

2.4.1 Gender Roles in Society

Traditional roles in society have been accepted by people based on their biological forms. The role of a man and a woman in society is greatly influenced by a variety of factors. These factors can be due to difference with the region, religion, culture, climate, historical beliefs, living principles and experiences. Gender role in society is basically the role portrayed by an individual with respect to many factors depending on the social living condition. Gender roles are based on the different expectations that individuals, groups, and societies have of individuals based on their sex and based on each society's values and beliefs about gender. Interactions between individuals and their environments is what moulds gender roles, they give individuals reminders about what sort of behavior is believed to be appropriate for what sex.

The traditional gender role idea that many societies believe in is that male adopts the character “masculine” and female adopts “feminine”. For instance, males

are more interested in performing physically tough activities like, working in heavy industries while females perform tasks like raising children, cooking, sewing and so on. Just like in The Bell Jar, Esther is expected to get married and have children by her mother. Esther hated this, especially when the pressure is all around her. Many of her friends are married and having a family, it is hard for her to find support when her social environment is like this. The pressure is not just physical but emotional. While these stereotype roles are still adopted in many societies, this becomes rare now in developed societies like the US or Western Europe especially after the feminism movement took place. With the flow of time and being born of a 'liberal' value system, the discrimination between the male and the female have faded greatly.

Education, household work, childcare, professional tasks are the various responsibilities or activities in a normal social context. These roles are basically set apart on basis of sex, but now it is more of a choice and based on the interest of that individual. However, there are still many societies in the world which continue to stick and live to the way of the traditional gender roles. A female is expected to be interested and obliged in doing household work, childcare and education and leaving professional and social roles for the males.

2.4.2 Social Norms

Norms provide order in society. It is difficult to see how human society could manage without social norms. Human beings need norms to guide and direct their behavior, to present clear order in social relationships and to understand each other’s actions. These are some of the reasons why most people, most of the time, agree with social norms. Social Norms are basically unwritten rules about how to behave. Social Norms are beliefs about what is acceptable in a social context, they are unwritten

rules that a group uses for values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. They provide us with an expected idea of how to behave in a particular social group or culture.

The idea of norms offers a key to understanding social influence in general. Every group has a particular standard of behavior which is the accepted social norms. Behavior which fulfills these norms are called conformity, and most of the time roles and norms are powerful ways of understanding and predicting what people will do.

The social norms expected to be fulfilled by women are varied as they all live different lives. A stereotype definition of norms that women live by is that they are not able to be as independent on their own, they need men or society around them to guide their life. A different kind of norm some women believe is that they are in fact superior where the environment’s social norms are set by her, the change of other’s behaviors are based on the norms. There is also the case where a female individual behavior changes to adjust to the social norms set around her. Changes to how she carries on her activities and how she gets along with other people might affect her and can turn into an issue. Issues like this causes struggle for women when certain environments are difficult to adjust, they would feel like an outcast that is not fulfilling to the ‘rules’ set. Just like in The Bell Jar, Esther feels like a complete outcast to the other girls, she feel like she does not fit it or belong there. The individual may not accept what society is trying to influence. In some other case when a woman joins a female group they could be naturally and slowly influenced that their adjustments to the social norms are without self-realization. This might be because they have the similar ideas and goals as the group.

2.5 Related Journals

The research paper entitled: Oppression Toward Women in George Eliots’s The Mill on the Floss, done by Uswatun Rozaqoh a student in The State Islamic University Maulana Malik Ibrahim of Malang. This thesis focuses on the struggles of oppression that is faced by the female character Maggie that faces patriarchal kinds of oppression. This paper reveals that the oppression Maggie faces begins from the nearest community that is her own family and then grows on that first begin with her father, then uncle, and continues with her brother; and then by people in her surroundings. It shows how the men as the member of patriarchal society, who considers women as objects and possessions that do not have values or rights to be respected. They put men as priority and put women aside. In Maggie’s case, she tries to overcome the suffering that she gets from the men in her life by finding her self-esteem. Through the hatred for men, Maggie finally reveals that it is not only hate that she feels for those men but also fear that holds her from finding her self-esteem. This is what she struggles to overcome in the process of finding her self-esteem after being oppressed by a lot of people. Since The Mill on the Floss concerns about patriarchal society, it shows how women were taught to be inferior since they were very young.

The research article written by Julianna Greco in 2013 entitled Gender: A Social Construction from the Sociological Imagination: Western’s Undergraduate Sociology Student Journal. This article mainly discusses the social constructions that have been molded towards the male and female gender. However, in relation to the problems of the analysis of The Bell Jar, this article suggests some points of how society constructs femininity. This articles states that multiple institutions in society create the feminine persona. Media in particular gives negative conceptions of what it means to be a girl and unnoticeably demonstrates the subordination of women.

Subordination also takes place in the absence of the wife's name. She is labelled ‘wife’ implying again that the role of the wife is her dominant and only role, tending to the needs of the husband. Progression throughout the years has brought the status of women much closer to being equal to males, however subordination still exists, yet in a much different form.

Magazines explicitly use empowering words for females to sell their products, in a sense they use a fake feminist expression by telling young girls they can experience independence and empowerment by purchasing goods that will enhance their femininity. What all this is saying is that regardless of the time period or what medium the messages of gender are portrayed on, the simple fact that there is a difference between two genders and that through the media it demonstrates another way how gender is socially constructed through our everyday practices. The issue that society faces now can be recognized through people who clearly don’t fit the definition, which in fact includes many people. In a sense people are living in a world they simply don’t fit into, they are marginalized, and because of these narrow definitions it seems right that they should be.

CHAPTER III

METHOD OF THE STUDY

In every study or critical analysis, there is always a research method needed in the process in order to fully understand all the data and finally transform it into a complete study. In analyzing Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, the writer will use descriptive and qualitative method. The writer will go through the necessary steps for achieving the most effective study results and these steps involves research design, data sources, data collection, and data analysis.

3.1 Research Design

In this study, the writer will use descriptive method design. The main objective of this type of research is to describe the data that is going to be studied. This type of research also uses qualitative research method because all data are analyzed in the form of words and sentences. With descriptive research, the writer will aim to carry out an exploration of the certain phenomena, which in this case is social construction, feminism, social oppression and other related issues to The Bell Jar.

3.2 Data Sources

The data of this study is primarily from the novel The Bell Jar. The novel is the 50th anniversary edition that is published in 2013 by Harper Perennial Modern Classics. The novel consists of 244 pages. The data in the novel can be in the form of words, phrases, or sentences. However, the writer only focuses on data that indicates the struggles of the main character in facing social oppression and the evidences of social construction of women’s lives. Supporting the primary data, the writer also uses some related textbooks, articles, interviews, and audio books of the novel in

reference to further guidance.

3.3 Data Collection

In the step of data collection, the writer will need both primary and secondary data sources. First of all, the writer starts with getting the novel The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath which is the primary data of this research and read it over and over until the writer understands the story well. The writer will also look into secondary data such as gathering data from books, articles, webs and other supporting material that is relevant to the topic of the study. After the collection of raw materials, the writer starts to go through the data more thoroughly and takes down any notes for necessary explanations. This involves underlining and highlighting important data as well as quoting from the novel to provide concrete evidence. The data will be selected and organized in accordance with the problem of the study so finally the writer can carry out an analysis.

3.4 Data Analysis

In analysis of this study, the writer will arrange the data in accordance to the area of analysis. The writer will then:

1. Classify the data accurately by relating it to the problems and aims of this study within the novel.

2. Investigate and analyze the phenomenon of social construction towards women that relates to the novel and social reality.

3. Identify and interpret the data that suggests struggles of social oppression the female character faces.

4. The writer then can make a conclusion from overall data analysis that have been analyzed and interpreted.

Below is the flowchart of research design:

Researcher Source of data: a novel

The Bell Jar

Quote/selected text related to social construction, feminism and social oppression

Data selected: Interpreted analysis using the theories: sociology of literature, feminism, dynamic structuralism and also by descriptive and qualitative method.

CHAPTER IV

ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

4.1 Social Construction of Women’s Life

The phenomenon of social construction relies a lot on the idea that many aspects of our daily experience are the result of hidden social agreement, institutional practices and not a result of planned reality. Social reality is based on our behavior, language, culture and our institutional practices. Social construction is something you might not be aware of. You are somewhat living in separation depending on what gender, race and class you are. Race, class and gender don’t really mean anything. They only have a meaning because society gives them a meaning. Social constructions are the regulations made by people and how it privileges certain groups over others. For example, you are a woman or a man because society instructs what role you should do, not what you choose to. Just like it tells you what economic and social class you belong to.

When a baby was born, the first thing a doctor does is look at the baby’s genitalia in order to determine whether it is be a boy or a girl. This is the beginning of the gender process of social construction. After they are classified as boy or girl, parents become part of this societal process as they start dressing them with colors that identify their gender. The “normal” thing to do in this case would be for baby girls to be dressed in pink and baby boys to be dressed in blue. The reason for this is because society has made colors become a symbol to show boys and girls. After this, as children grow up they start learning how they are supposed to act by observing and imitating the people of the same gender; girls should act like their mother and boys should act like their father. Each gender is expected to dress and act in a certain way

and these behaviors then lead to stereotypes.

As stated in Riant Nugroho’s Gender dan Strategi, the nurture theory believe that the differences of gender relations between men and women are not determined by biological factors but by social construction. In other words, according to nurture theory, social roles is considered and understood as a religious doctrine. It is not God’s will or even the determination of biological products but rather as a product of social construction. Therefore, the widespread values of gender prejudice in society that are considered caused by biological factors, is actually by none other than cultural construction (2008:22).

This social construction is separating us depending on our physical appearance and our material possessions. We are seen differently because of where we live, where we come from and how we look. Women are weak, therefore men, who are strong and dominant, should be the one in power. If you live in an apartment, then you must be from the lower class, but if you live in a house then you must be either middle or upper class. If you go to a private school then you must be rich, but if you go to a public school then most certainly you’re poor or low income. This is all what society has planted in us, but we also have fault that we have been caught up on this whole idea of stereotypes and standard. We are supposed to follow because after all, we believe what we want to believe.

…and they were mostly girls my age with wealthy parents...and they were all going to posh secretarial schools like Katy Gibbs, where they had to wear hats and stockings and gloves to class…(Plath, 2013:3)

Esther Greenwood self-consciously distances herself from the other women who are wealthier than her. The fact that she won the opportunity for a month in New York City does make her part of the team. But she also knows the lifestyle these

women live are not to her standards or her desires. This already shows the stratification that Sylvia Plath have introduced, these women all prefer the high class and are used to the excitement of the city life and luxuries. Whereas Esther feels like she does not belong there even though she has earned all those privileges.

With all the stratifications and distinctions that have been constructed by society, the way people think and act to each other is also considered. There are places and environments in which an individual might have to adjust even if they are not from the place. These are mainly their behavior towards other individuals and how they present themselves. The consciousness of having to act a certain way in a certain environment sometimes affects them either positively or negatively. Some people are even unconscious about the social constructions affecting and changing their behavior because they feel like they are part of that group. These behaviors are known as norms. Sociologists have described norms as informal understandings that govern society’s behaviors. Norms are unwritten rules about how to behave in a given context. Social norms are usually adopted by groups of people that expect others to behave a certain way_. Norms can arise formally, where groups clearly outline and apply behavioral expectations. Laws or rules serve as an example of this. A large number of these norms we follow naturally such as driving on the right side of the road in America or not speeding in order to avoid a ticket. Many formal norms serve to provide safety to the major public.

Wellek and Warren claimed that the class of every community is based on their social stratification. Norms of the upper class often spread to the lower class. The bourgeoisie has long led the literary taste, long before gaining political power. Differences in tastes are based on age, gender, and particular groups and made it difficult to understand the social stratification (119:1990).

The emergence of social norms or also known as ‘conventional laws’ in society maybe through informal evolution. This means that they emerge slowly as a result of repeated actions to control behavior. Social norms in American are important in society. The conscious and unconscious developments of social norms created order for the people in society in the big country. But it does differ from other cultures around the world. Americans lived a western lifestyle where they have more freedom to do what they want compared with other country. However, the lives of Americans are still set according to social construction. The social norms do exist formally and informally within society. Formal ones such as laws, religious taboos or informal such as mores, folkways, customs.

But the implementation of certain social norms on women’s life has impacted how they have to act around men and the rest of the society. Women were used to think they are indeed secondary compared to men, this way of thinking also leads to the way they behave. Because a level is put on men and women, women had to think carefully how men would accept their behavior. How they behave or what they say is what men judge them by. As social beings, individuals learn when and where it is appropriate to say certain things, to use certain words, to discuss certain topics or wear certain clothes, and when it is not. The norms make good order in society but between gender roles there are impacts because the norms are bias.

This woman lawyer said the best men wanted to be pure for their wives, and even if they weren't pure, they wanted to be the ones to teach their wives about sex. Of course they would try to persuade a girl to have sex and say they would marry her later, but as soon as she gave in, they would lose all respect for her and start saying that if she did that with them she would do that with other men and they would end up by making her life miserable……I couldn't stand the idea of a woman having to have a single pure life and a man being able to have a double life, one pure and one not. (Plath, 2013:80-82)

The quotation above from the novel shows how the society was bias during the time. Even the women writing the article with a career thought they have to keep themselves pure for men, whilst men can have a double life. Esther clearly disagrees and thinks this is absurd. The example that is set by the women and media is something that does not support Esther’s situation at all. The article itself is a form of social construction that oppresses women mentally and biologically as well as lowering their standards. This proves how the ideologies of most people back then were still under the traditional patriarchal system. Where most women still thinks and agrees to the rules and regulations set by the male dominance.

Not just problems in different gender roles, even in the same group of gender, individuals still have to try and fit the expectation of the group. When an individual fails to do this or does not accept this, they will feel like an outcast and rejected. Just like the The Bell Jar, Esther is one lucky girl to have got an opportunity to work in a fashion magazine in New York City, but the norms in the group of girls does not fit her. She does not feel happy or as excited as other girls do. But instead she feels nothing because she feels out of place, like she doesn’t belong to them. It might be because of the fast pace life of the city that time and Esther cannot keep up. These kinds of situations happen when an individual suffers to reach the expected norms of social construction. Especially in this context it is in the world of female gender, there is a restriction which trap women’s life. They are expected to act in a certain way, enter a certain career and live a certain life, especially which are fitted and suited for women. When one fails to be satisfied in this role they are lost and depressed. Because people limit women’s movement and create invisible oppression towards women. The emergence of these norms are from society, therefore society itself has constructed women to adopt these norms. They must stay quite and safe, they must

not work with high career men and that they have to behave the way men want them to behave.

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet. (Plath, 2013:78)

Here we can see how social construction plays a big part in oppressing Esther’s thoughts. The quotation above sounds like sarcasm but at the same time she does consider all the options. She is packed by other people’s desires mixed with some of her own desires. The choices of life others ‘pressure’ on her, including her own mother definitely doesn’t make it any easy for her. Considering all those different lives clearly shows the influence of social construction slowly and successfully absorbing into her head. Her independence and her freedom is still there, the choice of her desired life is in one of those branches, but she still considers what society thinks is best for her, not what she thinks is best for herself.

4.1.1 Partriarchy vs Feminism

There can be no doubt that our Nation has had a long and unfortunate history of sex discrimination. Traditionally, such discrimination was rationalized by an attitude of “romantic paternalism” which, in practical effect, put women not on a pedestal, but in a cage. - Frontiero v. Richardson, 1973

When we talk about women who are oppressed by men, we also talk about patriarchy, which has existed long ago. Patriarchal ideology is a system that gives priority for men. For centuries, the universe has been dominated by a patriarchal ideology, which has been defined as a set of beliefs that legitimizes male power and authority over women. For hundred years, patriarchy prohibited women from having a legal or political identity and the legislation and social attitudes support this way.

…in all columns, books and articles by experts telling women their roles was to seek fulfillment as wives and mothers. Over and over women heard in voices of tradition and of Freudian sophistication that they could desire no greater destiny than to glory in their own feminity. (Friedan, 1963:15)

According to Kate Millet in Prabasmoro’s Kajian Budaya Feminis, legitimacy is made to ensure that the system running in a society is in accordance with the desire of public authorities themselves. That is, when women are equal members of society to men, rules are created so that the power structure remains in accordance with the ideology that underlies the entire structure of society itself. That ideology itself, without much debate, is a patriarchal ideology that promotes the interests of men, prioritizing the masculine values and at the same time ignoring the interests of women and degrading feminine values. This points to low appreciation of work and domestic roles even to the stage where women share public and economic burden to reach the needs of families. This occurs because of the role of women in the public sector is considered purely as extra work, while domestic work is a women’s place.

They were taught to pity the neurotic, unfeminine, unhappy women who wanted to be poets or physicists or presidents. They learned that truly feminine women do not want careers, high education, political rights – the independence and the opportunities that the old-fashioned feminists fought for. (Friedan, 1963:16)

Feminist claims for equality are generally accepted as reasonable principles in western society and they fight for equal status for women of all races, classes, sexualities and abilities in the 21st century, unfortunately this idea is mostly rejected by the dominant power of men.

In Tong’s Feminist Thoughts, feminist gender Nel Noddings claims that women and men speak different morals, and that our culture gives priority for the masculine ethics of justice rather than the feminine care ethics (1998:230). Here we can see how the women’s voices are stopped by cultural construction and feminine thoughts. Automatically, society decides what is more powerful.

When women wanted to question inequalities in their own lives they turned to history to understand the roots of their oppression. It is also to see what they could learn from challenges that they have faced in the past. Feminism in America has played an important role in the history and culture of the country itself. The whole thing started in the late 1800s when women fought for their rights to be heard and allowed to vote. Through the next century the desire for women to become more socially equal was the focus of the feminist movement in America.

The beginning of the first wave of Feminism in America began during the late 1800’s which was following the end of the American Civil War. The wave formally began at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 when 300 men and women rallied to the cause of equality for women. The goal of this wave was to open up opportunities for women, with a focus on suffrage. By 1920, American women were finally granted universal suffrage due to a passage that prohibited any citizen being denied the right to vote based on gender.

The second wave began in the 1960s nearly as soon as the end of World War II and continued into the 90's. This wave unfolded in the context of the anti-war and civil rights movements and the growing self-consciousness of a variety of minority groups around the world. During the war, it was proven that women were completely capable of doing the jobs that men had abandoned when they went to war. Women requested to be freed from the traditional roles of housewife and caregiver. They hope to gain a higher position in the work force.

The third wave of feminism in America took place in the early 1990’s. This wave did not have a specific goal but instead raised awareness to gain all sorts of equality, such as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and social class. This modern wave of feminism also gives attention towards issues like gender violence, reproductive right, sexual harassments and provides support of all sorts.

4.1.2 American Society During 20th Century

Betty Friedan’s book Feminine Mystique pressed on the idea that women had no other roles other than being a wife or mother. She began encouraging women to pursue what they desired to do in life and gain the roles in a society that was labeled as male-dominated. Women started to oppose to gender discrimination in workplaces and demanded full equality to men.

The typical image of America in the 1950s was of a simpler, happier one emerging from the aftermath of the Second World War. Families moved to the suburbs, raised a baby boom, and lived a life in which everyone had a specified role. Women were considered domestic caregivers, with a single responsibility for the home and child, while men brought home the money. This was what social construction labeled women as.

Popular since the 1950s, this tenacious stereotype conjures mythic images of culture icons - June Cleaver, Donna Reed, Harriet Nelson - the quintessential white, middle- class housewives who stayed at home to rear children, clean house and bake cookies. (Meyerowitz, 1994)

The idea of the ideal women gave a clear picture to women of what they were supposed to imitate as their proper gender role in society. As a result, women began to construct their identities around this image, and some still do so today. Gender construction is nothing new to American society or even to any other society. Society does play a huge role in the construction of individual gender roles, and in turn our identity. This is not to say that society has complete control over this construction.

Historians of American culture began to pay close attention to the socializing experiences of women from 1945 to 1960 also referred to as the “post-war” era. Before this change, historians considered these years fairly unimportant for women, often seeing them only as a passive link between women workers in World War II and the political activists of the 1960s. But in fact the ideological and institutional limitations of 1950s American society had a significant impact on the construction of women’s identities during this time period. Women had achieved perhaps too much economic independence during World War II, which makes the oppressive qualities of the domestic ideal of the 1950s harmful to the construction of women’s identities.

At the time during the 1950s, there were many more men in the work force and women earned far less money. However in 1963 when Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique was published, this critical study of middle-class women's anger and proposed solutions made the way for a redefinition of sex roles in America. In 1966, three years after Plath had taken her own life, Friedan and her colleagues established the National Organization for Women (NOW).

Betty Friedan was perhaps the first to identify what is now referred to as the stereotype of the “ideal woman”. In her classic study The Feminine Mystique she stated that, magazines did not passively participate in enforcing these gender roles, but were in fact an active force behind the creation of what she termed the “feminine monster.” She claimed that

the manufacturing sector had decided to make women better consumers of home products by reinforcing and rewarding the concept of women’s total fulfillment through the role of housewife and mother” (Friedan, 1963).

She was greatly alarmed at how advertising had become such a powerful force in shaping the social fabrication of women such as pressuring women to stay at home. She was also alarmed by how with certainty these advertisements shaped the creation of a woman’s identity in terms of this ideal model. Throughout almost every source discussing the domestic ideal there is an agreement that media, primarily magazines and film, were the primary methods of which this model was send out to women, in effect the social construction agent.

Women could find fulfillment only in sexual passivity, male domination, and nurturing maternal love. It denied women a career or any commitment outside the home and narrowed woman’s world down to the home, cut her role back to housewife (Friedan, 1963).

The slight absence of feminism in the 1940s and 1950s in American society made an impact on women’s life. Perhaps more specifically referring to the condition at the time and relating it to the novel The Bell Jar. The setting and social condition where the story and how social reality was like at the time. Even though waves of feminism already begun and develop there are still absence of the movement. It is probably impossible to fully understand The Bell Jar without an awareness of the relative absence of feminism in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. These

decades were fairly wealthy ones in American history, and women's social and financial positions are usually based on their husbands' occupation and income. Although more than six million women went to work when America was engaged in World War II, after the war ended, many were encouraged to leave the work force and the patriarchal system emerges back into society.

Dr. Benjamin Spock, who published the book Baby and Child Care, once even said that the federal government subsidizes housewives to discourage them from entering into the work force. Many single women worked out of economic needs, they were not encouraged to show ambition or to stay in the work force indefinitely. A married woman who is either with or without children that earns as much as her husband was rare. But women who worked in basic or low-paying jobs were less of a threat to mainstream America. Just like in The Bell Jar, Mrs. Greenwood encourages her daughter, Esther, to learn shorthand because that skill will at least guarantee her some kind of job after college. The lack of choice, freedom, and social support really puts a pressure on the roles of women at the time. It was either living their desired life but not deserving as much, and living the traditional role of women and relying on their husband.

The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow shoots off from. I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket. (Plath, 2013:83)

Esther confesses that she hates the idea of being captivated by men. The life that she wants is not to live under a set of rules all her life, but she wants to experience she own excitement through her own freedom.

The changing world of women has had a dramatic impact on Americans in the last 30 years. Historically, men have held jobs outside the home while women care for the house and family, the study noted, but that situation began to change when the baby-boom generation started to grow up. The 1950's were perhaps the last decade in which women's behavior and social norms were in agreement with the family oriented lifestyle. By 1960 one-fourth of married women with children were in the labor force, and today the figure is more than half.

The Bell Jar functions on many literary levels, but it is perhaps most obviously about the limitations forced on young, intelligent American women in the 1950s. A brilliant woman with literary desires, Esther glances into the future and does not like her choices. As it has been discussed before, The Bell Jar relies heavily on Plath's own life experience. Like Esther, Plath attended Smith College on scholarship, earned top grades, published poetry at a young age, and majored in English. Like Esther, she did a summer internship in New York City, suffered a mental collapse, and was institutionalized. Both eventually recovered to the extent they were released from psychiatric units into the "real world." While Esther's future, by the novel's conclusion, remains uncertain, Sylvia Plath's recovery only lasted a decade and on February 11th 1963, she chose to end her own life.

In Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, there are major feminist issues, mainly concerning liberal feminism and some radical feminism. Esther struggles to live her desired life, doing what she loves. She is instead burdened with the thoughts of her mother’s wishes and other voices of society. This kind of pressure is what made the construction of women’s life at that time. The issues that women face in order to get a small bit of freedom is pushed aside by what society decide.

The way society is taught to be socialized is most important and goes unnoticed, therefore it is valid to claim that gender is socially constructed through our everyday practices, whether we are aware of the construction or not - Gender: A Social Construction (Greco, 2013).

But as society moved to a different decade, women were educated during the 1960s at a higher rate than in any previous time, many of them in fields not traditionally thought to be accessible to women. Birth control also became available during this time, which increased the sexual independence and professional career options of women.

The 1960s, with its increase of women in the workforce, education and availability of birth control, this idea appeared to be the exact opposite of the “ideal woman” of the 1950s. However, most studies indicate that while women succeed in these areas, they still felt it was necessary to hold on to the domestic ideal as much as possible in order to maintain their identity as a “good woman, mother, and wife.” So while women in result achieved great rise of liberation during the 1960s they were still bound by the oppression of the domestic ideal, much like the problem that workingwomen of today face. Even for Plath, after all the liberation and changes that have happened for women, the oppression in her life in the 1960s still made her to end her life.

The construction of gender construction in our society had almost made a permanent label from when it first started. The phenomenon of this construction has made a huge effect in the lives of women especially. This is because from the beginning women were treated as a second-class citizen by men. It affects women greatly because as human beings just like men, they are restricted to do things that men can. This kind of discrimination oppresses women’s lives, as it is completely

unfair. The misjudging perspective that men put on women is lowering the standards of women, even if they are way more intelligent and skilled in various aspects than men are. It has almost become a tradition and a typical stereotypical ideology even to this day in certain places and culture. As we have looked into the social condition of how women’s life were constructed in America particularly during the 1950s, linking to The Bell Jar.

4.2 The Struggle of the Main Character in Facing Social Oppression

According to the data analysis that applies to dynamic structuralism, the first step to be carried out is examining the intrinsic element with the technique reading in detail. In analyzing the struggles of social oppression, the will researcher look at the social conditions between men, women and society in that time. According to the sociological approach to literature, elements in a literary work is directly linked to elements in society. This approach departed from the idea that literature is a picture of social reality and that literature documents and records socio-cultural reality of a society at a particular time. It also links the relationship of the elements in one work with the elements in the society portrayed in the works. As Wellek and Warren have stated:

Literature is a social institution that uses the medium of language. Traditional literary techniques such as symbolism and dimensions are social conventions and norms as a community. Literature "presents life" and that "life" itself consists mostly of social reality, although literature also “mimics" human nature and the subjective world.

Literature has a social function or 'benefits' are not entirely personal. Thus, the problem of literary studies imply or constitute a social problem: the problem of tradition, conventions, norms, types of literature (genre), symbol and myth. (1990:109).

The analysis of this chapter will explore the results of identity formation within a society through the thoughts and actions of the main female character Esther

Greenwood. The novel begins with Esther’s first exposure to New York City, the all-American metropolis that symbolizes the fast-paced, ultra-modern lifestyle that is envied by many people. Elements in the novel follows the way in which the feminist identity develops while existing in a society that is distinguished by sexism, patriarchy, double standards, and rigid expectations.

This study will involve approaching the text through both a feminist angle and sociological angle. The cycle of isolation, exclusion, death, and rebirth is not only physical, but also mental as well, and symbolizes Esther’s consciousness of her sexuality. This is in terms society’s imprisonment towards her by oppressing her life. Although the story of The Bell Jar is set in the American 1950s, many of the elements and issues in which Plath planned to show are still present and widespread even today. It describes how the health and happiness of women at a time were only considered important in reference to a man. The situation is also considered trapped because it shows how women are expected to work a certain career that is allowed and directed by society. This means they are the expectancy of society’s lifestyle for women in the career world and how they should live it. This phenomenon is then linked to the cultural elements that exist in the communities in which the novel was produced and used. It can be a socio-cultural customs, habits, ways of thinking, and the way people act at that time.

In many ways this novel is a feminist text centered on the struggles of a young woman who cannot reach her goals and achieve her true potential in a male-dominated society. The author tries to convey the important message of how this society is very much entitled to molding the lives of women in every aspect of their life. The Bell Jar vividly describes how America in the 1950s was an unbelievably stultifying and an oppressive environment in which to grow up, particularly for

women. The limitations forced by sexism tend to block Esther’s talent at every turn until she is puzzled of her own self. Plath in The Bell Jar also demonstrates the way in which women are psychologically unhealthy for not meeting the expectations to socially given sex roles.

According to Phyllis Chesler, a leading feminist critique, female happiness is viewed and "treated" as a problem of individual pathology, no matter how many other female patients are similarly unhappy - and this by men who have diligently avoid the objective fact of female oppression. Women's inability to change to or to be satisfied by feminine roles has been considered as a difference from "natural" female psychology rather than as a criticism of such roles. Each woman as a patient thinks these symptoms are unique and are her own fault. She is neurotic, rather than oppressed. She wants from a psychotherapist what she wants--and often cannot get - from a husband attention, understanding, acceptance, merciful relief, a personal solution.

The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence. I knew perfectly well the cars were making noise, and the people in them and behind the lit windows of the buildings were making a noise, and the river was making a noise, but I couldn't hear a thing. The city hung in my window, flat as a poster, glittering and blinking, but it might just as well not have been there at all, for all the good it did me. (Plath, 2013:18)

Esther Greenwood’s time in New York City have not had the happiest experience; it wasn’t even what she would have expected herself to react. The girls were given all the privileges but Esther couldn’t enjoy them, she is stuck in her own silent mind, like stated in the quote above. Even the noises and life of the most exciting city is mute like it has no life at all. Her surroundings might all seem unreal to her, almost fake, picture-like and not the reality that she is in now. This is due to

her shift in her desired-life, because Esther is not sure if this is the life or career that she wants. All the material and the excitement do not do any to her because she does not know if that is her preferred life. The pressure of the whole New York society and the experience eventually brings her to think none of it is real.

I thought of crawling in between the bed sheets and trying to sleep, but that appealed to me about as much as stuffing a dirty, scrawled-over letter into a fresh, clean envelope. I decided to take a hot bath. There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them. Whenever I'm sad I'm going to die, or so nervous I can't sleep, or in love with somebody I won't be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: "I'll go take a hot bath." I meditate in the bath. The water needs to be very hot, so hot you can barely stand putting your foot in it. (Plath, 2013:19)

I don't believe in baptism or the waters of Jordan or anything like that, but I guess I feel about a hot bath the way those religious people feel about holy water. I said to myself: "Doreen is dissolving, Lenny Shepherd is dissolving, Frankie is dissolving, New York is dissolving, they are all dissolving away and none of them matter any more. I don't know them, I have never known them and I am very pure. All that liquor and those sticky kisses I saw and the dirt that settled on my skin on the way back is turning into something pure." The longer I lay there in the clear hot water the purer I felt, and when I stepped out at last and wrapped myself in one of the big, soft white hotel bath towels I felt pure and sweet as a new baby. (Plath, 2013:20)

The constant struggles Esther face in the outside world and the stress it has on her can be seen due to how she wants to cleanse her body. Her perspective towards hot water is very different to the perspectives of society. Here is an element in the novel that shows her true character. This situation is a method of how she copes with society in her stressful daily life. By giving herself some time, she cleans of all the oppression and stress and restores her true spirits. The character’s survival technique shows how spiritual she is but in a different way, in her own way. The amount of social oppression out there can also be noticed because of this desire of a hot bath. Everything in her everyday life is dissolving and she is left with herself to focus up to the point she feels reborn again. Esther’s way of staying pure and being her self is by

cleansing her body with a hot bath. The fact that she is only pure during or a while after a hot bath really shows how much she is not living in her own wanted life. She has to force herself to stay in the route of society up to the point she considers herself not ‘pure’.

The woman's stomach stuck up so high I couldn't see her face or the upper part of her body at all. She seemed to have nothing but an enormous spider-fat stomach and two little ugly spindly legs propped in the high stirrups and all the time the baby was being born she never stopped making this unhuman whooping noise. (Plath, 2013:65)

While society celebrates motherhood, Esther views maternity as something disgusting and "unhuman." The woman she witnesses in the delivery room is reduced to a horrible spider. Her perspective about motherhood changes completely, yet after this her mother still pushes her to marry and start a family.

My list grew longer. I was a terrible dancer. I couldn't carry a tune. I had no sense of balance, and when we had to walk down a narrow board with our hands out and a book on our heads in gym class I always fell over. I couldn't ride a horse or ski, the two things I wanted to do most, because they cost too much money. I couldn't speak German or read Hebrew or write Chinese. I didn't even know where most of the old out-of-the-way countries the UN men in front of me represented fitted in on the map. For the first time in my life, sitting there in the soundproof heart of the UN building between Constantin who could play tennis as well as simultaneously interpret and the Russian girl who knew so many idioms, I felt dreadfully inadequate. The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn't thought about it. The one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and prizes, and that era was coming to an end. I felt like a racehorse in a world without racetracks or a champion college footballer suddenly confronted by Wall Street and a business suit, his days of glory shrunk to a little gold cup on his mantel with a date engraved on it like the date on a tombstone. (Plath, 2013:77)

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of

other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet. (Plath, 2013:78)

The quotation above clearly shows the dilemma that Esther is facing. Her options about how to live her life stretches in more branches than she realized. Only one branch is what she really wants to live by, but the other branches are also making here confused. She cant quite make the decisions since everyone else around her is also trying to make the decision for her, each wanting different things she should do with her life. This kinds of oppression is what goes around her head all the time, considering all the things what people think is best for her. Esther as a women does not have the most stable support system around her, because we can see she is more of an isolated person. Her desires to do more with her life comes to pause, due to the pressure that other people put on her. Due to all this pressure, Esther lacks independence for herself as she contemplates more on other’s opinions instead of coming to solid terms with her own desires.

What a man wants is a mate and what a woman wants is infinity security," and, "What a man is is an arrow into the future and what a woman is is the place the arrow shoots off from. (Plath, 2013:72)

These words are the sayings of Mrs. Willard, Buddy's mother and Esther's prospective mother-in-law. The idea that a woman might want to be something other than her husband's biggest fan is foreign to Mrs. Willard. Esther does not accept the idea that women should be happy with marriage and domesticity while the man goes off and does exciting things. In this passage, Esther rejects Mrs. Willard's views.

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Papers & Journals

Greco, Julianna. 2013. “Gender: A Social Construction," in Sociological Imagination: Western’s Undergraduate Sociology Student Journal, Vol. 2: Iss. 2, Article 8 Nasution, Siti Norma. 2012. Portret Keterpinggiran dan Perjuangan Kemandirian

Perempuan Dalam Lima Novel Nh. Dini. Denpasar: Universitas Udayana Rozaqoh, Uswatun. 2009. Oppression Toward Women in George Eliots’s The Mill on

the Floss. Malang: State Islamic University Maulana Malik Ibrahim

Internet Sites

Beth, Sarah. March 2013. Plath’s The Bell Jar: An autobiographical reflection of the feminist identity in the patriarchal society of the 1950s. Retrieved from http://blogs.cofc.edu/literature/ (September 2013)

Flores, Laura. What is Social Construction?. Retrieved from http://oakes.ucsc.edu/academics/ (January 2014)

Lewis, John Johnson. What is Feminism?. Retrieved from http://womenshistory.about.com/ (August 2013)

Montgomery, Casey. November 2007. Feminism in Sylvia Plath’s the Bell Jar.

APPENDICES

I. Summary of The Bell Jar

The Bell Jar records seven months in the life of Esther Greenwood. The story begins with Esther Greenwood, a college student from Massachusetts in New York working on a magazine for a month as a guest editor. She works for a sympathetic but demanding woman. Esther knows she should be having the time of her life, but she feels numb. She questions her abilities and worries about what she will do after college. On her last night in the city, she goes on failed blind date with a man who tries to rape her. Esther is confused about living a normal domestic life, or tries to fulfill her ambitions. Buddy Willard, her college boyfriend wants to marry Esther. From the outside, Buddy seems to be the ideal guy, he is handsome, gentle, intelligent, and ambitious. But he does not understand Esther’s desire to write poetry, and when he confesses that he slept with a waitress while dating Esther, Esther is sickened and decides she cannot marry him. She sets out to lose her virginity as a way to prove something to herself.

Esther returns to Boston and discovers she hasn’t been accepted to a certain writing class. She will have to spend the summer with her mother instead. Esther then starts to finds the feelings of unreality she experienced in New York taking over her life. She is unable to read, write, or sleep, and she stops bathing. Her mother takes her to Dr. Gordon, a psychiatrist who gives her electric shock therapy. Esther becomes more unstable than ever after the terrifying treatment and becomes suicidal. She tries to slit her wrists, hang herself, drown herself but always seen to fail. Finally, she hides in a basement and takes a large quantity of sleeping pills and wakes up in a hospital.

After she is healed she is sent to the psychological ward in the city hospital, where she is uncooperative, paranoid, and determined to end her life. Eventually someone move her to a private hospital. In this more enlightened environment, Esther starts to trust her new psychiatrist, a woman named Dr. Nolan. She slowly begins to improve with a combination of talk therapy, insulin injections, and properly administered electric shock therapy. She becomes friends with Joan, a woman who had experience similar to Esther. But she is disgusted when Joan makes a sexual move towards her.

Esther improves but during one day of her hospital leave she finally loses her virginity with a math professor named Irwin. She starts bleeding non-stop and is taken to the emergency room. One morning, she found out that Joan has hanged herself. Buddy comes to visit Esther, and both understand that their relationship is over. Esther will leave the mental hospital in time to start winter semester at college. She believes that she has regained a weak understanding on sanity, but knows that the bell jar of her struggles could appear again at any time.

II. Biography of Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath was born on 27 October 1932 in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, to Aurelia Schober and Otto Emil Plath. In 1940, her father, a professor of entomology, died, an event that left lasting psychological scars on Plath. References to her dead father pass through Plath's work, including The Colossus and The Bell Jar. In 1942, Aurelia Plath found work teaching in a medical/secretarial program at Boston University. The family settled in Wellesley, Massachusetts. An excellent student, Plath showed enormous determination to get her fiction published. She submitted forty-five pieces to the magazine Seventeen before they published her story, "And Summer Will Not Come Again" in 1950.

At Smith College, she wrote poetry, was elected to various class offices, and received prizes for both her prose and poetry. This gifted woman had many insecurities and is seen in one of her letters to a friend, which reveals "for the few little outward successes I may seem to have, there are acres of misgivings and self-doubts." Part of Plath's frustration lay between the choice of becoming a free-spirited poet or choosing the wife/mother life.

In the summer of 1952, she was chosen as a guest editor in Mademoiselle's

College Board Contest. The prize, a month of employment at the magazine in New York City, did not brighten Plath's mood. Despite the many perks, living at the Barbizon Hotel, having expensive meals, meeting celebrities, Plath found the overall experience to be artificial and fake. Her common disappointment, dating experiences, and interactions with her boss and co-workers is shown significantly into the first half of The Bell Jar. Plath returned home after her employment ended and learned that she did not get accepted into the summer writing course that she had counted on. Her miserable following months includes confused attempts to set up her career goals, a highly publicized suicide attempt, electroshock therapy, institutionalization, and recover are all clear in the second half of The Bell Jar.

Plath returned to Smith College in January 1954, graduated suma cum laude and won a Fulbright fellowship to study at Cambridge University in England. There, she met aspiring poet Ted Hughes, to whom she was immediately attracted. They married in June 1956. In 1957, the couple left England and settled in Northampton, Massachusetts, where Plath taught freshman English at Smith College. Considered an outstanding instructor, Plath also wrote poetry and worked on a first draft of The Bell Jar. In 1959, she and her husband returned to England and in 1960 her collection of

encouraging, although certain critics praised Plath's gifts for language. In April 1960, she gave birth to a daughter, Frieda.

For the next year, Plath did not write much. A busy wife and mother, her health was poor, having suffered a miscarriage and an appendectomy. However, by spring 1961, she was working on The Bell Jar. She applied for and received a Saxon fellowship. In February, 1962, she gave birth to a son, Nicholas. By summer 1962, her marriage to Ted Hughes was breaking up and he left her and their children. A devastated Plath now wrote poems at a phenomenal rate, sometimes one a day. The Bell Jar was published in January 1963.

Although usually depressed in the last year of her life, Plath had one happy experience. In December 1962, she and her children moved into a flat in which the poet William Butler Yeats had once lived. But with her poor health, the difficulty of raising two children by herself, and not having received the critical praise she desired, Plath ended her life in February 1963.

Much to the disappointment of some admirers of Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes became her literary executor after her death. While there has been some speculation about how he handled her papers and her image, he did edit what is considered by many her greatest work, Ariel. It featured several of her most well-known poems, including "Daddy" and "Lady Lazarus." He continued to produce new collections of Plath's works. Sylvia Plath won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for Collected Poems. She is still a highly regarded and much studied poet to this day.