Feminism in The Bell Jar In Sylvia Plath's autobiographical novel The Bell Jar, the reader learns about the adventures of a young woman in a male-dominated society that does not It will allow you to reach your true potential goals. Plath's alter ego, Esther, is thus driven to a nervous breakdown and attempts suicide numerous times. In many ways, this novel is a feminist text, focusing on the struggles of a young woman who fails to achieve her goals in our male-dominated society. People close to Esther do not accept her talent as a poet and writer, but rather try to push her towards traditionally more feminine roles. For example, Esther's mother repeatedly tries to get her to learn shorthand, but Esther rebels, saying "...when I tried to imagine myself in some work, quickly jotting down line after line of shorthand, my mind went blank" . (100) Esther, unlike many women of her time, refuses to be controlled by the gender-based constraints of society: "The last thing I wanted was endless security and to be the place where an arrow shoots from. I wanted change and excitement and I myself take off in all directions, like the colored arrows of a Fourth of July rocket." (68) The phrases “infinite security” and “the place from which an arrow shoots” come from Mrs. Willard's description of women's role in society (58). This passage directly addresses Plath's central purpose in the novel, which is to examine the mental problems that can affect a woman with ambitions that the surrounding culture does not allow her to fulfill. This book was published in 1963, around the beginning of the "feminist movement"; the events recounted in this book, however, take place in 1953 (208), in a period during which women's rights were not yet widely recognized in our society. The passage quoted above and the emotions it conveys are typical of a feminist like Esther, but Esther is ahead of her time and therefore is unable to express herself to society in the way she would like..