The Bell Jar and Sylvia Plath's Poems

The Bell Jar:
Well, I don't really know exactly what to make of this so far. While I've read about 50 pages of it, I really don't find it to be all that entrancing. It seems a little dry to me and I just can't seem to enjoy a book about someone who is working for a magazine. It might be the fact that I don't really like the protagonist and her idea of, "Oh, I have to work today so my boss is evil. I wanted to go and lie down in the grass in Central Park but to think i have responsibilities. Oh shoot." Also, I really hate how she wanted to abandon her friend and act like she had nothing to do with her after Doreen met Lenny. All in all, the character seems to be a terrible person who seems to be begging for people to pity her. I would not recommend this book, unless it gets better later on.

Poems:
The Colossus, Death & Co., Doomsday, Owl, Nightshift.

It was a labor to read these poems. They all deal with death and sadness and darkness and that sort of stuff, and I just can't read poems like this unless they're by Poe. Doomsday annoyed me because it repeated lines, and I really don't enjoy reading a poem that is just the same liens, over and over again. Death and Co. was just... bad. I really didn't like that one. While the last line worked, the rest of the poem just didn't really click for me. I think if she were to re-write this poem using the same last line but a completely different way to get to that last line, it would be so much better (and yes, I know she would have to be resurrected to re-write that). The Colossus seemed to ramble. It was just sort of a really aggravating poem. The last group of lines seemed to be rather pointless and cryptic. It was hard to decipher them, and I still don't know exactly what she was trying to say. Nightshift was actually rather enjoyable. It was about the concept of fear in a dark area, all by yourself. I feel that it managed to convey the feeling of fear rather well, and the idea that when you hear a noise you just assume that it's some monster or mass murderer. Owl had rather good imagery. It gave the picture of midnight rather clear, and it made me imagine a town such as London at night time.