Woody Allen is holding a copy of The Bell Jar [and says] “Sylvia Plath: interesting poetess whose tragic suicide was misinterpreted as romantic by the college-girl mentality.” Here, Allen seems to be implying that young female readers of The Bell Jar just don’t get it; they misconstrue the actual content behind the novel, and instead come out seeing the book as romantic. The reality, of course, is in fact the opposite. Yes, many young women relate to The Bell Jar and see themselves in the character of Esther Greenwood. Stories about young women within this particular context (that analyze the abusive and sexist ways society treats them, as well as looks into women with mental illnesses) are rare and, as such, it is hardly surprising that women relate to it. Additionally, as I have discussed here, many women also enjoy the novel because they see the level of skill and intellect that was put into it, oftentimes more so than many critics have. (…) They say that because the novel was the autobiographical story of someone with a mental illness, it is allowed to be brushed off and doesn’t merit grand literary analysis. Then, when the novel is popular with the very demographic it is focused on, critics then tell the fans they are romanticizing a tragic story because they relate to it, and then label the novel itself as inferior because of the way it resonates with young women, a group of people that society loves to mock and ridicule. The reality, of course, is simply that in The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath is saying things that are true.
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