Sunday, December 30, 2012


The Bell Jar Reflection #1

Chapter 1 (pgs. 1-11)

The opening sentence of The Bell Jar was a huge attention grabber for me; it talked about a man and a woman by the name of the Rosenburgs who had just been electrocuted.  Although I do not think the Rosenburgs are going to be a huge part of the book, using that episode was a great way to lead into telling us about the life of the main character, Esther Greenwood. 

Esther is a nineteen year old girl from Boston who won a writing contest for a fashion magazine and as a prize won a dream job in New York for a month with all expenses paid.  Esther knows that with this amazing opportunity she received, she should be having the time of her life, but she knows there is a problem when all she can think about are the Rosenburgs.  Esther feels as if something from her life is missing.  She states that “A girl from a small town with my opportunity should be steering New York like her own private car.  Only I wasn’t steering anything, not even myself.”(pg.2) 

Esther lives in the Amazon hotel with twenty other girls; however, she likes to keep to herself.  She really only has one good friend named Doreen, who is beautiful.  Towards the end of the chapter, they are on their way to a work party when two guys stop them and ask them to go to a bar with them.  They decide to be a little risky for the night and take a chance.  Esther does not have the best time because she got stuck with the short, ugly guy, which was not good considering she was 5’10”, while Doreen got the tall, good looking one.  Esther orders a glass of vodka plain, which was quite humorous to me.  This book seems like it is going to be very interesting and I cannot wait to read on and see what happens next.

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