The Bell Jar Big Question

One of the big questions in The Bell Jar is what drives humans to suicide? There are a ton of different things that can drive people to suicide. For instance some one who went through something that was very traumatic such as physical, mental, or sexual abuse may not know how to handle/deal with what happened to them which can lead a person to suicide. Or if some one is very depressed and doesn't get help this could also lead to suicide. In Esther's case she is depressed and this is what leads her to try and commit suicide. Even though it seems like Esther has everything she wants she isn't happy. She is very intelegent  and extremely talented. She went to a really good college, the one that she wanted to go to. Which not everyone who applies for the college they want to go to get accepted. So you would think that she would be happy but she wasn't. She was to depressed to see it as something good. She was very talented when it came to writing however at one point in the book she had sent some of her writings into a college but was not accepted. She should of been in my mind sad about this but again because her depression was so bad she just didn't care. I think that if she was given something for depression and saw a psychologist weekly that she would of been fine and that she wouldn't of reached the point that she did. I think that if she would of had better communication with her family and friends that things would of been easier for her. She really just needed someone that she could talk to about things. I had a hard time understanding how she became so depressed because it seemed to me like things were going in her favor and how she got to the point of suicide has me slightly confused. I would understand why she was depressed and tried to kill herself if she had experienced something traumatic but she didn't. I honestly think that if she had a friend that she could talk to and had a really good relationship with her mom that she never would of got to the point of suicide. I think that its really sad when people get to this point and I do think that its sad that she got to that point. But if she didn't complain about certain things and just accepted certian things I don't she would of got to this point. I think that she was mentally unstable and its sad that her mom didn't realize or that she didn't tell anyone how she was really feeling about things. I have really mixed feelings about this book. Part of me wants to feel sorry for her but then part of me thinks that she just needed to accept things and realize how good she had it.

Sneetches

The book the Sneetches can be viewed as an allegory because just looking at it you see that its about these animals. Some of the Sneethes have stars on their bellies and they think that they are better than any other Sneetches. There are some Sneetches who do not have stars on their bellies and they are jealous of the other Sneetches. Well McMonkey-McBean  comes and he tells the Sneetches with out stars that if they pay him they can use his star machine and it will put a star on their tummies. So they do this. Well the original star Sneetches get upset and McMonkey-McBean  tells them that if they pay him they can use his star off machine and so they do this. Well the sneetches end up going back and forth between the machine but once they're out of money they realize that they don't know who the original star Sneetches were. But the big thing they realize is that they're all the same and enjoy the same. So they all start including one another in everything they do. If you look closer you can see a much deeper meaning to this childrens story. It reminds me a lot of when whites thought that they were better than blacks. So they wouldn't include them in things and by law they couldn't. By making laws saying that blacks couldn't do certain things only reinforced whites to think that they were better. You could look at the Sneetches and say that the ones with the stars are like the white people and the ones with out would be like black people. You could compare McMonkey-McBean   to someone like Martin Luther King jr because McMonkey-McBean  helped make the Sneetches realize that even though they look different they're the same. Martin Luther King jr helped people realize that we're all the same and should be treated the same.