Esther Greenwood Idendity Box
In trying to collect objects that represented Esther Greenwood as a character, we began to realize that our suggested objects characterized Sylvia Plath, the creator, just as well as they did her creation. In reading and discussing the book, the lines between creator and creation were often muddled and so in this identity box, we attempt to present two similar identities; that of the Esther Greenwood, the heroine of the Bell Jar, and that of Sylvia Plath, the real-life model.Our box itself is a representation of the two individuals, Esther and Sylvia. It has a neutral white exterior with brightly colored stickers. This represents an outer life of simplistic happiness. White representing idealism, the realization of goals, and the stickers show simple joys and fortunes. At first glance, Esther is a perfect student, a young profe
In our identity box, we have included many objects connected to Esther and to Sylvia Plath, her creator. This is the exact feeling we get when we look in a mirror. Another object, applicable to Esther in a more metaphorical sense was a make-up mirror. We are looking critically at ourselves, trying to make ourselves beautiful, even presentable, while leaving the rest of the world slightly out of focus. This identity box even provokes the feelings that Esther herself may have been no more than a verbalized identity box of her creator. We must deal with ourselves before we can deal with he world. Inside the box, we have several objects that both literally and metaphorically represent the two characters that make our novel:One of our objects, the razor blade, has a very literal connection to Esther in the story, and a haunting realistic connection to Plath herself. The bell jar is a sad object, confining and relentless, and we can see how accurately this represents Esther Greenwood. Our final object, without which the box would not have been complete, was a jar, representative of Esther's bell jar that enclosed her as a specimen on display. The inside however, is a black abyss, representing the bottomless emotional vacuum that both women hid inside of them. This was the object chosen by Sylvia herself to represent Esther's struggles, struggles which were very much her own. ssional, and on the road to success as an author, just as the outside of the box shows. The next object in our box was ripped pieces of paper with writing on them, just as Esther herself mentioned in the novel. This was a harsh lesson of The Bell Jar.
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