Sylvia Plath

The Bell Jar

Lady Lazarus

Facts about Sylvia Plath

➾ Her German immigrant father, Otto, was a nationally recognized authority on bees who taught biology at Boston University.

➾ At age 20, she attempted suicide by overdosing on pills and hiding in a cellar crawlspace, which later inspired her novel The Bell Jar.

➾ She attended Cambridge on a Fulbright scholarship, where she met and married the British poet Ted Hughes.

➾ She described her attraction to the authoritarian Ted Hughes as an attempt to bring her dead father back into her life.

➾ She caricatured Olive Higgins Prouty, who had helped pay some of her medical expenses, as the character Philomena Guinea in The Bell Jar.

➾ She and her children moved into a London house that had once belonged to the famous Irish poet William Butler Yeats.

➾ Her only novel, The Bell Jar, was published under the pseudonym “Victoria Lucas” because she considered it a “potboiler,” reserving her real name for poetry.

➾ In her final months, she wrote several spontaneous poems daily (the “blood jet” style), often working intensely from four until seven in the morning.

➾ In her late poetry, Plath dealt with her father’s death by occasionally depicting him as a Nazi and herself as a Jew.

➾ She often wrote about death, viewing suicide as an act of purification or simply another form of birth.

➾ Ted Hughes destroyed some of Plath’s journals, including several written just before her suicide, which caused “difficulties” for scholars.

Sylvia Plath MCQs

1. When was Sylvia Plath born?

A. October 27th, 1930
B. February 11th, 1932
C. October 27th, 1932
D. February 5th, 1935

C. October 27th, 1932
She was born in Boston, Massachusetts, during the Great Depression.

2. Where was Sylvia Plath born?

A. Wellesley, USA
B. London, UK
C. Boston, USA
D. Grabow, Poland-Germany

C. Boston, USA
Her father was a professor at Boston University at the time of her birth.

3. In which year did Sylvia Plath die?

A. 1960
B. 1963
C. 1965
D. 1975

B. 1963
Her death occurred during one of the coldest winters on record in London.

4. At what age did Sylvia Plath commit suícide?

A. 20
B. 30
C. 35
D. 40

B. 30
She died just a month after her only novel, The Bell Jar, was published in the UK.

5. What was the nationality of Sylvia Plath’s mother, Aurelia Plath?

A. German
B. Austrian
C. American
D. British

B. Austrian
Aurelia was a first-generation American, born in Boston to parents of Austrian descent.

6. Sylvia Plath’s father, Otto Plath, was an immigrant from which country?

A. Austria
B. Germany
C. Poland
D. America

B. Germany
Otto Plath emigrated from Grabow, Germany, and became a respected academic in the United States.

7. What was Sylvia Plath’s father’s profession in Massachusetts?

A. Doctor
B. Novelist
C. Professor
D. Secretary

C. Professor
He taught biology and German at Boston University and was an authority on bees.

8. What event, occurring when Plath was eight, is cited as seminal in her childhood and unparalleled in its effect on her poetry?

A. Her move to Wellesley
B. The publication of her first poem
C. The death of her father
D. Her first suícide attempt

C. The death of her father
The loss of her father from complications of diabetes haunted Plath for the rest of her life and became a central theme in her work.

9. What was Otto Emil Plath nationally recognized as an authority on?

A. German literature
B. Bees
C. Psychiatry
D. Horticulture

B. Bees
His expertise in entomology, particularly bumblebees, is often referenced in the bee imagery of Plath’s later poetry.

10. To which Boston suburb did Sylvia move with her mother and younger brother after her father’s death?

A. Smith
B. Cambridge
C. Wellesley
D. Brookline

C. Wellesley
The move to Wellesley marked a significant change in the family’s financial and social standing.

11. What was the name of Sylvia Plath’s younger brother?

A. Nicholas
B. Warren
C. Otto
D. Ted

B. Warren
Warren Plath, born in 1935, was two and a half years younger than his sister.

12. What was the title of Sylvia Plath’s first published story, which appeared in August 1950?

A. The Bell Jar
B. Daddy
C. And Summer Will Not Come Again
D. Sunday at the Mintons

C. And Summer Will Not Come Again
This early success in Seventeen magazine marked the beginning of her public writing career.

13. Which contest did Plath win a year after selling her first story, with “Sunday at the Mintons”?

A. Christian Science Monitor
B. Harper’s magazine
C. Seventeen
D. Mademoiselle

D. Mademoiselle
Winning the Mademoiselle College Fiction Contest led to her famous summer guest editorship at the magazine in New York.

14. Which college did Plath attend on a fellowship endowed by Olive Higgins Prouty?

A. Boston University
B. Cambridge University
C. Smith College
D. Newnham College

C. Smith College
Olive Higgins Prouty, author of Stella Dallas, became Plath’s patron and supported her through her breakdown.

15. Plath’s initial suícide attempt occurred during which period of her life?

A. While teaching at Smith
B. During her undergraduate years
C. While writing Ariel
D. During her time in London

B. During her undergraduate years
This event, in August 1953, followed her guest editorship at Mademoiselle and is fictionalized in The Bell Jar.

16. What type of medical treatment did Plath receive after her first attempted suícide?

A. Psychoanalysis
B. Shock treatment
C. Physical therapy
D. Chemical treatments

B. Shock treatment
Her negative experience with poorly administered electroconvulsive therapy is a major theme in The Bell Jar.

17. Plath received a Fulbright scholarship to study at which university?

A. Harvard
B. Cambridge
C. Boston University
D. Oxford

B. Cambridge
She studied at Newnham College, Cambridge, one of the university’s all-female colleges.

18. Who did Sylvia Plath meet and marry while attending Cambridge University?

A. William Butler Yeats
B. Robert Lowell
C. Ted Hughes
D. A. Alvarez

C. Ted Hughes
Their intense and tumultuous relationship became one of the most famous literary partnerships of the 20th century.

19. In what year did Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes marry?

A. 1955
B. 1956
C. 1957
D. 1960

B. 1956
They were married on Bloomsday, June 16th, a date significant in literary history from James Joyce’s Ulysses.

20. Plath initially taught at which institution after receiving her master’s degree?

A. Cambridge University
B. Boston University
C. Smith College
D. Newnham College

C. Smith College
She returned to her alma mater as a freshman English instructor but found the position stressful and unfulfilling.

21. In 1959, Plath quit teaching to focus on writing and moved back to which country with Ted Hughes?

A. Germany
B. Canada
C. England
D. Austria

C. England
They first moved to London, where Plath found inspiration and a sense of literary community.

22. What was the name of Plath and Hughes’ first child, born in April 1960?

A. Nicholas
B. Frieda
C. Esther
D. Warren

B. Frieda
Frieda Hughes would later become a poet and painter herself.

23. What was the title of Sylvia Plath’s first collection of poetry, published in 1960?

A. Ariel
B. The Bell Jar
C. The Colossus and Other Poems
D. Letters Home

C. The Colossus and Other Poems
This was the only collection of her poetry published during her lifetime.

24. What caused Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes to separate in the summer of 1962?

A. Financial stress
B. Lukewarm reviews of her novel
C. Hughes’s infidelity
D. Plath’s illness

C. Hughes’s infidelity
Hughes’s affair with Assia Wevill led to their painful separation.

25. Which major work was Plath working on that would eventually comprise her finest and most haunting poetry during her separation?

A. The Bell Jar
B. The Colossus
C. Ariel
D. The It-Doesn’t-Matter Suit

C. Ariel
The poems written in the months before her death, later collected in Ariel, were composed in a great burst of creativity.

26. What was Sylvia Plath’s first and only novel?

A. The Colossus
B. Letters Home
C. The Bell Jar
D. The Sávage God

C. The Bell Jar
This semi-autobiographical novel details a young woman’s descent into mental illness.

27. In what month and year was The Bell Jar first published?

A. August 1950
B. April 1960
C. January 1963
D. February 1963

C. January 1963
Its publication in the UK came just one month before her death.

28. Under what pseudonym was The Bell Jar originally published?

A. Esther Greenwood
B. Olive Higgins
C. Philomena Guinea
D. Victoria Lucas

D. Victoria Lucas
She used a pseudonym to protect the real people who inspired the characters in the novel.

29. Why did Plath choose to publish The Bell Jar under a pseudonym?

A. To hide the autobiographical elements from critics
B. She considered it a non-serious “potboiler”
C. To protect her publisher
D. To gain international recognition

B. She considered it a non-serious “potboiler”
She wanted to separate her more “serious” poetic work from what she saw as a lighter piece of fiction.

30. The narrator of The Bell Jar, Esther Greenwood, is based upon Plath’s own life, including which experience?

A. Moving to Germany
B. Winning writing contests
C. Studying abroad in France
D. Working as a teacher

B. Winning writing contests
Esther’s experiences as a guest editor for a fashion magazine in New York mirror Plath’s own time at Mademoiselle.

31. Plath’s writing style in her final period, marked by spontaneity and unpolished rhythms, was referred to as what?

A. Baraka
B. The ‘blood jet’
C. Confessional
D. The Arctic Ice

B. The ‘blood jet’
This phrase, from her poem “Kindness,” captures the raw, urgent, and powerful nature of her late work.

32. Sylvia Plath is primarily known as a poet and novelist of which nationality?

A. British
B. German
C. Irish
D. American

D. American
Despite living in England for her final years, she is considered a major figure in American literature.

33. What poetic movement is Plath considered a part of, alongside Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton?

A. Modernist
B. Postwar
C. Confessional
D. Romantic

C. Confessional
Confessional poetry is known for its intensely personal and often autobiographical subject matter.

34. What is the primary characteristic of Plath’s poetry?

A. Formal structure and classical allusions
B. Vivid imagery and searing tone
C. Lighthearted themes and simple language
D. Long narrative structures

B. Vivid imagery and searing tone
Her work is celebrated for its powerful, often disturbing, imagery and emotional intensity.

35. What major theme in Plath’s poetry is linked to her complex relationship with her deceased father?

A. Religious devotion
B. Political commentary
C. Feelings of betrayal and loss
D. Joy in domestic life

C. Feelings of betrayal and loss
This relationship is most famously explored in her poem “Daddy.”

36. The poem “Daddy” describes Plath’s first attempt at suícide as a desire to return to whom?

A. Her mother
B. Her husband
C. Her doctor
D. The father who had been taken away

D. The father who had been taken away
The poem conflates her father and her husband, expressing a complex mix of love, anger, and a desire for reunion.

37. In The Bell Jar, Plath uses the electrocution of convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg as a symbol for what?

A. The American way of life
B. Her own electroshock treatments
C. Her failed marriage
D. Her children’s future

B. Her own electroshock treatments
The event serves as a recurring motif, representing the narrator’s feeling of being a victim of a powerful and destructive force.

38. In her late poetry, Plath occasionally depicted her father and herself using which universal symbols?

A. King and Queen
B. God and Saint
C. Nazi and Jew
D. Teacher and Student

C. Nazi and Jew
This controversial imagery in poems like “Daddy” conveys a sense of brutal oppression and victimization.

39. What did A. Alvarez believe Plath made “inseparable” with the poems in Ariel?

A. Love and marriage
B. Poetry and death
C. Innocence and corruption
D. Fame and failure

B. Poetry and death
Alvarez, a friend and critic, saw her final poems as a direct confrontation with mortality.

40. In her poetry, Plath expressed a belief that personal experience should be relevant to global events like Hiroshima and Dachau, personalizing them as metaphors of what?

A. Social restrictions
B. The terrifying human mind
C. Political catastrophe
D. Economic despair

B. The terrifying human mind
She used historical atrocities as metaphors for her own internal psychological torment.

41. The publication of which collection of Plath’s correspondence altered the narrative by suggesting her inner turmoil might be linked to her mother?

A. The Colossus
B. Letters Home
C. The Unabridged Journals
D. Ariel

B. Letters Home
This edited collection, published by her mother, presented a more cheerful and conventional side of Plath, complicating the public’s understanding of her.

42. Feminist critics often viewed Plath’s suícide as a repudiation of what?

A. The rules of poetry
B. The confessional movement
C. The expectations placed upon women in the early 1960s
D. Her German ancestry

C. The expectations placed upon women in the early 1960s
They interpreted her life and death as a tragic result of the conflict between her artistic ambitions and the restrictive domestic roles available to women at the time.

43. Which work is considered a “testing ground” for Plath’s poems, according to critic Charles Newman?

A. Ariel
B. Letters Home
C. The Bell Jar
D. The Colossus

C. The Bell Jar
Newman argued that the novel allowed her to explore themes and a narrative voice that she would later perfect in her poetry.

44. Plath’s posthumous reputation grew largely on the strength of which volume of poetry?

A. The Colossus
B. Letters Home
C. The Bell Jar
D. Ariel

D. Ariel
Published in 1965, Ariel caused a literary sensation and secured her place as a major 20th-century poet.

45. Which key psychological illness, described by Plath as being run by “joyous positive and despairing negative”?

A. Schizophrenia
B. Bipolar disorder
C. Anxiety
D. Post-traumatic stress

B. Bipolar disorder
Many biographers and critics believe her extreme mood swings are consistent with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

46. What specific phrase did Ted Hughes use to describe the unique substance of Plath’s language, suggesting the folding of “the flame and the rose”?

A. Blood jet
B. Baraka
C. Confessional
D. Singular verse

B. Baraka
Hughes used this term, meaning a sacred power or blessing, to describe the unique, almost magical quality of her poetic language.

47. The symbolism of speed in poems like Ariel has been interpreted by critics as Plath’s movement toward what?

A. Motherhood
B. Divorce
C. Literary fame
D. Her inevitable suícide

D. Her inevitable suícide
The imagery of a wild, unstoppable ride is often seen as a metaphor for her final, fatal journey.

48. What common concern, alongside the search for identity, was noted as being slightly ahead of its time in The Bell Jar?

A. Fascination with death
B. Rebellion against conventional female roles
C. The use of symbolism
D. The structure of the Bildungsroman

B. Rebellion against conventional female roles
The novel’s exploration of the limited choices available to intelligent, ambitious women predated the main wave of the feminist movement.

49. What difficult action regarding Plath’s papers did Ted Hughes admit to, causing difficulty for critics and biographers?

A. Selling her early poems
B. Destroying some of her journals
C. Revising The Bell Jar
D. Releasing her letters too early

B. Destroying some of her journals
Hughes claimed he destroyed her final journal to protect their children from its contents, an act that has been a source of great controversy.

50. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, 1950–1962, published after Ted Hughes’s death, was described by Oates as what rarity?

A. A financial success
B. A minor work
C. A genuine literary event
D. A collection of lies

C. A genuine literary event
The publication of the unedited journals provided an unprecedented, intimate look into Plath’s mind and creative process.

The Bell Jar MCQs

1. What national event shadows the summer?

A. Manhattan Project
B. Rosenberg execution
C. Presidential election
D. Korean War truce

B. Rosenberg execution.
The narrator starts the chapter preoccupied and nauseated by the execution of the Rosenbergs by electrocution.

2. How did the narrator feel in New York City?

A. Excited and eager
B. Lonely and depressed
C. Still and empty
D. Busy and thriving

C. Still and empty.
She felt “very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel” amid the surrounding noise.

3. What is the name of the women-only hotel?

A. The Beekman
B. The Plaza
C. The Amazon
D. The Starlight

C. The Amazon.
The hotel was named the Amazon, specifically catering to women with wealthy parents seeking protection.

4. How did the girls win their magazine prize?

A. Academic scores
B. Writing essays
C. Fashion modelling
D. Social connections

B. Writing essays.
They won the contest by writing “essays and stories and poems and fashion blurbs”.

5. What distinguished Doreen’s physical appearance?

A. Bright red hair
B. Perpetual sneer
C. Tiny blue eyes
D. Tall, muscular build

B. Perpetual sneer.
Doreen had bright white hair and a mouth set in an “amused, mysterious sneer”.

6. How did the narrator view her boss, Jay Cee?

A. Ugly but wise
B. A fake gusher
C. Overly fashionable
D. Cruel and jealous

A. Ugly but wise.
The narrator liked Jay Cee because she “had brains, so her plug-ugly looks didn’t seem to matter”.

7. What was Betsy’s private nickname, according to Doreen?

A. Dùmb Cowgirl
B. Silly Starlet
C. Pollyanna Cowgirl
D. Sweetheart Sigma-Chi

C. Pollyanna Cowgirl.
Doreen privately referred to the sweet and innocent Betsy as “Pollyanna Cowgirl”.

8. What did the narrator realize was wrong with Buddy Willard?

A. He was poor
B. He lacked intuition
C. He was cheating
D. He hated poetry

B. He lacked intuition.
She realized he was “stùpid” because “he didn’t have one speck of intuition,” unlike Doreen.

9. What was Lenny Shepherd’s profession in New York?

A. A ranch owner
B. A disc jockey
C. A police officer
D. A club owner

B. A disc jockey.
Lenny Shepherd introduced himself, stating, “I’m a disc jockey. You prob’ly must have heard of me”.

10. What fake name did the narrator give Lenny and Frankie?

A. Doreen Smith
B. Esther Willard
C. Elly Higginbottom
D. Pollyanna Betsy

C. Elly Higginbottom.
She chose Elly Higginbottom because she “didn’t want anything I said or did that night to be associated with me”.

11. What drink did the narrator order plain at the bar?

A. Old-Fashioned
B. Glass of gin
C. Pure vodka
D. Sweet Dubonnet

C. Pure vodka.
She ordered vodka plain, wanting it to look “clear and pure as water,” based on an advertisement.

12. What strange animal trophies decorated Lenny Shepherd’s apartment?

A. Stuffed bear cub
B. Antlers and buffalo horns
C. Deer heads
D. Live macaw

B. Antlers and buffalo horns.
Instead of pictures, Lenny’s ranch-like apartment had antlers, buffalo horns, and a stuffed rabbit head.

13. What food caused the mass poisoning at Ladies’ Day?

A. Rare roast beef
B. Black caviar
C. Crabmeat salad
D. Meringue ice-cream

C. Crabmeat salad.
Doreen later confirmed that the crabmeat was “chock-full of ptomaine,” causing everyone to become sick.

14. How did the narrator handle feeling sick in the cab?

A. Yelled at the driver
B. Held Betsy’s head
C. Asked to be let out
D. Hummed and looked out

D. Hummed and looked out.
She and Betsy pretended to look away or hummed to conceal the fact that they were vomiting in the cab.

15. Where was Buddy Willard taking a cure for TB?

A. Upstate New York
B. A Boston hospital
C. The Cape Cod coast
D. His mother’s house

A. Upstate New York.
Buddy was “taking the cure for TB somewhere in upper New York State,” which was in the Adirondacks.

16. How did Esther wish Jay Cee was related to her?

A. Sister or friend
B. Editor or mentor
C. Mother or guide
D. Aunt or cousin

C. Mother or guide.
Esther wished she “had a mother like Jay Cee. Then I’d know what to do” with her life.

17. What career made Philomena Guinea wealthy?

A. Silent film acting
B. Novel writing
C. Magazine editing
D. Philanthropy

B. Novel writing.
Philomena Guinea was described as a “wealthy novelist” whose first novel was made into a film and radio serial.

18. What mistake did Esther make with the finger-bowl?

A. Used it for soup
B. Drank the water
C. Ate the flowers
D. Used it for washing

B. Drank the water.
She thought the water with cherry blossoms was “some clear sort of Japanese after-dinner soup” and ate everything.

19. Why does the narrator dislike Technicolor films?

A. Too dark and drab
B. Too loud and fast
C. Too lurid and fake
D. Too long and boring

C. Too lurid and fake.
She hated how people in Technicolour seemed obliged to wear lurid costumes and stand like clothes-horses.

20. Why did Jay Cee call Esther that morning?

A. To check on her
B. To give her work
C. To praise her poems
D. To discuss the fur show

B. To give her work.
Jay Cee called to demand if she was planning to come into the office, wanting “a little talk” and some work done.

21. What did physics classes feel like to the narrator?

A. Like an experiment
B. A painful effort
C. Absolutely like death
D. An interesting puzzle

C. Absolutely like death.
She explicitly states, “The day I went into physics class, it was death,” despite achieving a straight A.

22. How did Esther get out of her chemistry final?

A. Claimed sickness
B. Threatened to fail
C. Negotiated a waiver
D. Switched majors

C. Negotiated a waiver.
She presented a “clever plan” to her Class Dean to audit the course for honour rather than credit/marks.

23. What job did Jay Cee mention as a successful trajectory?

A. Writing poems
B. Editor at Time
C. Fashion designer
D. University professor

B. Editor at Time.
Jay Cee noted that the previous girl in Esther’s position “went straight from this office on to Time” magazine.

24. What did Buddy Willard define a poem as?

A. A piece of dust
B. A work of art
C. An eternal truth
D. A scientific error

A. A piece of dust.
Buddy famously asked, “Do you know what a poem is, Esther?” and answered, “A piece of dust”.

25. What did Esther believe lasted longer than people?

A. A good poem
B. Scientific truth
C. The human spirit
D. Doctoring efforts

A. A good poem.
Esther realized that a “good poem lasts a whole lot longer than a hundred of those people put together”.

26. Buddy Willard lost his virginity to whom?

A. A Yale co-ed
B. A wealthy friend
C. A sluttish waitress
D. Joan Gilling

C. A sluttish waitress.
Buddy confessed he lost his virginity to a waitress named Gladys at a hotel he worked at on Cape Cod.

27. What job did Buddy’s mother want Esther to take?

A. TB sanatorium waitress
B. Shorthand typist
C. College professor
D. Medical student

A. TB sanatorium waitress.
Mrs Willard arranged for Esther to work as a waitress at the TB sanatorium so Buddy wouldn’t be lonely.

28. What was Constantin’s job and dominant physical trait?

A. Doctor, strong build
B. Mathematician, ugly
C. Simultaneous interpreter, tan
D. Disc jockey, white teeth

C. Simultaneous interpreter, tan.
Constantin was a simultaneous interpreter who was handsome, with a prominent tan from playing tennis.

29. What age did Esther remember being purely happy until?

A. Age thirteen
B. Age sixteen
C. Age nine
D. Age twenty

C. Age nine.
Sitting at the UN, she thought it strange that she was “only purely happy until I was nine years old”.

30. What did the fig tree symbolize for the narrator?

A. Potential careers
B. Family life dreams
C. Unreachable men
D. Dying ambitions

A. Potential careers.
The figs represented many possibilities—husband, poet, professor, editor, lovers—all potentially lost by indecision.

31. How did Eric, the Southerner, view sleeping with a loved woman?

A. As pure joy
B. Too spoiled by animalism
C. An intellectual challenge
D. A necessary ritual

B. Too spoiled by animalism.
Eric believed loving someone meant avoiding sex, as it would be “spoiled by thinking this woman too was just an animal”.

32. Why did Esther decide to sleep with Constantin?

A. Buddy was ahead
B. She loved him
C. To annoy Mrs Willard
D. She felt drunk

A. Buddy was ahead.
Since Buddy had slept with the waitress, she felt she “ought to go out and sleep with somebody myself” to even the score.

33. What did Esther realize a man secretly wanted after marriage?

A. A co-pilot
B. Kitchen mat
C. A loving partner
D. An intelligent wife

B. Kitchen mat.
Esther felt that a man wanted a woman to “flatten out underneath his feet like Mrs Willard’s kitchen mat”.

34. How did Esther feel after failing to be seduced by Constantin?

A. Angry and tired
B. Full of excitement
C. Relieved and free
D. Wanting change and excitement

D. Wanting change and excitement.
She realized she did not want security but wanted “change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions”.

35. What physical change had TB caused in Buddy Willard?

A. He was thinner
B. He was pale
C. He was fat
D. He was muscular

C. He was fat.
Contrary to Esther’s expectations, Buddy had a “pot belly” and cheeks “round and ruddy as marzipan fruit”.

36. What did Buddy suggest when Esther refused marriage due to her neùrotic nature?

A. She would change
B. They live between city
C. He would fix her
D. He would fly alone

B. They live between city/country.
When Esther cited her neurosis as wanting mutually exclusive things, Buddy suggested they live between them.

37. What was the result of Esther’s terrifying ski run?

A. She quit skiing
B. A minor sprain
C. A broken leg
D. She felt happy

C. A broken leg.
Buddy confirms, “Your leg’s broken in two places. You’ll be stuck in a cast for months”.

38. What was Hilda’s shocking opinion regarding the Rosenbergs’ fate?

A. That they suffered
B. She was glad they would die
C. That they were innocent
D. It was politically motivated

B. She was glad they would die.
Esther heard Hilda whisper, “I’m so glad they’re going to die,” reflecting her shocking lack of sympathy.

39. What did Esther toss from the hotel roof on her last night?

A. Letters from Buddy
B. Her expensive clothes
C. Free magazine gifts
D. Her writing thesis

B. Her expensive clothes.
She fed her entire wardrobe “piece by piece… to the night wind,” discarding her material identity.

40. What did Esther prefer to have wrong with her, rather than her mind?

A. Her career
B. Her body
C. Her relationships
D. Her finances

B. Her body.
She wished something was wrong with her body, because that would be preferable to something wrong with her head.

41. What trait of Dodo Conway did Esther feel unable to emulate?

A. Her Catholicism
B. Her intellectual drive
C. Her large, cowy family
D. Her social status

C. Her large, cowy family.
Dodo Conway represented the stereotypical suburban mother with six children, something Esther found repulsive.

42. What action did Doctor Gordon recommend after Esther’s second visit?

A. Immediate hospitalization
B. Shock treatments
C. Learning German
D. Finding a job

B. Shock treatments.
Doctor Gordon advised her mother that Esther should have “some shock treatments at his private hospital in Walton”.

43. Which tree did Esther find symbolic of self-sacrifice in the Public Garden?

A. Weeping Scholar Tree
B. Copper Beech
C. American Elm
D. Mock Orange Bush

A. Weeping Scholar Tree.
She liked this tree because she thought it suggested Japan, where they “disembowelled themselves when anything went wrong”.

44. What object did Esther use for her first, non-fatal suicide attempt?

A. Sleeping pills
B. Razor blade
C. Silk bathrobe cord
D. Father’s shotgun

B. Razor blade.
She attempted to open her veins with a Gillette blade in a warm bath, resulting only in a cut calf.

45. What sight reassured the nurse that the woman in blue could not jump?

A. Police nearby
B. Locked doors
C. Window bars
D. High walls

C. Window bars.
The wall-eyed nurse hissed that the patient “can’t jump out the window because they’re all barred!”.

46. What did Doctor Nolan promise about future shock treatments?

A. They would be effective
B. They would be like sleep
C. They would cure her
D. They would be painless

B. They would be like sleep.
Doctor Nolan assured Esther that if done properly, the shock treatment would feel “like going to sleep”.

47. How did Joan feel about the Willards?

A. She disliked them
B. She admired Mrs Willard
C. They were too normal
D. They were hypocrites

B. She admired Mrs Willard.
Joan loved Buddy’s parents, saying they were wonderful and that Mrs Willard “had been a real mother to me”.

48. What was Joan Gilling’s eventual fate at the asylum?

A. She became a doctor
B. She left the asylum
C. She commìtted suicide
D. She got married

C. She commìtted suicide.
Doctor Quinn informed Esther that Joan was found dead in the woods, having “hanged herself”.

49. What did Buddy Willard worry about after Joan’s death?

A. His health status
B. Esther marrying him
C. Driving women cràzy
D. Being a hypocrite

C. Driving women cràzy.
Buddy asked, “Do you think there’s something in me that drives women cràzy?” after dating both Esther and Joan.

50. What prospect did Esther face upon her departure from the asylum?

A. Certain happiness
B. Potential relapse
C. Total freedom
D. Immediate marriage

B. Potential relapse.
Esther worried that the “bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn’t descend again” upon leaving.

Brief Overview

The Bell Jar is a novel by Sylvia Plath, first published in January 1963. It is a powerful semi-autobiographical work. The novel documents the protagonist’s descent into mental health crisis, exploring themes of identity, societal expectations, and the struggle against female confinement.

The novel opens with Esther Greenwood, a bright college girl, winning a prize to work in New York City for a month. She stays at a women’s hotel but feels empty and unhappy. She is mentally disturbed by news of the Rosenbergs’ execution. She feels jealous of other girls and suffers a physical setback after being poisoned by crabmeat at a luncheon.

Esther returns home and feels intensely trapped. She cannot sleep or read. She sees her future as having too many options, describing them as withering like figs on a tree because she feels unable to choose just one. She attempts suicide by taking many pills in the cellar of her house. She is found alive.

Her mother tells her that Doctor Gordon recommends shock treatments. Esther immediately distrusts and hates Dr. Gordon. The wealthy writer Philomena Guinea pays for Esther’s care at a private asylum. There, she meets Doctor Nolan, who promises the shock treatments will be better managed.

After receiving the treatments, Esther feels quiet and “surprisingly at peace.” She is disturbed when another patient, Joan, hangs herself. Esther prepares for an interview to be released from the asylum. She accepts her struggles as a fundamental part of her own life’s emotional “landscape.”