English Literature Coursework

The Bell Jar and A Doll’s House present characters who challenge society’s expectations, which they used to conform to, revealing that their conformity was an artifice. Plath’s novel and Ibsen’s ‘well-made play’ prove that resisting conformity helps them become better, more developed characters. The Bell Jar is a semi-autobiography which is set in the 1950’s America, whereas the play, A Doll’s House is set in a Norwegian town in the 1870’s. Despite the contextual and structural differences between the two texts, they both portray and criticise a society where conformity is expected and followed. Therefore, in both texts the writers demonstrate that resisting conformity can help people transform into better versions of themselves.

Esther and Nora reject society’s expectations of marriage, which they had previously conformed to proving their conformity to be an artifice Esther denies Buddy’s marriage proposal and Nora ends her marriage with Torvald. This allows them to develop into mature, independent characters. In The Bell Jar, Esther stops conforming to society’s expectations by refusing to marry Buddy Willard even though she ‘adored’ him and pursued a relationship with him at first. She realises that she does not want to be a submissive wife whose goals only revolve around her husband and their children. Esther believes that getting married is ‘like being brainwashed’ into being ‘numb as a slave into some totalitarian state’. Plath’s use of simile demonstrates Esther’s in-depth, personal analysis of the American society at the time. She understands the nature of a married couple in the 60’s where the ‘man is an arrow into the future and what a woman is the place the arrow shoots off from’. She declines Buddy’s marriage proposal explaining that she is too ‘neurotic to settle down’. This proves that she is an atypical woman who is unhappy to rely on a partner and instead wishes for independence, which shows her character’s transformation. Similarly, in A Doll’s House, Nora conforms to society’s expectation of marriage by marrying Torvald but then she rejects her marriage because she realises that he is ‘not the man’ she thought he was. As the play progresses, Nora reveals that this conformity was an artifice in Act One, Nora wishes to ‘do everything to please...Torvald’ but by Act Three, she acknowledges that her relationship with her husband is broken. This realisation forces her to make a bold decision to leave her husband because ‘she cannot spend the night in a strange man’s room’. Even though Nora’s decision is gratifying and somewhat predictable to a modern audience, their lack of communication and trust builds up to a natural separation, the Norwegian audience during the 1870’s would have perceived Nora’s choice as abrupt and unexpected. This is because women would not normally leave their husbands and start a new life on their own. At the same time, Esther’s contentment with a single status would have been incomprehensible to the 1950’s American audience at the time as marriage and the so-called perfect image of a nuclear family was something that most women at the time longed for. The writers present the main characters struggling to face with the pressures of marriage expressing it to be an unreasonable expectation, which many women felt obliged to accept. However, when women reject this expectation, they transform into self-reliant individuals as seen in the texts...