To what extent did the patriarchal society of 1960’s America affect The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath?

In this study, the effect of patriarchal society in 1960’s America to Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar is investigated through excerpts from her only book The Bell Jar and her journals that parallel her semi-autobiographical character Esther Greenwood. In early 1960’s America, the patriarchal society manifested itself in such a way that limited the career choices of women. The phenomena ‘The Suburban Housewife Syndrome’ was also coined at the same decade by Betty Freidan as ‘the entrapment of highly educated, intellectual, aspiring women to the limited, domestic life by the post-World War II society’. Her book ‘The Feminine Mystique’ was considered to be controversial and infuriating, however, in a very short period of time it became a milestone in Women’s Rights’ movement. In spite of the worldwide acclaim of the book, millions of college-educated American Women were still waiting to be waken up from their mundane lives as home-makers. Sylvia Plath, a young successful American poet committed suicide at the same year by putting her head in a gas oven. Her suicide was almost symbolic; the oven, a symbol of domestic life. Her confessional poems reflected her despair and anxiety over her refusal to choose but try to have both. However the personal and social conflicts she faced, contributed to her mental breakdown, and eventually suicide