The Bell Jar, Save Me The Waltz, And Wide Sargasso Sea
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Over the course of the semester, we read many books where both men and women were both portrayed as insane. While some of these were not the main characters in every book, instability and craziness did not discriminate against gender or race. In The Bell Jar, Save Me the Waltz, and Wide Sargasso Sea, Esther Greenwood, Alabama Beggs, and Antoinette are all main characters who are mostly privileged and insane female figures in society. However, in Frankenstein, Edgar Huntly, and Hamlet, the main characters are all men who are driven insane by inside and outside factors. However, minor characters such as Clithero, Ophelia, Frankensetin, and Annette, are also considered insane. For the most part, women are labeled more insane in literature than men because…show more content… Plath committed suicide at thirty from being mentally unstable and depressed and was an example that not all mental institutions are not a successful in healing. While Esther overcomes her depression, she worries that it will come over her again because she knows what pressures and anxieties lie ahead of her in the real world. This novel suggests that women are feeble since Plath represents Esther Greenwood and ultimately gave into her mental illness. This just furthers the point that women were not capable of upholding the social difficulties that college and life in a man's world brought forth. Society also has a great influence over one's mental stability. In Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette and Annette are pushed to insanity due to their inability to conform to their peers and unfamiliar surroundings of the Caribbean. They are not accepted and, therefore, have no self-confidence because their differing environment and men in their lives constantly oppress them. However, Antoinette's insanity could be correlated to her mother because she was distant and emotionally unavailable to her