Did Esther Greenwood "Come of Age?"
As Plath’s The Bell Jar serves as a narrative basis for an English class entitled “Coming of Age Novel,” I began to ponder its role in such a category. Did Esther Greenwood truly come of age in this novel? More importantly, is this the story she would want to tell? Are Esther’s final moments in the book sufficient enough to regard her as having come of age? I wonder if Esther really has come to anything, or just away from her desire to not come of age. Truthfully, these are difficult questions to answer particularly because it’s very difficult to define “coming of age.” Yes, Esther physically survived another year that she almost did not. Does the fact that she survived until her senior year of college mean she “made it?” Did she come to some magically predetermined age? I would argue instead that coming of age is not about surviving until an arbitrary point, but rather arriving there after having experiences that shape a person; in a sense becoming the person you’ll be for th...