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Logos
Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Chapter 15
Explanation and Analysis—The Bell Jar :
Central to the novel is the metaphor of “the bell jar” through which Esther understands her own mental health. A bell jar is an enclosed glass cylinder with an open bottom. They are often placed over delicate objects or used to create vacuum-sealed environments in laboratories. Esther's first use of the bell-jar metaphor appears when her mother tells her that she should be “grateful” that Mrs. Guinea has offered to cover the costs of Esther’s treatment in an expensive and private mental care facility:
I knew I should be grateful to Mrs. Guinea, only I couldn’t feel a thing. If Mrs. Guinea had given me a ticket to Europe, or a round-the-world cruise, it wouldn’t have made one scrap of difference to me, because wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.
Here, Esther describes her difficulty in feeling truly grateful, as she “couldn’t feel a thing.” She believes that, no matter where she is, whether on a holiday to Europe or in a squalid, public asylum, she “would be sitting under the same glass bell jar.” In this metaphor, Esther imagines that she has been placed, like a medical specimen, in a glass jar, stuck in her “own sour air.” The metaphor of the bell jar emphasizes her feeling of being trapped and suggests that mental illness obscures her vision of the outside world, creating an obscuring lens or wall between her and everyone else.
