Adolescence in the Bell Jar and Catcher in the Rye Essay -- Bell Jar, C

Adolescence in the Bell Jar and Catcher in the Rye Adolescence is the period between puberty and adulthood. Every teenager experience this moment in life differently some sail through happily to carry on with a peaceful life where as others are less fortunate and find that this moment is much more harder and stressful then they thought. Esther Greenwood and Holden Caulfield are one of the less fortunate and have bad experiences through their adolescent. Salinger and Plath present this in their novels Catcher in the Rye and The Bell Jar. Both novelists use first person narrative giving us as readers a more personal description about their story, involving us more into their lives and letting us travel with them on their pathway through adolescent. The tone, dictation and the use of grammar are consistently those of an adolescent person and express distinctive commentary on how they feel and what they observe everyday. Salinger and Plath present the different elements of adolescence that teenagers experience such as depression, grief, pressure, sexuality etc through their characters Holden and Esther. Throughout adolescence teenagers experience a variety of pressures from their family, friends and even the society. Holden and Esther both come from adequate families who brought them up well although this can also mean living up to their expectations. Esther lives up to different expectations than Holden. Esther’s background was less promising than others, her mother could not provide her with a good education it was down the Esther to work really hard at studying to gain scholarships she places huge pressure on herself to achieve these goals that she doesn’t know anything else â€Å" I had been inadequate a... ...and doesn’t bother to help him. This mirrors with Esther’s feeling, that people are not responding to her properly even her own mother who doesn’t believe that the depression is a true illness but just a passing perversity or rebellion. Even her own Doctor fails to help her by showing that he wasn’t really listening to what Esther had to say about her illness by repeating a question to Esther. Throughout the novel Esther is very direct about her depression â€Å"I haven’t slept for 14 days† yet no one chooses to listen to hear but when she tells them â€Å" I feel better, I don’t want to go to the doctors† her mum suddenly listens replying â€Å" I knew my baby wasn’t like that† Plath shows that people don’t want to hear anything depressing or morbid unless it directly involves them but if it doesn’t they don’t want to know they only listen to what they want to hear.