The Catcher in the Rye and The Bell Jar, though different in their themes and styles, both Ā present the coming of age of their characters thoroughly. Though the protagonists of both novels completely contrast each other, they are both put in similar situations through a lack of identity, isolation from society and an absence of purpose in life. The key point of both coming of age tales is expressed through the ultimate idea of growing up and entering the adult world. The central idea of growing up is expressed in both novels through the charactersā struggles in figuring out what they want, understanding and dealing with death, and examining their relationships with their peers, parents and other adults. Both coming of ages are reached once the characters escape their set views and open up to looking at things in a different light from a maturity and sensible aspect of things.
Although both novels are coming of age novels, I feel that Holden Caulfield will never quite seem the same after meeting Esther Greenwood.
Robert McCrum summaries what is essential to the Bell Jar as follows:
Plathās essential theme, a staccato drumbeat, is Estherās obsession with the opposite sex. At first, released from her motherās repressive scrutiny, she decides to lose her virginity (a āmillstone around my neckā) to Constantin, a UN Russian translator, but heās too sensible to fall for her. Then, having failed on another date, in which she is labelled a āslutā, she hurls her clothes off her hotel roof, and returns home for a suicidal summer, a worsening depression which she compares to suffocating under a ābell jarā. Estherās predicament, more generally, is how to develop a mature identity, as a woman, and to be true to that self rather than conform to societal norms. Itās this quest that makes The Bell Jar a founding text of Anglo-American feminism.
Associated with this, Naomi Elias discusses the myth around Plath and the novel:
Though The Bell Jar traffics in many themes, including classism, sexism, and mental illness, it has become synonymous with depressed and/or moody women. On film and television specifically, it has become a popular visual and textual prop to code an exclusively female experience of sadness.
Let alone Plath as the person.
Marginalia
How could I write about life when Iād never had a love affair or a baby or even seen anybody die? A girl I knew had just won a prize for a short story about her adventures among the pygmies in Africa. How could I compete with that sort of thing? Page 125
My mother smiled. āI knew my baby wasnāt like that.ā I looked at her. āLike what?ā āLike those awful people. Those awful dead people at that hospital.ā She paused. āI knew youād decide to be all right again.ā Page 148
To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream. Page 231
Another month and another change to the team at work. Why is it that everyone seems to have had such amazing lives? The new manager at work ran a 10 hour charity music conference in his spare time. I am often happy if I have done the washing and got food on the table, I clearly need to work harder on my pitch.
On the family front, we went on our first holiday post-COVID to country Victoria. It was interesting returning to various places with children. I think it is fair to say wine tasting and children do not always match.
Personally, I finally got around to loading Linux on my old Macbook Pro and Chromebook. Other than the ability to run music applications, I am pretty happy and not missing a think. I continued my dive back into books listening to Thomas Moreās Utopia, Liu Cixinās The Three-Body Problem and Sylvia Plathās The Bell Jar. I also nostalgically binged The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. (Was this really made for children?) In regards to music, Montaigneās Making It has been on repeat.
Here then are some of the other dots that have had me thinking:
Education
The Tricky Ethics of Being a Teacher on TikTok
Amelia Tate considers the place of TikTok in the classroom. She discusses the trend of content created about and even with students.
The Enduring Allure of Choose Your Own Adventure Books
Leslie Jamison dives back into the world of the Choose Your Own Adventure book series.
Unbeaching the whale ā The education revolution failed ā and so did its way of thinking
Dean Ashenden reflects on the failure of Gonski and the education revolution.
Timetable Absurdity
Cameron Paterson discusses the way in which schools are still held hostage by the timetable.
I want, I wish, I hope, I dream
David Truss shares an activity where he creates a portrait wall with a want, a wish, a hope or a dream underneath it.
Technology
After Self-Hosting My Email for Twenty-Three Years, I have Thrown In the Towel. The Oligopoloy has Won.
Carlos Fenollosa reflects on the demise of self-hosted email. One of the main reasons he argues for the failure is the crude blacklisting of large swaths of email, rather than a penalty process.
We Spoke With the Last Person Standing in the Floppy Disk Business
Niek Hilkmann and Thomas Walskaar interview Tom Persky about the dying art of maintaining floppy disks.
Interoperable Facebook
Cory Doctorow unpacks how an interoperable Facebook might work.
Tech Fear-Mongering Isnāt NewāBut Itās Time to Break the Cycle
Jason Feifer provides insight into Amy Orbenās four-step Sisyphean cycle of technology panics.
We need to deal with data privacy in our classrooms
Bonnie Stewart reflects upon the online learning with the return to the classroom in a post-COVID world.
AIās dark arts come into their own
Alex Hern discusses the dark-side to the magic of artificial intelligence.
General
Electric Bike, Stupid Love of My Life
Craig Mod shares his passion for electric bikes.
After Queen Elizabeth IIās death, Indigenous Australia canāt be expected to shut up. Our sorry business is without end
With the passing of Queen Elizabeth, Stan Grant considers legacy of colonisation for indigenous people around the world.
Music on the brain: Listening can influence our brainās activity
Abdullah Iqbal unpacks some of the research into the benefits of music on the brain.
Ark Head
In order to survived the battered psyche, Venkatesh Rao explains that way have resorted to the āark headā mental model. This involves giving up on solving the worldās ills and simply hiding in our ark.
The credibility of science is damaged when universities brag about themselves
Adrian Lenardic and Johnny Seales argue that the rewarding of attention economy has corrupted scientific research.
Florence Nightingale Was Born 197 Years Ago, and Her Infographics Were Better Than Most of the Internetās
Celebrating the birth of , Cara Giaimo discusses Florence Nightingaleās impact in regards to the spread of ideas, not just as the āLady with the Lampā.
Read Write Respond #080
So that was September for me, how about you? As always, hope you are safe and well.
Image by Bryan Mathers