Literary ADD

I always think about what I will write before I do. Usually I have one idea that is complete enough to constitute a whole post. Today, however, something weird was happening. I decided to call it literary ADD. As I read every paragraph made me think about something different, and while I was trying to decide what this post would be about I decided to include all the ideas that popped into my mind during this faulty concentration period. There is no order to the ideas. No reason for them either. Things just came in and out like an open house, and I will just write it down like that too.

The name Esther does not fit in with my image of the character. I have always laughed at people who say so and so has a Peter face, or a Daniel face, but when it comes to it: names do fit better with some people than they do with others. The disposition of the main character made me think that her name would be something along the lines of Sophie, Alice, or Caroline. Don’t ask me why these names sounded more like her to me. All I know is that as soon as the narrator revealed that her name I felt like the whole story stopped flowing for a minute, and every time the name is mentioned I feel like I’m being slapped across the face.

The style of The Bell Jar is a hard one to give a name to, at least from my limited knowledge it is. Plath writes in a straight forward way that is not that straight forward. The events are easier to understand and imagine, but the feeling she describes are harder to capture. I really enjoy the way she goes off on small tangents that try to put images into the Esther’s emotions, and make the reader understand what is really going on. With this style I get the idea that there is more to every aspect that what I am seeing, but I am also confident that I am catching more things that I would have three months ago.

Criticism seems to seep out of every sentence. Sometimes directed at the main character, sometimes at a specific group of people, and most commonly to the vapid society that Plath seems to think is out there. If asked to place my finger on it, though, I don’t think I could show a specific example of it because there is no clear example of a strong criticism. The clues to map it out are probably there, but I think I get wrapped up in the story and don’t pick up all the evidence that she thinks society is a demoralized and invaluable group. I might be crazy, but that is just what I feel as I pass the pages.