Comparing Female Sexuality in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar...

Comparing Female Sexuality in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Alice Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women In Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Alice Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women, Esther and Del try to take control of their sexuality and their sexual lives. These two female protagonists attempt to gain sexual confidence by quietly rejecting the societal images of women. They are able to seduce men and pilot their own sexual lives. These women are also able to ignore the popular beliefs about marriage and motherhood, thus freeing them from the traditional, restrictive female sexual roles. By rejecting the popular notions of womanhood, sexuality, and marriage, Esther and Del become the mistresses of their sexuality and sexual†¦show more content†¦Hence, she continues to enrol in courses that enhance her thinking. In Lives of Girls and Women, people grow out of reading. As the protagonist Del says, reading â€Å"persisted mostly in unmarried ladies, would have been shameful in a man† (Munro, 117). As in The Bell Jar, women in Lives of Girls and Women who are educated and who are professionals are seen as masculine and immature. Mature and marriageable women learn to use make-up and to flaunt their physical beauty. Del overturns this rule by memorizing poetry and doing well academically. Both Esther and Del feel that academic achievements best define and express their sexuality, though not necessarily enhancing their sexual lives. While the bored, rich girls in The Bell Jar spend most of their time painting their nails and getting a tan, Esther feels out of place among the idle and the fashion-conscious. Her friend Doreen admits that at her college, all the girls â€Å"had pocket-book covers made out of the same material as their dresses†(Plath, 5). The night that Doreen returns d runken from the apartment of a stranger named Lenny, Esther closes her door on her friend but does not have the heart to lock it. Thus, Esther successfully shuts out the false societal values of female sexuality for a while, but acknowledges that her form of sexuality must co-exist with that of Doreen and of other females in her society. Noticing that the Belsize women are