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Happy Monday and happy March. Hoping that the days will only continue to get warmer. I can’t wait to spend my days reading in the sun. I wanted to start my first blog by discussing some books that I have read recently.
I didn’t intend to spiral into an existential crisis, but reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and The Stranger by Albert Camus had this effect.
Step 1: Read The Bell Jar. Step 2: Stare blankly at the wall for three hours.
I only recently read The Bell Jar for the first time, and it ignited my love for Sylvia Plath’s writing. The novel follows Esther Greenwood, a talented and ambitious young woman who wins a summer internship at a prestigious magazine in New York City. However, instead of feeling excited about her future, she becomes increasingly disillusioned by the pressures of societal expectations, particularly those surrounding marriage, career, and femininity. I find myself somewhat concerned by how much I relate to Sylvia Plath. But I know I’m not alone—her enduring popularity and the many young women who resonate with her work prove that.
Plath’s metaphors put into words the feelings that I and many others have but cannot describe. One of the most famous is, of course, the metaphor of the bell jar. When Esther feels her mental health declining, she describes herself as trapped under a bell jar, "stewing in my own sour air." The bell jar distorts her view of the world around her, trapping her in her own thoughts and preventing her from truly connecting with others. She says, “To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream.” I deeply resonated with this metaphor. I suppose I had never been able to put it into words like that.
Another famous metaphor that I adore and that I’m sure a lot of people my age can relate to is Plath’s fig tree. She describes a vision of her life branching out before her, each figure representing a different future—one as a wife and mother, another as a poet, another as a professor, and many more. She watches the figs begin to wrinkle and fall because she cannot decide which to choose. This imagery captures the anxiety of decision-making, the fear of closing doors, and the feeling of being paralyzed by endless possibilities.
Me, applying to law school while fantasizing about running away to chateau in the French countryside.
It feels so very unfair that we can’t all live one hundred lives in one. We must choose, but at the same time, many people don’t even get that choice. So, we must appreciate our freedom to choose while confronting the anxiety that comes along with making that choice.
Next, I began reading The Stranger by Albert Camus. I also was not sure what I was getting myself into with this one, only that Camus was highly acclaimed for his philosophical ideas. The novel follows Meursault, a detached and emotionally indifferent French Algerian man. At the beginning of the book, he receives news that his mother has died, but he does not cry at her funeral, which unsettles those around him. He drifts through life passively, entering into a relationship without much emotion and making decisions without apparent care. However, his apathy leads to disastrous consequences. His indifference, even when faced with death, challenges how we typically view the world. It’s a perspective I find intriguing, especially as someone who feels things very deeply.
Meursault at trial: “Have you considered that nothing actually matters?”
What struck me the most was Meursault’s lack of guilt. As someone who feels guilty for just about every choice I make, it was fascinating to read about a character who doesn’t seem to internalize blame or wrestle with moral conflict in the same way. His failure to grieve his mother, his casual attitude toward life, and his refusal to express regret make him seem inhuman in the eyes of society. He says, “I had been right, I was still right, I was always right. I had lived my life one way, and I could just as well have lived it another.” To Mersault, there’s no point in regretting or justifying his actions—he simply exists and reacts to the world around him. That detachment, in some ways, felt freeing, though also unsettling.
It’s a challenging view, especially for someone like me who tends to carry emotional weight with every choice. Meursault’s acceptance of the absurd allows him to live without the heavy burden of expectation, guilt, or the pressure to seek meaning in everything. It’s not necessarily a philosophy to adopt fully, but it’s an interesting lens through which to view the world. Life is not a quest for perfection or the best choice; it’s simply a series of moments, and in the grand scheme, it may not matter whether you choose this path or that one.
Camus: ‘The only way to deal with life is to live it.’ Plath: ‘I am currently mourning lives I never lived like they are long lost lovers.'
Ultimately, these books left me thinking about how we approach meaning and choice in our lives. The Bell Jar resonates with those who feel overwhelmed by possibilities, while The Stranger challenges the very idea that those choices matter in the grand scheme. Perhaps there’s something to take from both perspectives. We may never be able to live a hundred lives, but we can find meaning in the one we have, or, like Meursault, we can simply accept life as it comes. Either way, reading these books was a fascinating and unsettling experience, and they pushed me to reflect on my own outlook on life.
I could certainly write much more now, as I feel I have only scratched the surface of existentialism and absurdism. Perhaps I will revisit these concepts in the future. For now, I’ll leave you with two recommendations to begin your own journey into this philosophical spiral.
I highly recommend both books—they’re famous for a reason. That said, be warned: they can definitely affect your mood. The Bell Jar left me in a melancholic haze for weeks, and I would absolutely suggest a trigger warning for its heavy themes surrounding mental health. Despite the emotional weight, I truly enjoyed this month of learning through these books. But maybe next time, I’ll pick up something a little lighter—perhaps a book where the protagonist isn’t having an existential crisis every other page, but I doubt that will happen.
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