Education, Language and Sociology Research 

ISSN 2690-3644 (Print) ISSN 2690-3652 (Online) 

Vol. 3, No. 4, 2022 

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58 
 

Original Paper 

Unravelling the Distorted Foucauldian Panopticism Epitomized 

in the Suicidal Tortures of Esther Greenhood in The Bell Jar 

Luo Jun1* & Li Gui Jun2 

1 School of Foreign Languages, Zhaotong University, Zhaotong, China 

2 School of Foreign Languages, West Yunnan University, Lincang, China 

* Luo Jun, email: 531678237@qq.com 

 

Received: November 15, 2022   Accepted: December 10, 2022  Online Published: December 27, 2022 

doi:10.22158/elsr.v3n4p58        URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/elsr.v3n4p58 

 

Abstract 

Notwithstanding close critical attention has been paid to the essential victimization of the intellectual 

women and non-intellectual women who have been tossed and tortured in their unbearable lives and 

experiences in the increasing interpretation of the female characterization of this novel The Bell Jar 

(1963), inadequate critical concern has been shown to reveal the distorted power mechanism and power 

institutionalism implied in the contextualization of the gloomy social and cultural disciplines effective in 

the despotic disturbance and interference of the actions and thoughts of most intellectual women and 

non-intellectual women in 1950s in American society and American culture as indicated in the very 

ingenuous and insightful production of this novel extremely valuable for the adequate clarification of the 

executive essence of those hegemonic and demonic disciplines. For the sake of the ideological and 

epistemological essence of this disciplinary confinement and enslavement engendered in the vicious and 

malicious disciplines implemented in the entire society where Sylvia Plath has lived, this paper aims to 

uncover the quite malicious distortion of Foucauldian panopticism implemented in the formation and 

reformation of the power mechanism and power institutionalism implemented to persecute intellectual 

women and non-intellectual women as what has been insinuated into the ideological and epistemological 

veins of this novel according to the surveillance, inspection, and, supervision of this Foucauldian 

panopticism to have a good access to the true reasons of the suicidal tragedies and tragic traumas of 

Esther Greenhood who has been caught in the fatal threat of this power mechanism and power 

institutionalism witnessed in the ideological and epistemological stupefaction and sterilization of those 

intellectual women and non-intellectual women whose efforts have turned out to be futile when their 

entire lives and lots have been captured by the demonic dominator or governor of American society and 

American culture at that time. 



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Keywords 

Foucauldian panopticism, Esther Greenhood, The Bell Jar 

 

1. The Contextual Indispensability to Reveal the Distorted Foucauldian Panopticism in The Bell 

Jar 

Contextualized in the gradual awareness of the great importance to seek for the genuine happiness of 

family and that of the successful and sufficient acquisition and acceleration of the true ideological and 

epistemological literation from the unbearable cruelty engendered in the successive occurrence of the 

second world wars in the history of man by reason of the sustainable and sufficient development of the 

internal and external structures and systems of capitalism that have been disposing of the empirical and 

practical opportunity for most women to take to highlight their intellectual identity, intellectual liberty, 

intellectual superiority, and, intellectual priority in their participation in the appropriate stimulation and 

promotion of the indispensable, irreplaceable, and, incredible contribution they are likely to make to the 

further development and improvement of the society where they have to live on a daily basis to the 

unbearable darkness of the social reality and cultural reality that have been tossing and torturing them all 

the more, a good many American women like Sylvia Plath who has been ignored when she is alive but 

admired upon her suicide (Boileau, 2012, p. 1) and who has “regarded her life as if it were a text that she 

that she could invent and rewrite (Van Dyne, 1993, p. 1)” in an imaginative fashion and in an impressive 

fashion, tend to be willing to stay at home and to serve as good house wives to take care of their husbands 

and children in an appropriate manner and in an adequate manner as what has been driven by their internal 

“suburban ideals (Francesca, 2020, p. 4)” on account of the unforgettable and unforgivable terrors they 

have been suffering from the cruel reality and the real cruelty with which the historical moments between 

those two world wars have been laden in an explicit fashion. In this sense, it can be felt in an evident 

manner that it has become a popular fashion to revisit traditional social mores and cultural mores that 

have been forgotten in the rapid development and improvement of the modern capitalism and capital 

modernism that have been governing the increasingly rich living experiences, learning experiences, and, 

working experiences in the process of the modernization of human civilization quickened time and time 

again by the frequent development and improvement of modern technologies that have given rise to the 

replacement and updates of modern machines and modern technologies indispensable in the social 

production and social reproduction in modern times. Although it seems to be absurd and abnormal for 

women to prefer to this choice, it tends to be understandable for women to take a good rest at home rather 

than to expose themselves to the bitter sadness and sad bitterness they have witnessed on the battlefield 

or heard from those who have been fighting over there, for it is apparent that they have been tired of or 

even afraid of the pains brought about by two world wars in a popular sense. At least, their choice is 

inclined to make their minds peaceful and comfortable in a temporary sense to the effect that they have 

been interested in the satiation with what they have possessed at present rather than the expectation or 

exploration of what seems to be uncertain for them as a result of the popularization of consumerism after 



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those two wars. In an essential sense, their attention has been shifted from the reflection and rumination 

of the feminism entailed in the structural traces and systematic traits of the conceptual entanglement and 

enlightenment exemplified in the experiential and experimental articulation of the feminist awareness of 

those women to the experimentation of the extensive or even excessive consumerism they have valued 

and preferred to acquire the satiation with their shopping desire owing to the prosperity of commercialism 

in American society and American culture rather than to seek for their social values and cultural values 

that have been connected with the valuable and veritable stimulation and promotion of the significant 

contributions they are supposed to make to the progressive development and improvement of American 

society and American culture in the form of paving way to the great changes of social reality and cultural 

reality in America in a virtuous fashion and in a vigorous fashion after the second world war in an aimless 

fashion as long as this consumerism can help them to make way to the pacification of their minds in a 

satiable way and in a mindful way. So to speak, the harmful and dreadful impact those wars have had on 

the minds of women has made them reluctant to be faced with the inevitability of the very cruel social 

reality and cultural reality and the unbearableness of the social cruelty and cultural cruelty with which 

they have been surrounded in an invisible way. 

In an opposite fashion, what this particularly insightful writer has surprised most women who have been 

lost in this consumptive pacificism in an unintelligible way is that she has been suffocated with a very 

strong sense that she has to be forced to be faced with a wide variety of social suppressions, social 

oppressions, and, social repressions existing in various forms like domestic violence or an unavoidable 

predicament that she has also to be involved in the increasing victimization of the popular consumerism 

popularized after the second world war regardless of her being a blue stocking in American society even 

if she can refigure her social identity in the impressive and instructive production of her poems and her 

novels in an aesthetic way and in an artistic way to highlight the literary authenticity of her literary works 

and the literary authority of women writers owing to her strong belief that it is important for women to 

write their works in a narrative way to claim their voices and to resist “against patriarchal socialization 

(Kratz, 2019, p. 90)” in American society and American culture right on the way to the very successful 

and sufficient achievement of her proliferation in literary production that tends to have a pathological 

impact on the virtuous treatment of the internal illnesses brought about in her inconsistence with what 

has been favored in the social reality and cultural reality upon which she has been imposed in a despotic 

fashion and in a demonic fashion. To this extent, the historicization and contextualization of the social 

violence and social illness existing in the social reality and cultural reality that she has to be faced with 

either in a pessimistic fashion or in an optimistic fashion on ground of a variety of miserable experiences 

instilled into her lives, are inclined to throw her into the danger of strengthening her suicidal motivation 

and manipulation, and, quickening the perceptive and cognitive pace for her to keep in with to elaborate 

her suicidal pace with the deteriorate pace of the society in which she has to live in an unescapable way 

just as what has been metaphorized in the gloomy violence concealed in the power structure and power 

system embroidered in the bell jar popularized and peculiarized in the power mechanism and power 



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institutionalism of the entire society with which her own life and her lot have been connected in an 

unchangeable fashion and in an unfortunate fashion on account of the increasing penetration of the 

ideological and epistemological persecutions of the very remarkable bluestockings like her into the 

essential design of the powerful panopticons and panoptic power of the entire society to force a variety 

of women writers and thinkers to be accustomed to the experiential and experimental stupefaction of 

them in an incontestable fashion. In other words, their perceptive and cognitive superiority in their 

respective fields tends to be unfavorable for the dominator or manipulator of the society with which they 

are not content, while their perceptive and cognitive inferiority is inclined to be favored and valued in 

most cases as the latter is very conducive for that dominator or manipulator to maximize the perceptive 

and cognitive stupidity and sterility of most women, and, to minimize the high risk of the perceptive and 

cognitive subversion of those women in a successful fashion and in a sufficient fashion. Therefore, it has 

proved to be quite fair in the miserable experiences of a variety of intellectual women and intelligent 

women in this historical period that those who are willing to adapt themselves to the perceptive and 

cognitive prison prepared for women are likelier to lead a much happier life; otherwise, what has been 

prepared for them is to make them tortured to death either in a manifest manner or in a latent manner. Of 

course, Sylvia Plath is in a position to be construed as the latter who are reluctant to give up the 

intellectual conscience rooted in the perceptive and cognitive sensibility and sensitivity they are likeliest 

to make best use of to remind most women of the perceptive and cognitive superiority they ought to rest 

a lot on to enable them to make way to the successive and sustainable stimulation and promotion of their 

strong female awareness to develop their respective independence from their men rather than throw them 

into the unstoppable and uncontrollable addiction to the heavy dependence on their men and the total 

abandonment of the sufficient application of their perceptive and cognitive brilliance into the promotion 

of the great ideological and epistemological progress all women are supposed to make to give a strong 

perceptive and cognitive impetus to the formal and final achievement of their genuine ideological and 

epistemological liberation and salvation to acquire their female identity, female liberty, female dignity, 

and, female individuality right after their having achieved the political equality, social equality, economic 

equality, and, cultural equality with their men whom they have to live with, to stay with, to work with, 

and, to communicate with in an indispensable way and in an inevitable with. What has turned out to be 

pitiful in this regard is that what those women have been dreaming of and seeking for is not what most 

women need and value most in an urgent way in that social context and historical context shortly after 

the sound bitterness engendered in two world wars. 

In response to what has happened in the figuration, configuration, and, refiguration of the impressive and 

instructive harm that has been done to her in the case of the perceptive and cognitive barriers that have 

been existing in the external world where she has to spend her most precious hours in a hopeless way 

and in a helpless way at cost of the aesthetic and artistic honors or glories she ought to be entitled to 

achieve in a peaceful fashion and in an admirable fashion just as what has been shown in a clear vein in 

either the extensive or even excessive popularization of the perceptive and cognitive confinement and 



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enslavement of women in a social sense and the great impact it has had on the insensible insinuation of 

this intellectual persecution and intelligent persecution into the gradual formation, transformation, and, 

reformation of her internal world by reason of her reflective and ruminative combination of the external 

world and the internal world by virtue of seeking for the affective and emotional resonation at the sight 

of everything that has been cropping up in her lives and lots, and, at the thought of everything that ought 

to be marked as the dangerous signals that needs to be epitomized in the literary macrocosm and the 

literary microcosm personalized and particularized in the insightful and ingenuous interweavement of 

her ideological and epistemological wonderland turning up in her literary production, this very distinctive 

American confessional poet by the name of Sylvia Plath, has been trying to “reveal the inhuman darkness 

within us and around us…when she confesses her own life, her own sickness, and, her own vengeful 

imagination (Lowe, 2003, p. 206).” As a matter of fact, what has been implanted into her growing literary 

imagination and her literary inspiration in the process of her literary proliferation in this harmonious 

combination of the documentation of her personal experiences with the essential and authentic revelation 

of the social and cultural vices in an organic manner, in a logical manner, and, in a systematic manner, is, 

the insightful plans she has made to remind most literate women and illiterate women of the great 

importance for them to be awakened in a conscientious sense and in a conducive sense to put into a good 

order the persecutive thread of the power structure and power system of the world where they have lived, 

and, the insightful and ingenuous values for them to see through the dominative and manipulative plots 

that have been diversified and beautified in the structural and systematic veins of the power mechanism 

and power institutionalism that have been mystified to stupefy most women and to turn literate women 

into illiterate women to lay a sound perceptive and cognitive foundation for the thorough dominance and 

governance of their ideological and epistemological growth in a malicious fashion and in a treacherous 

fashion. By reason of the profound clarification of her ideological and epistemological sensitivity and 

sensibility epitomized in the substantial and subtle production of her literary works that can be made to 

reveal the malicious and vicious motivation and intention carried in this power structure and power 

system, it has been struck to her in an impressive way that her extensive incorporation of her life and 

experience into her literary production has made her readers impressed that even if she has been endowed 

with very unmatchable and incomparable wisdom in seeing through those unintelligible structural and 

systematic conspiracies, and, seeking for the popularization and particularization of the ideological and 

epistemological breakthroughs of most miserable women in a systematic fashion, in a symbolic fashion, 

and, in a strategic fashion, what has turned out to be very pitiful in those valuable and veritable creative 

practices and creative processes is that “she is treated as an object or a commodity under male domination 

during her time (Ghalib et al., 2021, p. 2592).” As a matter of fact, it is due to the strong desire for the 

authentic and objective revelation of the social vices prevailing in every chain of those power structures 

and power systems embedded in the circular construction, deconstruction, and, deconstruction of the 

rather vicious power mechanism and power institutionalism in a confidential fashion that she produces 

The Bell Jar (1963) “under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas in the United Kingdom (Sharma, 2019, p. 1)” 



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in an imaginative fashion and in an impressive fashion to help most women to have a good understanding 

of the great ideological and epistemological importance to be attached to the great efforts to be made in 

a substantial way and in a sustainable way to uncover the cruelty and brutality of the social reality and 

cultural reality she has to be faced with at that historical moment with respect to the thorough subversion 

of this malicious power mechanism and power institutionalism that have been made full use of to prevent 

the ideological and epistemological progress and transcendence of those women, and, to make sure of 

the apparent experiential and experimental effects of the power despotism instilled into the structural and 

systematic chain of this power mechanism and power institutionalism in an unnoticeable vein and in an 

untraceable vein. To be concrete, what tends to be quite impressive and instructive in her distinctive 

production of this novel under the title of The Bell Jar (1963) as what has been championed in the address 

Adlai Stevenson has delivered at the commencement of Smith College when Sylvia Plath graduated to 

the effect that he has held that the humble role women cannot but play in American society is to take part 

in the greater issues of devoting themselves to their homes, their husbands, and, their children due to the 

continuous popularization of the post-war American ideology and epistemology (Dunkle, 2012, p. 67), 

is, that it has carried in the narrative facts and narrative events of this novel her true helplessness and 

hopelessness to set her free from the power mechanism and power institutionalism in America at that 

time in addition to most miserable women living over there in that “…In the 1950s, women who wished 

to pursue intellectual or artistic pursuits were at a disadvantage (Ibid, 2012, p. 67).” 

In this sense, it stands to reason in an essential fashion in more than one case that it is of great empirical 

and practical value for this study to take into account the profound and perspicacious analysis to be made 

of the conscientious concealment of the very insightful and instructive intention and motivation of this 

American women who has insinuated in her aesthetic and artistic production of this novel to showcase 

the structural and systematic frames of the power mechanism and power institutionalism that have been 

playing an indispensable and inevitable role in the actual distribution and operation of power in American 

society and American culture grounded on the perceptive and cognitive needs to be met in the domination 

and manipulation of the ideological and epistemological inclination and disinclination of intellectual 

women who have been believed to be able to stir a great sensation in the simulation and promotion of the 

ideological and epistemological progress to be made to awaken the stupefied non-intellectual women in 

a predictable way, in a popular way, in a particular way, and, in a perspicacious way even if it is not 

favorable for the essential and effective prevention of those women from having a profound access to the 

intrinsic and extrinsic essence of the power structure and power system hidden behind the intentional 

beautification of the dominative and manipulative phenomenon carried in the overall implementation of 

the power mechanism and power institutionalism that have been working very well in the stupefaction 

of the actions and thoughts of intellectual women and non-intellectual women on a daily basis to have a 

good control over their lives and lots because it has been found in the actual observation of Dunkle that 

the intelligent and independent image of women in the 1920s has been substituted by that of vacuous, 

obedient housewife who lives in a satiable way within the four walls of their homes (p. 68) in accordance 



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with the strong will developed to maximize the interests and profits of the governor or dominator of the 

power of American society and American culture, for it has been indicated in the symbolic and strategic 

imagination and illumination particularized in the appropriate and adequate enrichment of the ideological 

and epistemological ingredients of this novel in an obvious fashion and in an objective fashion that it is 

of very great experiential and experimental necessity for this researcher of this academic essay to focus 

most on the essential and evident revelation of the ideological and epistemological subtlety of the power 

structure and power system of the power mechanism and power institutionalism implemented in a 

popular way in American society and American society through the lens of Foucauldian Panopticism in 

accordance with what has been exemplified in the narrative facts and narrative events as have been based 

on the living experiences, learning experiences, and, working experiences of this American woman writer 

in her particular production of this novel in reference to what has been echoed in the mind of the character 

by the name of Esther Greenhood depicted in this novel The Bell Jar (1963) in a vivid fashion and in a 

visual fashion even when it has occurred to her in an apparent manner that it is quite impossible for her 

to righten the accepted and admitted misconception of most intellectual women or non-intellectual 

women who have been used to the popularization of the stupefaction among those women and the 

stupefaction of the increasing population among other women groups in a persuasive fashion, and, to 

argue against them over the permeated preconception they have been acquired in the dominative and 

manipulative stupefaction of the governor or dominator of American society and American culture in an 

evident fashion when they are thrown into the danger of being enabled to adapt themselves to the 

ideological and epistemological imprisonment and enslavement of this power mechanism and power 

institutionalism that tend to give rise to their simplification of the treacheries that have been made use of 

to keep them from the belief crisis and trust crisis in which American society and American culture have 

been gloomed in an entire sense to prevent them from trying every means to decipher and dismantle the 

vicious ideological and epistemological manacles those power structures and power systems of American 

society and American culture have imposed upon the confused and stupefied minds of most intellectual 

women and non-intellectual women whose ideological and epistemological inclinations have been 

fragmented and disordered in a violent way the moment the governor or dominator of American society 

and American culture intends to build their hegemonic governance and dominance upon the sacrifices 

the vast majority of those miserable women have to suffer in a submissive way by reason of their strong 

willingness to seek for the transient peaceful quietness of their minds at cost of the unbearable sacrifices 

they have to bear in a passive vein rather than to rack their brains to break the strong ideological and 

epistemological bonds imposed upon their lives and lots in the form of the aggressive and ambitious 

refiguration of their own ideological and epistemological superiority and supremacy in the coherent and 

cohesive consolidation of the leadership of the ideological and epistemological inclination of American 

society and American culture on the basis of the great efforts they are likeliest to make either to resist 

against or even to subvert the perceptive and cognitive imprisonment that has been tossing and torturing 



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them all the time as what has been implied in the ideological and epistemological persecution Esther 

Greenhood has suffered from in this novel The Bell Jar (1963). 

 

2. The Critical Inevitability to Clarify the Distorted Foucauldian Panopticism in The Bell Jar 

Before the logical, systematic, and, objective justification of the authentic and essential existence of the 

panoptic traits and essences of the power mechanism and power institutionalism implemented in 

American society and American culture at that historical moment, much has to be done to give a deep 

investigation of what literary critics have caught sight of and what they have thought of grounded on 

their profound analyses of what has been particularized in the novel Sylvia Plath has produced during 

her stay in London over the last months in 1961 when she begins to draft The Bell Jar (1963) and thinks 

of the organic connection of her ingenuous literary production with the honest exposure of her living 

experiences, learning experiences, and, working experiences as personified and personalized in the very 

miserable lives and lots of the character by the name of Esther Greenhood in an impressive fashion and 

in an instructive fashion in reference to what has been exemplified in the organic stratification and 

systematization of the specific critical responses major literary critics have given to the ideological and 

epistemological nutrients carried in this novel to make a summary of what has come to their minds in a 

respective fashion upon their profound reflection and rumination of the ideological and epistemological 

barriers of the governor or dominator of American society and American culture that have been laden 

with a variety of ideological and epistemological vices hidden behind the over implementation of the 

power mechanism and power institutionalism in relation to the crucial critical examples and critical 

samples to be given below one after another. 

As has been shown in the analytical indicators summarized from the comprehensive analysis made of the 

critical practices and critical processes of a good many literary critics who have been interested in giving 

an interpretation of this novel under the title of The Bell Jar (1963) in reference to the analytical thoughts 

and analytical insights of previous and present studies in a reflective fashion and in a ruminative fashion, 

a great deal has been zoomed in on the very distinctive and diverse interpretation of this novel The Bell 

Jar (1963) from the perspectives of feminism in the case of “the relationship between sex and success 

(Bffano, 2017, p. 28)” in view of what has happened to women and men in a respective fashion when 

sexuality is made use of to have a very tight control over the another gender in marriage and career; the 

establishment of the female identity of women through the evocation of the spaces of conflicts and 

difference on the foundation of the ideological and epistemological reconceptualization of the female 

consciousness of a good many women (Bonasera, 2019, p. 1) in reference to the unfavorable ideological 

and epistemological inadequateness existing in previous conceptualization of it in the spatial analysis 

made of in literary criticism; the rational rumination of the characterization as epitomized in Esther 

Greenwood to give an investigation of how middle-class white women struggle in 1950s in America for 

the formation, transformation and reformation of their distorted female identities (Smith, 2008, p. 33) in 

an indomitable fashion drawing on the imaginative and impressive illumination and inspiration of hyper-



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realism under the cloud of the mythology concealed in the continuous exploration made of the internal 

life that has very much to do with the mental illness and suicide of this versatile American women writer 

Sylva Plath in more than one respect in cold war America; the situationalization of women lives and lots 

in the establishment and development of particular literary form to reflect the inherent femininity of 

women experiences and women topics in an intentional fashion, and transform the reflective presentation 

of “the traditional archetypes and images of women into a dynamic literary form to highlight the genuine 

femaleness of women (Miller, 2011, p. 202)” with the help of the application of this feminist discourse 

into the experiential and experimental production of this novel The Bell Jar (1963) in a strategic manner; 

the imaginative construction of the rigid panoptic disciplines in the experiences of Esther Greenhood in 

the formation of her “female gender identity and consumer identity in the case of her psychological health, 

femininity, and, sexuality (Bærevar, 2007, p. 2)” with which American society and American culture have 

been characterized in an apparent fashion and in an evident fashion in 1950s in relation to the perceptive 

and cognitive enlightenment primarily drawn on from the Foucauldian theory of disciplinary power; the 

description given of “the female sufferance and female experience of Esther Greenwood on the basis of 

her Journey from madness to womanhood to make an analysis of the female problems reflected in her 

life and to make an exploration of those female problems (Bendris, 2019, p. 2)” caused by the unbearable 

social and cultural injustice rooted in American patriarchal society in a popular fashion; the very strong 

oppression, suppression, and, humiliation women have suffered a great deal from the ideological and 

epistemological conflicts and contradictions symbolized in the psychological ambivalence of the main 

character of this novel The Bell Jar (1963) on account of the empirical and practical failure to prevent 

the patriarchal hypocrisy from being transmitted and rooted in the minds of men under the very heavy 

repression of “male dominance, double sexual standards, and, social injustice (Hanna & Hassina, 2017, 

p. 2)”; the marital exploitation of women in American society in 1950s due to their voluntary submission 

to the perceptive and cognitive imprisonment of the marriage that has given rise to the high impossibility 

from them to set themselves from the being bound to “the four walls of their house” (Imtiaz, 2019, p. 

51); and, the compromise to be made between extremes that have been gone in the minds of those who 

prefer to be houses wives, and, those who are unwilling to do so because it has been held in the minds of 

those who are not so radical as the women mentioned above in a negotiable fashion that “being a wife 

and a mother are not at odds with being a writer (Azra et al., 1906, p. 70)” just as what has been 

demonstrated in the maltreatment the protagonist of The Bell Jar (1963) has been suffering in her life 

under the banner of the marriage that has brought her nothing but miserable and painful disillusion. As 

can be seen in the summary made of this novel The Bell Jar (1963) in various folds in the discussions 

made about the lives and lots of the main character Esther Greenwood in an instructive manner and in an 

imaginative manner, what has occurred to its readers in an impressive fashion after their having had an 

intensive reading of this novel in a reflective way and in a ruminative way is that the theoretical thoughts 

and insights of feminism have been applied into the critical practices and critical processes of literary 

criticism with regards to the very profound concern and sympathy that have been shown for the bitter 



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sadness and sad bitterness of women in combination with what has been impressed in the devaluation, 

devastation, and, distortion of the social values and cultural values of most intellectual women and non-

intellectual women just as what has been exemplified and resonated in the female sufferance and female 

experience of the intellectual protagonist of this novel by the name of Esther Greenhood in most cases 

notwithstanding their failure to question the great harm the power structure and power system of 

American mechanism and American institutionalism has done to the mental health and physical health 

of those women in an essential vein and in an apparent vein regardless of what has been implied in the 

authentic assumption that “the position of the man in the family was superficial and incidental while that 

of the woman was fundamental and supreme...(Sumner, 1906, p. 387)” as what has been shown in the 

very painful experience of the protagonist of this novel named Esther Greenhood in an impressive fashion 

in more than one case. 

Apart from the very impressive and instructive elaboration of the female identities, female crises, and. 

female tragedies the vast majority of intellectual women or non-intellectual women have witnessed in 

view of the experiential and experimental evidences acquired from the lives and lots of the poor woman 

character depicted in the production of this novel under the title of The Bell Jar (1963) in a symbolic way 

and in a strategic way, it has been shown in the investigation given of the valuable findings of the critical 

essays with respect to the interpretation given of the ambivalent minds of the protagonist of this novel in 

an apparent fashion that a good many literary critics have also paid their analytical attentions to the 

mental breakdowns, mental anxieties, mental illusions, and, mental crises of this protagonist of this novel 

by the name of Esther Greenwood in an appropriate manner and in an admirable manner when it is 

inclined to quieten the internal voices of women in American society and American culture after the cold 

war as shown in the critical comments to be made in the following summarization. In the minds of Baig, 

the sense of female enclosure in a psychological Bell Jar that invites a revelation of the social injustice 

giving rise to the psychological space crucial for women to reveal their devaluation, degradation, or even 

distortion engendered in “the male dominance and double sexual standards in 1950s in American society 

where female predicament caused by social entrapment has developed into a triggering force for women 

to revolt for the successful and sufficient attainment of the freedom (p. 21)” they have been dreaming 

about on the basis of the successive and sustainable development and improvement of their strong will-

power to get free from the physical and spiritual confinements as what has been indicated in the strong 

resistance of Esther Greenwood the protagonist depicted in the production of this novel The Bell Jar 

(1963) against the stereotypical chains that are supposed to be smattered in American society in spite of 

this extensive popularization of this conservative confinement in America. In the critical exploration to 

be made of the correlation between the mind and body as epitomized in the developmental inclination of 

the psychological development and improvement of Esther Greenhood, Chandran (2016) has given an 

interpretation of the personal tragedy of the protagonist of this novel The Bell Jar (1963) in combination 

with the denotation and connotation of the Freudian concepts including major depressive disorder and 

Neurosis (p. 413) in accordance with a series of details that have been running through the experiences 



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of this protagonist to make it understandable in an evident manner that it is those psychological disorders 

that has turned out to the be the real causes as have been given rise to the tragic suicide of her in a pitiful 

way and the failure of her to forge her female identity in American society at that historical period in an 

acceptable way and in an admirable way just as what has resonated in a profound fashion and in a 

particular in everything Sylvia Plath has encountered in her lives and lots in an experiential sense and in 

an experimental sense to avoid the mental breakdowns and even the mental crises in the experiences she 

has to join in her live and career she has suffered on account of the rather inappropriate and inadequate 

development and improvement of her mind even though she has acquired a harmonious, stable, and, safe 

development and growth of her body that tends to trap her mind in an interactive vein to the effect that it 

has turned out to be of great importance for all of us to strike a balance between our minds and our bodies 

on ground of enabling ourselves to get free from the seemingly unavoidable imprisonment of the physical 

disorder and mental disorder that are bound to throw us into the danger of tragedy in spite of the dreadful 

social reality and cultural reality we have to be faced with in our lives in a given society similar to that 

of America during and even after cold war at the risk of being devalued, dwarfed, or, even distorted in a 

psychological sense. In the increasing critical practices and critical processes devoted to the complexity 

of the minds of Esther Green owing to the critical attention has been paid to the fact that she has failed 

to have a good taste of her life as shown in her experiences recounted in the ingenuous and insightful 

interweavement of the narrative facts and narrative events the major plot of this novel The Bell Jar (1963) 

has turned out to be composed of in an unexpectable manner and in an unintelligible manner, a further 

exploration has been made of the true correlation “between the mind and body of this protagonist Esther 

Greenhood to give an overall interpretation of the specific causes and effects of her distaste for her life 

in combination with the application of Freudian unconsciousness and defense mechanism (Lubaba, 2017, 

p. 9)” in a specific fashion, in a systematic fashion, and, in a logical fashion in reference to the poor 

experiences she has undergone in her life as exemplified in the distasteful attitudes she has held toward 

“her ex-boyfriend, her mother, her friends, and … the social perspectives (Ibid, 2017, p. 9).” In 

connection with the rational psychological reflection and rumination of the causes and effects of the 

suicides of the protagonist of this novel The Bell Jar (1963) in a profound sense and in an objective sense, 

what has turned out to be quite meaningful in literary criticism it is struck to Tsanks (2010) in a 

conspicuous sense that it is in a position to be suggested in a rational sense that fewer critical attentions 

need to be paid to the relation of the suicidal death of Esther Greenhood to the social conformism and 

social conservatism in American society (p. 166), let alone regard this relation as the direct cause of the 

mental suffocation that has led to the suicidal tragedy or tragic suicide of this protagonist in a subjective 

manner and in an irrational manner. That is because in the mind of Tsanks, what has turned out to be of 

direct relevance to the mental crisis and mental collapse of the heroine of this novel has much to do with 

her psychological illness engendered in the continuous increases of her psychological depression at 

everything that is bound to show up in her life whether she prefers it or not, and, her perception of the 

world in which she has to live in an indomitable fashion and in an ambitious fashion even though she has 



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to be faced with a variety of obstacles as mirrored in the stressful environment she has created for herself 

and the high standards she has set for her by reason of the harmful perfectionism she has rooted in her 

mind (p. 169) without knowing in a dialectical way that it is valuable for her to set an acceptable and 

achievable goal for her in a rational way and in reasonable way, while, vicious for her to immerse herself 

in the unattainable goal she has set for herself in a blind vein and in an irrational vein. Inspired by the 

reaffirmation of Crawford and Baker (2009) that the study of literature is inclined to encourage medical 

workers to have a good understanding of the human mind in their clinical experiences and clinical 

experiments and to provide them with numerous alternative and qualitative enlightenments and insights 

quite valuable for the exact diagnosis of the mental illness of their patients when the diseases they have 

been suffering from are increasingly likely to be overlooked by the prevailing biomedical paradigm of a 

variety of psychiatrists (p. 237), it has been noted in the studies of Hunt and Carter (2011) in a very 

insightful manner that an analytical approach based on the acquisition of the theoretical insights of corpus 

stylistics can be applied into the overall and essential interpretation that is inclined to be given of the 

linguistic features of this novel The Bell Jar (1963) in an impressive sense and in an instructive sense to 

give a clear picture of the mental illness of Esther Greenhood in terms of the psychological disorder and 

psychological breakdown (p. 28) she has suffered in her traumatic life and lot because of the 

psychological traumas and tribulations with which her experiences have been laden when she is short of 

the psychological care of American society in accordance with what has been manifested in an evident 

way in the elaboration and exploration of the essential and authentic correlation between the 

particularization of the linguistic patterns, linguistic features, and, linguistic paradigms with which this 

novel has been characterized in a diverse fashion and in a distinctive fashion, and, the valuable and 

veritable description its language has been given of the very serious symptom of the psychological crises 

this protagonist has been faced with in her upcoming personal tragedy, and, to foreground the crucial and 

conducive role the unexamined features of this language neglected in the critical experimentation of 

previous literary criticism has been playing in the gradual revelation of the strong mental illness of this 

protagonist in an indirect way in the entire process of the generation the profound meanings and values 

potentiated in the aesthetic and artistic production of this novel in an untraceable manner and in an 

unnoticeable manner in addition to the unintentional elucidation of the suicidal depression and depressive 

suicidality that have been running through the living experiences and learning experiences of her in an 

implicit way. For the part of the explication of the causes and effects relation between the problematized 

personality of Esther Greenhood and the failed achievement of her identity in American society, it has 

been examined in the studies of Nurlianingsih in a clear vein that the main character of this novel Esther 

Greenhood has failed to handle in psychological development in the particular stage of identity and role 

confusion as dealt in the theoretical elaboration of Erik Erikson in the field of psychological development 

and this failure has had a great impact on the formation of her personality in a healthy way and in a happy 

way so that she has been turned into a very depressive, impulsive, and, lonely person who is unable to 

adapt American society in a flexible way to stand the test of the psychological crisis (p. 51) she has to be 



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faced with and get through in an appropriate vein and in a rational vein to enable her to get free from the 

imprisonment of social reality and to make her exempt from the victimization of this psychological 

problem that has given rise to her tragic death in a pitiful fashion, for according to Erikson’s theory on 

psychological development, it is inevitable for all of us to get through each phase in the midst of our 

psychological development to acquire an opportunity to forge our individual personality in an acceptable 

fashion. To cut a long story short in the light of the rich perceptive and cognitive imagination, inspiration, 

and, illumination acquired from the profound rumination and reflection of the complexity of the mindsets 

of Esther Greenhood in a psychological way, it has become apparent that a wide variety of literary critics 

as exampled above in those analyses and syntheses has taken a very particular care of the mental health 

of the heroine in the insightful comments they have made on the actual characterization of this novel 

notwithstanding their perceptive and cognitive inadequateness for the analytical emphasis they are 

supposed to place on the extrinsic causes that have resulted in the tragic and traumatic death of this 

protagonist in reference to the social vices and social ills existing in the implementation of the power 

mechanism and power institutionalism into American society and American culture in an authentic way 

and in an objective way. 

On ground of the diverse and distinctive exploration of the profound ideological and epistemological 

values carried in the confidential transmission of the particular thoughts articulated in the production of 

this novel in the symbolic and strategic characterization of the protagonist of novel The Bell Jar (1963) 

in an unintelligible fashion and in an unimaginable fashion, it has turned out to be truly impressive and 

progressive that a good many literary critics have been aware in a sensitive manner and in a sensible 

manner that it is of much more valuable importance for them to immerse themselves into the insightful 

and ingenuous exploration to be made of the essential and crucial traits that have been embedded in the 

confidential insinuation of the social reality of America at that historical moment into the arrangement to 

be made for the organic and systematic interweavement of the narrative facts and narrative events crucial 

for the development and improvement of the plot carried in this novel to have an authentic access to the 

ideological and epistemological essence personified in the subtle connection between the narrative facts 

and narrative events of this novel, and, the historical facts and historical events echoed in the major 

ideological and epistemological enlightenment and encouragement concretized in the very meaningful 

connection between the authentic characterization of this novel and the confidential insinuation of the 

reality existing in America in that historical period. To begin with, this can be seen in a clear fashion and 

in an evident fashion in the sociological analyses that have been made of the social thoughts and social 

insights potentiated in the production of this novel in an appropriate fashion and in an adequate fashion 

in combination with what has been portrayed into the narrative facts and narrative events of this novel 

and what has been potentiated over there in a systematic manner, in a symbolic manner, and, in a strategic 

manner, but, it has to be made clear in an honest sense and in an objective sense that what has been done 

in this regard at present as indicated in the development of literary criticism in this respect, has turned 

out to be not adequate enough, for they have centered a great deal on the rather reasonable and rational 



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acceptance of the communicative discourses and critical discourse potentiated in the impressive and 

instructive production of this novel as “a resistance to the hegemonic limitation of the changing social 

system of US of the 1950s, following a more radical way of resistance: suicide (Sabanci, 2013, p. 60)” 

in relevance to the strong ideological and epistemological conflicts and contradiction between what has 

been experimented in literary production and what has been expected in conceptualization of social 

thoughts and social insights in the essential and evident stimulation and promotion of the successive and 

sustainable development and improvement of American society and the experiential and experimental 

concretization of them into the social practices over there in an effective fashion and in an evident fashion. 

In a simultaneous way, what has to be reflected and ruminated in a profound fashion and in an essential 

fashion is that those analyses have also focused on the social politicization or political socialization of 

the interaction between literary production and social progression in American literature and American 

society like “the politics of the time” that has acted as “a means of control over the population, especially 

women (Fernández, 2016, p. 163)” to show the hegemonic or even demonic domination and manipulation 

of the conformism and consumerism popularized in a good many fields in American society in 1950s. 

Furthermore, it has also become apparent in more than one case in the continuous development and 

improvement of literary criticism that an increasing number of literary critics with respect to the overall 

and essential interpretation to be given of the social insights carried in this novel have also shown in an 

apparent fashion that they have shown their profound and particular critical concern for “the dissolution 

of the boundaries between the public and the private spheres during the Cold War” (Correia, 2018, p. 70) 

in connection with the victimization of the characters depicted in this novel who have been torn between 

international politicization and individual traumatization at that historical moment in an inescapable 

fashion. In the overall comparison that has been made between the depressive similarity between the 

characterization manifested in the production of The Bell Jar and Prozac Nation, it has been impressed 

in a manifest fashion in the stratification, systematization, and, summarization of the possible barriers 

showing up in the gradual formation of the female identities of the protagonists of those two novels that 

the depression narratives with which those two novels have been laden in an apparent manner, have made 

obvious perceptive and cognitive effects on the linearization of the stable stimulation and promotion of 

the academic production and literary production of those intellectual characters depicted in the actual 

production of those two novels as a result of the correlation between the deterioration of the depression 

of them that tends to lead to their mental breakdowns, mental crises, and, mental diseases in spite of the 

possibility for the appropriate treatment of those mental illnesses, and, the qualitative and quantitative 

extension and expansion of the abundant production of the commodities it has been taking a lot to give 

a strong impetus to the successive, sustainable, and, sufficient accumulation and acceleration of what has 

been needed most to lay a sound empirical and practical foundation for the continuous development and 

improvement of American capitalism and American capitalist ideology and epistemology, for it has been 

noted in the sharp contrast that has been made between them that the slim expectation of those two female 

protagonists to enable them to get free from the ideological and epistemological imprisonment of this 



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American capitalism, has made it quite evident and clear that it has turned out to be an unfulfillable  

dream for them to make their way to the experiential and experimental solidification of their emotional 

foundation for the genuine commodification of American society in an adequate way and the objective 

and authentic justification of the possible success to be achieved in the supports the reduction of those 

emotional depression of those female protagonists is inclined to provide for the continuous prosperity of 

American society and American ideology in most respects because the unsurpassable emotional stasis of 

their deteriorated depression has been turned into an insurmountable barrier (Wall, 2019, p. 11) on the 

way to the successful and sufficient protection and promotion of the social production and social 

reproduction of America on ground of the stimulus and impetus acquirable from the academic production 

and literary production of intellectual women as the protagonists cropping up in the very valuable and 

veritable characterization of those two novels. In a connective sense, discussions have also been made 

about the dissolution of the spatial boundaries between the public spheres and private spheres at the 

historical moment during the cold war in American society when American has been gloomed in the very 

strong inclination of resisting against the “new communist containment ideology and epistemology 

(Correia, 2018, p. 70)” in American society and American culture in connection with the exploration 

Sylvia Plath has made of the possible solution to be worked out to subvert the national conformism in 

America in that historical period, and, the explication of the very similar trajectories between 

international politics and individual traumas imprinted on the textual textures of this novel The Bell Jar 

(1963) in relation to the elaboration of the repressive or even suppressive room that has been made in the 

production of this novel to expose this dissolution and the examination of the miserable experiences if 

the protagonist depicted in this novel in an intentional fashion in spite of the inadequate aesthetic and 

artistic awareness that ought to have been developed to deal with the irrational penetration of the social 

politicization or political socialization into the insightful and ingenuous creation of the imaginative and 

instructive values in the experiential and experimental production of literary works as what has been 

particularized in those very malicious ideological and epistemological preconception and misconception 

that have been instilled into the narrative facts and narrative events of this novel in an untraceable manner 

and in an unnoticeable manner. To be brief, it can be seen in a clear manner that with regards to the 

developmental inclination of the ideological and epistemological traces of American capitalism in 1950s 

after the cold war when most American women prefer to take a very good rest in that they have been 

tired of or even afraid of the terrible fact that they have to be accepted to take a variety of tasks during 

two world wars when their men have been sent to the battlefield, what has to be noted in a sensitive 

fashion and in a sensible fashion in having a good understanding of the political atmosphere permeated 

into the social development right after the exemption of most women from the strong pressure from those 

traumatic and even tragic wars as what has been shown in the perceptive and cognitive alleviation of 

women characters whom this novel The Bell Jar (1963) has given a description of in an authentic fashion 

and in an objective fashion is that the valuable peace as has been made in their lives has made them turn 

a deaf ear to the social vices and social ills of American society and American culture, so they have failed 



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to pay adequate attention to the insightful and ingenuous penetration into the ideological and 

epistemological essence they are supposed to get a profound and perspicacious access to even though 

they are likely to feel the urge to give an account of the ideological and epistemological inadequateness 

existing in the power structure and power system of the power mechanism and power institutionalism in 

America in 1950s in a conscientious way to reveal the miserable bitterness and sadness of those women 

who have been confined to the exhaustible chores of their families. 

Grounded on what has been manifested in the deep analyses of the critical practices and processes 

cropping up in those valuable studies as what has been expounded above in a respective fashion from the 

perspective of feminism, psychoanalytical criticism, and, sociological criticism apart from those analyses 

made of from the rest of theoretical perspectives that have low relevance to the research content of this 

study even if they have been devoted to the interpretation that has been given of the characterization of 

the protagonist of this novel in reference to what has been manifested in the imaginative and instructive 

production of this novel The Bell Jar (1963) in an impressive fashion, it can be seen in an obvious manner 

that although most literary critics have made their great efforts to have a good access to the essential 

values carried in the production of this novel from distinctive and diverse perspectives in an appropriate 

way and in an acceptable way in line with what has been mirrored in this novel, what has to be admitted 

in an objective sense and in a sensible sense is that adequate critical attention has failed to be paid to the 

profound and perspicacious rumination of the power mechanism and power institutionalism as hidden 

behind the dreadful traumas and tragedies of the protagonist of this novel in combination with the 

ideological and epistemological confinement derivative from the distortion of Foucauldian panopticism 

due to the experiential and experimental imprisonment of their critical awareness developed to paralyze 

intellectual women and non-intellectual women in American society and American culture, and, the 

perceptive and cognitive emphases they have placed on their critical exploration and critical explication 

of the ideological and epistemological supremacy and sufficiency of this true perceptive and cognitive 

imprisonment shown in their actual analytical practices and analytical processes connected with the 

comment made on the characterization of this novel. On ground that their critical efforts made in this 

respect have turned out to be not adequate enough for the essential and quintessential revelation of the 

ideological and epistemological essence and quintessence of the power structures and power systems 

potentiated in the power mechanism and power institutionalism implemented in a hegemonic fashion and 

in a demonic fashion in American society and American culture on the basis of the malicious and 

treacherous distortion of the ideological and epistemological quintessence of the surveillance, inspection, 

and, supervision in the structural and systematic configuration of Foucauldian panopticism, it has turned 

out to be of great inevitable importance to make a profound exploration of those issues in this study to 

make it possible for the critical progress to be made in this regard in an objective manner and in an 

evident manner to lay a good critical foundation for the revelation of the vicious and violent distortion 

of Foucauldian panopticicism in the construction and consolidation of the power structures and power 

systems concealed in the power mechanism and power institutionalism particularized in the imaginative 



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and impressive characterization of this novel The Bell Jar (1963) in an undetectable fashion and in an 

unnoticeable fashion in reference to the insightful ideological and epistemological concretization and 

crystallization in this process. 

 

3. The Conceptual Feasibility to Elaborate the Distorted Foucauldian Panopticism in The Bell Jar 

To have a good understanding of the essential reasons why the characters depicted in The Bell Jar (1963) 

are unable to be free from the victimization of the distorted disciplinary power potentiated in the power 

structure and power system of the power mechanism and power institutionalism as implemented in 

American society and American culture in 1950s after two world wars and cold war in a popular fashion 

in combination with what has been highlighted in the theoretical elaboration and exploration of Michel 

Foucault in terms of the panopticism viewed as “the measures to be taken to deal with the plague showing 

up at the end seventeenth century (Foucault trans by Alan Sheridan, 1975, p. 195)” and as “an 

architectural setting designed by Jeremy Bentham in the mid nineteenth century (Sharma, 2015, p. 274)” 

to regulate the actions and thoughts of prisoners, refugees, students, patients, and, workers as what has 

been shown in the production of his philosophical work under the title of Discipline and Punish: The 

Birth of the Prison, it is much better for the vast majority of the readers of this novel to have a good 

understanding of the power mechanism and power institutionalism implied in the specific perceptive and 

cognitive inclination of the protagonist depicted in the rather meaningful production of this novel that 

resembles a lot to the disciplinary mechanism and the disciplinary institutionalism of the panoptic 

interweavement of the true structural and systematic construction of the disciplinary system that has been 

playing an important role in the popular distribution and operation of the dominative and manipulative 

power of a disciplinary society like American society where this panoptic insight have been borrowed 

from Michel Foucault and applied into the needs to be met in the mind of the dominator or governor of 

American society who intends to have a very strong control over the actions and minds of American 

citizens especially American women citizens at that particular historical moment in terms of the 

omnipresent, omniscient, and, omnipotent surveillance, inspection, as much as, supervision of central 

power over the peripherical existence as to be indicated below in a respective fashion in the feasible and 

flexible conceptualization of the central justifiable evidences of the theoretical insights to be applied into 

the logical and systematic justification of the panoptic existence of the power mechanism and power 

institutionalism in the social reality and cultural reality exemplified in the artful insinuation of the social 

vices and social ills of American society and American culture into the intrinsic veins and extrinsic virtues 

of the narrative facts and narrative events this novel is composed of in a logical manner and in an organic 

manner. 

3.1 The Surveillance in Foucauldian Panopticism  

In an essential sense, either the insightful thought or thoughtful insight of the rigid surveillance in the 

panoptic discipline has presented in the production of this philosophical work has as much as to do with 

the overall and practical implementation of the spatial enclosure of the territorial boundary of a given 



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area that has to be blocked in an intentional fashion to reach a series of particular aims valuable for the 

needs to be met for the fulfillment of the experiential and experimental domination and manipulation of 

those who have lived and stayed inside and are not expected to have a very good understanding of what 

has happened outside by having a tight control over their whereabouts in an effective fashion and in an 

essential fashion and preventing them from taking an opportunity to make a possible communication 

with those who have been separated from those insiders who have to be faced with the manipulative and 

dominative management of this manager who are required to keep watch on what they have been doing 

all the more just as a syndic has been asked to do to perform his duties in accordance with the strong 

requirement the inmates of a prison, an asylum, a school, a hospital, or, even a factory has been forced 

to follow in an unconditional fashion as elaborated in the following quote in the case of the clarification 

of the disciplines and punishments carried in this panoptic power arrangement in a given institution as 

mentioned above in an exemplary fashion notwithstanding it has failed to reveal the popularity of the 

panoptic existence of the disciplinary power in the vast areas of a given society that is destined to be 

laden with a very strong atmosphere of fear, gloom, anxiety, depression, and, desperation inerasable and 

unforgettable in the exhaustible minds of all the miserable insiders of this society in an unforgivable 

fashion. 

…Each street is placed under the authority of a syndic, who keeps it under surveillance; 

if he leaves the street, he will be condemned to death. On the appointed day, everyone is 

ordered to stay indoors: it is forbidden to leave on pain of death…. Each individual is 

fixed in his place. And, if he moves, he does so at the risk of his life, contagion or 

punishment. (Foucault trans by Alan Sheridan, 1975, p. 195) 

As what has been marked in an explicit manner in the panoptic surveillance of the manager of the specific 

areas like prison, asylum, school, hospital, or, even hospital that can be closed to separate the insiders of 

those areas from the outsiders of them to reach the aim of the ideological and epistemological dominance 

or governance at cost of the ideological and epistemological stupefaction to maximize the profits the 

dominators or governors of those areas have been dreaming of to make in a successful way and in a 

sufficient way indebted to the strong belief that in the comparison with the very great harm the ideological 

and epistemological profundity, particularity, prosperity, and, perspicacity of those insiders are bound to 

do to the harmonious fulfilment of either the hegemonic or even demonic domination and manipulation 

of those dominators or governors who have been expecting themselves to impose upon their insiders 

what they have been expecting them of in a coherent fashion and in a cohesive fashion, it is much better 

for them to prefer to make those insiders lost in the dominative and manipulative security that has 

grounded on the ideological and epistemological inferiority, stupidity, and, sterility to make sure of the 

ideological and epistemological stability of their experiential and experimental dominance and 

governance in the name of the symbolic and strategic stimulation and promotion of their ideological and 

epistemological leadership in those areas, what has to be noted in a conscientious fashion and in an honest 

fashion is that it is of high perceptive and cognitive possibility in the unspeakable denotation carried in 



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the rigid surveillance of this panoptic distribution of the power structure and power system of those 

dominators or governors that most insiders in those areas have been threatened by the dreadful or even 

demonic disciplines implemented in those terrible areas on account of the absolute blockage of the spatial  

boundaries of those areas and the capital punishments concealed in the irresistible and undefeatable 

power of those disciplines that have been adopted in a particular fashion and applied into the repetitive 

and regular observation of all the possible actions those insiders are inclined to or even likely to take to 

struggle against or fight against their dominators or governors for the appropriate or adequate acquisition 

of the liberty they are entitled to get close to in an indomitable manner, the identity they are supposed to 

forge in a reasonable fashion, the equality they ought to be shared with their dominators or governors in 

most cases, and, the dignity they are doomed to be endowed with in an inalienable fashion without 

knowing in an insightful fashion that the moment their minds are equipped with the panoptic surveillance 

of those dominators or governors, they will be destined to lose all that have been kept in their minds in a 

thorough way as a result of the gradual expansion of the dominative and manipulative motivation and 

intention of those dominators or governors what are preoccupied with the barbarian exploitation of the 

liberty, identity, equality, and, dignity of those insiders who are unable to do anything in an individual 

way except for their acceptance of the fact that their minds have been suffocated with a very strong sense 

of helplessness, hopelessness, as much as, powerlessness. What is worse for those insiders in a more 

dreadful fashion, is, that the increasing surveillance of them in a successive way and in a sustainable way 

tends to develop their ideological and epistemological adaptation to the ideological and epistemological 

exploitation they have been suffering from their dominators or governors in such an impressive fashion 

that if one of their peers comes up with rebellious ideas for this continuous surveillance in an individual 

way, they will try their best to argue against him or even fight against him in a collective way apart from 

the rigid ideological and epistemological persecution of their dominators or governors who will never be 

aware of the good that individual insider can do to them unless they are challenged, intruded, or, even 

defeated by those who come from other areas in an unexpected fashion. Therefore, what all readers of 

this Foucauldian philosophical work titled Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, is, that the 

blind, irrational, or, vicious implementation of the surveillance proposed in the elaboration of the strong 

power of disciplines is bound to do damage to not only those docile insiders but also their dominators or 

governors. 

3.2 The Inspection in Foucauldian Panopticism  

To put everything in good order in a cautious fashion and in a meticulous fashion in combination with 

what is going on in those caged areas on a daily basis, it has been proposed in this work in details that 

very great perceptive and cognitive importance is in a position to be attached to the indispensable and 

irreplaceable role the strict inspection has been playing in the empirical and practical confinement of the 

thoughts and actions of the insiders to play a rather solid perceptive and cognitive foundation for those 

dominators or governors of those areas who are inclined to throw those insiders into the danger of being 

watched face by face by means of gaze in a controllable fashion to have a very good understanding of 



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what has happened to those insiders every day, being caught on the spot the minute they are going to do 

harm to the barbarian dominance or governance of those areas in an intentional fashion, being punished 

right away after being found dangerous for the successive and sustainable continuation of the repressive 

or suppressive security and stability of the domination and manipulation implemented in those areas, and, 

being forced to stand the test of the unbearable pain of death as long as they dare to conceal the truth that 

must be told about everything happens in those areas. To a greater extent, this popular inspection is bound 

to impose upon the minds of those insiders a strong pressure rooted in their internal fear of being punished 

or even being killed in the case of the strong psychological power of the disciplines implemented in those 

blocked or closed areas as what to be concretized in the quote to be given below in an instructive vein 

and in an impressive vein to showcase the extensive or even excessive terrors the minds of those insiders 

are inclined to be gloomed in an unavoidable fashion when an extreme thought might come to their minds 

in an unstoppable fashion or in an irresistible fashion on account of their perceptive and cognitive failure 

to enable themselves to be exempt from the ideological and epistemological disturbance or interference 

of the unintelligible seeds of the liberty, identity, equality, and, dignity they are entitled to be endowed 

with or to be armed with as a consequence of the strong temptation of the psychological balance entailed 

in the uncontrollable development and improvement of the deprived social justice they think that ought 

to be protected and promoted in an effective fashion and in an essential fashion on the foundation of the 

distinctive and diverse brilliance they believed they have already possessed for a long time to support 

their impulsive actions to be taken to subvert the unfair ideological and epistemological dominance and 

governance epitomized in the form of the popularization of the severe inspection here and there that has 

been implemented in a sustainable fashion and in a sufficient fashion in those isolated areas in an explicit 

manner or in an implicit manner. 

Inspection functions ceaselessly. The gaze is alert everywhere: “A considerable body of 

militia, commanded by good officers and men of substance”, guards at the gates, at the 

town hall and in every quarter to ensure the prompt obedience of the people and the most 

absolute authority of the magistrates, “as also to observe all disorder, theft and 

extortion”. …the inhabitants will be compelled to speak the truth under pain of death; if 

someone does not appear at the window, the syndic must ask why: ‘In this way he will find 

out easily enough whether dead or sick are being concealed.’ (Foucault trans by Alan 

Sheridan, 1975, p. 195) 

In the light of what has been implied in this quote in a direct sense or in an indirect sense has thrown on 

the ideological and epistemological vices and ills carried in the panoptic inspection euphemized in the 

observable gaze that is inclined to give rise to the internal fear of the stupefied insiders of those blocked 

areas in a symbolic fashion and in a strategic fashion to the effect that the dominators or governors of 

those areas seemed to make it clear that it pays a great deal for the innocent and ignorant insiders who 

have inhabited in their caged areas in an independent fashion owing to their gradual adaption to or their 

addiction to the ideological and epistemological dependence on the dominative and manipulative input 



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of those hegemonic dominators or governors who have turned out to be best at making best use of the 

ferocious fear they have been imposing upon the vast majority of the insiders of their closed areas in a 

malicious fashion and in a treacherous fashion to make sure that the strong impact they have had on the 

minds of those insiders is doomed to be unshakable, it has to be noticed in an insightful fashion that from 

the point of view of the ideological and epistemological essence of the ideological and epistemological 

management of those insiders, the panoptic inspection as indicated in a clear fashion in what has been 

manifested in the quote given above, has turned out to be the intentional and ingenuous instillation of the 

dominative and manipulative terrors into the timid minds of most insiders or the confidential insinuation 

of their dominative and manipulative intentions and ambitions into the quite aggressive minds of few of 

those insiders who have failed to be stupefied and sterilized in a thorough fashion, and, to be paralyzed 

and disabled in a spiritual sense even when they have been faced with the strong pressures those panoptic 

terrors have been imposing upon them in a barbarian fashion owing to the unsurmountable power 

potentiated in the disciplines carried in this panoptic inspection that has been running through the lives 

and experiences of the insiders who have to live and stay in those blocked areas in a helpless fashion, in 

a hopeless fashion, and, in a powerless fashion. With the standpoint of those timid insiders, the successive 

and sustainable ideological and epistemological imprisonment they have been suffering from the spiritual 

paralyses and tortures of their dominators or governors who have been working hard for the ideological 

and epistemological pollution of those insiders in the name of grace or elegance, is bound to weed out 

the perceptive and cognitive shoots of their wisdom, and, to root out the perceptive and cognitive seeds 

of their ideological and epistemological brilliance. To be brief, what has been implied in this panoptic 

invention has proved to be the experiential and experimental prevention of those insiders from having a 

genuine access to the adequate acquisition of the profound ideological and epistemological essence of 

the nutritious thoughts and insights that can help them to get close to their ideological and epistemological 

quintessence indispensable for them to make their efforts to drop or even to subvert this nightmarish 

panoptic inspection. 

3.3 The Supervision in Foucauldian Panopticism  

In accordance with the combinative difference between the distance superiority of the central position 

and the distance inferiority of the peripherical position of this disciplinary structures and disciplinary 

systems that has been relevant to the distribution and operation of the practical power in connection with 

the hierarchy of the superintendents who have taken responsibility for the management and confinement 

of the thoughts and actions of those insiders who have to live and stay in those blocked areas for their 

respective purposes in line with the specific or special targets they are required to reach in an individual 

fashion, what has impressed readers a lot in their having a good reading of the Foucauldian philosophical 

work as mentioned above on the subject of the rigid disciplines and punishments of those insiders if their 

thoughts and actions are not in consistent with what they are required to do in this disciplinary mechanism 

that has placed them under the authority of the syndics and intendents whose existence has woven a net 

of the panoptic supervision in those areas on account of the duties or missions they have been told to 



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achieve in keeping watch at whatever has occurred to those insiders and whatever has happened to them 

from time to time by reason of the omnipresent penetration of the power of disciplines into each corner 

of the respective spaces of those blocked areas that have been characterized with a gloomy and depressive 

air of threat and the fear hidden behind this dreadful threats owing to its high relevance to the severe 

punishments that tend to dismay all insiders in an inevitable fashion just as what has been euphemized 

in an impressive fashion in terms of the imprisonment of the behaviors and thoughts of those insiders in 

the quote to be given below because whatever they have been doing and what they are going to do have 

been observed by those who have been observing them in the central area of this panoptic mechanism in 

an overall fashion and in an essential fashion. 

This enclosed, segmented space, observed at every point, in which the individuals are 

inserted in a fixed place, in which the slightest movements are supervised, in which all 

events are recorded, in which an unintermpted work of writing links the centre and 

periphery, in which power is exercised without division, according to a continuous 

hierarchical figure, in which each individual is constantly located, examined and 

distributed among the living beings, the sick and the dead- all this constitutes a compact 

model of the disciplinary mechanism. (Foucault trans by Alan Sheridan, 1975, p. 197) 

Under the cloud of the admirable and acceptable tolerance of the dominators or governors of those 

segmented areas before they have come to the actual breaking point of their respective patience for those 

insiders, it is of great symbolic and strategic importance for those insiders to be aware of the perceptive 

and cognitive turning point or tipping point of their respective disciplinary dominators or governors who 

have been shifting their dominative and manipulative attention from the unbearable tortures of the bodies 

and minds of their insiders to the repressive or suppressive supervision of them in most cases as long as 

they are able to exercise their power of the hierarchical disciplines that have been adopted and applied 

into the lives and experiences of those insiders in an omnipresent fashion to regulate and manage the 

possible actions those imprisoned and segregated insiders are inclined to take in an ambitious fashion, in 

an aggressive fashion, and, in an audacious fashion to resist against, to fight against, or, to subvert the 

ideological and epistemological stupefaction and sterilization on which those dominators or governors 

have been depending to have a hegemonic or demonic control over the behaviors and thoughts of their 

insiders in an absolute sense with the help of the important role that the hierarchical supervision of this 

discipline has been playing. In an essential sense, what has to be noted in a profound sense with respect 

to this rigid supervision is that those fiendish dominators or governors aim much more to seek for the 

autonomous or automatic submission or subjugation to their ideological and epistemological supervision 

in an intuitive fashion rather than to achieve this goal through unacceptable and unbearable repression or 

even suppression even when they are absent from this practical supervision on account of the continuous 

development and improvement of the submissive or obedient habit their stupefied and sterilized insiders 

have been expected to get into in an unstoppable fashion and in an uncontrollable fashion grounded on 

the acceleration of the ideological and epistemological paralyses upon which they have been imposed in 



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a confidential fashion to reach an unspeakable or untellable aim in the way that their parasitic insiders 

are inclined to accept in an undoubtable fashion as a result of their having had a firm belief in the high 

possibility that it is quite feasible for them to help their tamed insiders to follow their panoramic and 

panoptic supervision in a habitual fashion, in a satiable fashion, and, in a voluntary fashion. 

Grounded on the overall elaboration of the groundbreaking instruction, inspiration, and, illumination that 

has been particularized in the stratification of the power structure and power system of the disciplines 

running through the panoptic architectures designed by Jeremy Bentham to prevent the plague from 

extensive or excessive spread and to put an end to the infection of viruses carried in that plague in an 

efficient fashion and in an essential fashion, it has to be admitted in an honest fashion that this disciplinary 

mechanism and disciplinary institutionalism as clarified in the construction of the fundamental structures 

and frameworks of this architecture have played an indispensable and irreplaceable role in the prevention 

of the popularization of the dreadful plagues. However, what has turned out to be terrible for most readers 

in an impressive fashion and in an instructive fashion, is, that this disciplinary panopticism has been 

applied into the experiential and experimental construction of the vicious power mechanism and power 

institutionalism in American society and American culture in 1950s to make it work well for the essential 

and evident achievement of either the ideological and epistemological imprisonment or even enslavement 

of most intellectual women and non-intellectual women in America as what has been symbolized in a 

particular fashion in the lives and lots of the protagonist of this novel The Bell Jar (1963) whose mind 

has been dwarfed and distorted in a malicious fashion and in a miserable fashion on account of the 

unbearable tortures she has been suffering all the more physically and psychologically regardless of the 

great harm those mental distortions can do the mental health of her in the form of mental breakdowns, 

mental crises, and, mental collapses that are bound to give rise to the suicidal death of her in an eventual 

sense just as what can be seen in the essential and evident justification of the confidential or euphemistic 

application of this disciplinary panopticism into the construction of the configuration and reconfiguration 

of the crucial power structure and power system of the power mechanism and power institutionalism 

implemented in American society and American culture to impose upon those intellectual women or non-

intellectual women the pressures or threats of ideological and epistemological persecution as shown in 

what has been mirrored in a veritable fashion in the traumatic and tragic experiences of this protagonist 

Esther Greenhood depicted in the production of this novel. 

 

4. The Critical Cruciality to Uncover the Distorted Foucauldian Panopticism in The Bell Jar  

4.1 The Cruciality to Uncover the Distorted Surveillance of the Dominant Power in The Bell Jar 

In resonance with what has been manifested in the systematic, symbolic, and, strategic surveillance of 

the disciplinary power existing in the power structure and power system of the disciplinary panopticism 

that has been adopted and applied into the prevention of the extensive or excessive spread of the viruses 

of the plague in an efficient fashion and in an essential fashion as what has been presented in Foucauldian 

perception and cognition of the good the panoptic architecture Jeremy Bentham has designed has done 



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to the prevention of the massive increases of the infected patients when plague strikes a given area in an 

unexpected fashion although it has done a lot of harm to a good many patients who have been confined 

to a given cell of this panoptic architecture to regulate their behaviors and thoughts in order to reduce to 

the least the number of the infected patients in a rational fashion and in a reasonable fashion when an 

increasing number of patients are found to have been suffering from the uncontrollable infection of the 

viruses of this plague that also tends to give rise to the further spread of those viruses and the unbearable 

spiritual and emotional bitterness of those patients and the unforgettable mental sadness of their relatives 

as a result of the unexpected emotional tortures and traumas that are bound to be penetrated into their 

dreadful minds engendered in the high possibility of bereavement either in an explicit manner or in an 

implicit manner at thought of the tragic situation in which their relatives have been caught in a helpless 

fashion and in a hopeless fashion, or, at sight of the miserable image of them in an uncontrollable way 

and in an unstoppable way engendered in the extent to which they are unable to make them exempt from 

the emotional attachment to those relatives through the fulfillment of the emotional detachment from it 

in a decisive manner, it has to be admitted in an authentic fashion and in an objective fashion that this 

disciplinary panopticism has indeed made rather great contributions to the experiential and experimental 

prevention of the diseases, the appropriate and adequate treatment of the patients, and, the rational and 

reliable purification of their living conditions in a valuable manner and in a valid manner to make it 

possible to meet the various medical needs of those miserable patients in a conscientious way and in a 

cautious way on account of the strong worries about the unpreventable control over the unpredictable 

spread of the viruses of that plague that tends to strike an increasing number of unblocked areas, and, the 

unimaginable increases of the patients who have to be faced with the high risks they are inclined to take 

to infect others in an unintentional fashion or in an accidental fashion. Much more miserable as this 

disciplinary panopticism is for those patients and those who haven’t been infected at that time, it has 

turned out to be understandable, tolerable, and, forgivable in the medical context that this disciplinary 

panopticism is supposed to be considered as an expedient measure that has to be taken to make sure of 

their health at cost of either the bearable or unbearable loss of their mental health in an unavoidable 

manner. In this sense, this overall and apparent surveillance of the regular actions and thoughts has played 

an indispensable and irreplaceable role in the regularization of the specific and special behaviors and 

thoughts that have to be required to meet the objective and practical need of putting a full stop to the 

spread and infection of the viruses of this plague in a valuable vein to provide with them a stable, sanitary, 

and, secure environment crucial for the insightful and ingenuous stimulation and promotion of the further 

and future development and improvement of the medical and social progress of that area in a successful 

fashion and in a sufficient fashion. 

Nonetheless, what has made most intellectual women and non-intellectual women amazed, annoyed, 

disappointed or even depressed at in a popular sense with the standpoint of the great efforts to be made 

for the essential ideological and epistemological encouragement and improvement of the experiential and 

experimental protection and promotion of the female liberty, female equality, female identity, female 



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dignity, and, the female personality of the vast majority of those intellectual women and non-intellectual 

women who have to be faced with the inevitable disciplinary repression and disciplinary suppression of 

the dominator or governor of American society and American culture in a submissive fashion rather than 

in a subversive fashion by reason of the ideological and epistemological blockage they have been forced 

to accept in an unconditional sense in the form of laws, rules, dogmas, routines, and, morals of which the 

power structure and power system of this dominator or governor has been composed in an organic vein, 

is, that the panoptic mechanism of the disciplines presented in the works of Michel Foucault has been 

introduced to the intrinsic and extrinsic construction and consolidation of the power structure and power 

system of the power mechanism and power institutionalism as have been made best use of in an essential 

sense to have a panoramic control over the true ideological and epistemological particularization and 

personalization of most intellectual women and non-intellectual women to imprison their ideological and 

epistemological growth regardless of the great harm this is inclined to do to the perceptive and cognitive 

inspiration and illumination they are in a position to acquire in time to make their way to the specific and 

special prioritization of the ideological and epistemological inclination quite valuable for them to achieve 

the ideological and epistemological liberty and equality they are entitled to enable them to be armed with 

indebted to their rational reflection and rumination of the experiential and experimental necessity and 

feasibility for them to pick up the ideological and epistemological courage and confidence from the true 

cruelty existing in ideological and epistemological despotism and dogmatism potentiated in the power 

mechanism and power institutionalism that have been carried out in American society and American 

culture in 1950s with an aim of preventing them from the essential and eventual acquisition of the genuine 

ideological and epistemological transcendence on the basis of which they have been believed to be likely 

to start the ideological and epistemological subversion to the very confidential and cruel ideological and 

epistemological stupefaction and sterilization of all women living and staying over there at that historical 

moment as shown what has been implanted in the minds of girls in this quote “These girls looked awfully 

bored to me. I saw them on the sunroof, yawning and painting their nails.... I talked with one of them, 

and she was bored with yachts and bored with flying... Girls like that make me sick. (Plath, 1963, p. 4)” 

by means of the increasing ideological and epistemological pollution to lay a sound perceptive and 

cognitive foundation for the ideological and epistemological persecution they intend to impose upon 

intellectual women. The reason for the preference to the ideological and epistemological persecution of 

intellectual women is that in a comparative sense, it has turned out to be much better for the dominator 

or governor of American society and American culture to paralyze and to sterilize the ambitious spiritual 

world of non-intellectual women who are not as insightful and sensitive as intellectual women who have 

been able to develop a strong intuitive awareness to prevent the stupefaction and pollution of their 

spiritual world in a decisive fashion and in an indomitable fashion. To be honest, it has to be noted in a 

sensible way that the vast majority of the attentions of the dominator or governor of American society 

and American culture have been paid to the rather malicious and treacherous devaluation and distortion 

of the ideological and epistemological supremacy or leadership of those women who are able to implant 



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their valuable and vital thoughts and insights into the minds of most non-intellectual women as a 

consequence of their patient instruction, inspiration and illumination they have acquired from their living 

experiences and learning experiences. From the point of view of the dominator or governor of American 

society and American culture in that historical period who are in charge of the ideological and 

epistemological management and confinement of all women, what those intellectual women are able to 

do to help non-intellectual women in an euphemistic fashion or in an apparent fashion, is, destined to be 

taken as an extremely strong threat to the successful, successive and sustainable maintenance of the 

genuine ideological and epistemological hegemony of either the dominator or governor of American 

society and American culture whose mind has been preoccupied with a kind of ideological and 

epistemological terrorism at that time. Therefore, the panoptic surveillance of the power mechanism 

epitomized in the Foucauldian disciplinary power and powerful disciplines has been mislocated or 

dislocated in American society and American culture in 1950s just as what has been simplified and 

exemplified in the authentic characterization of the protagonist of this novel under the title of The Bell 

Jar (1963) in a confidential fashion with the flexible application of the insightful ideological and 

epistemological insinuation into the perceptive and cognitive construction and consolidation of the 

ideological and epistemological foundation that has to be laid for profound and perspicacious refinement 

and reinforcement of the rich ideological and epistemological nutrients in the production of this novel in 

accordance with the strong perceptive and cognitive stimulus and impetus Sylvia Plath has obtained from 

her sensitive and sensible observation and examination of the apparent social and cultural phenomenon 

turning up in American society and American culture in a regular way as to be explicated in details in the 

specific and special analyses to be made of below in a respective fashion. 

In consonance with what has been suggested in the vicious and treacherous application of the panoptic 

surveillance of disciplines indicated in the presentation of Foucauldian power of disciplines into the 

ideological and epistemological decrement and demolishment of the dangerous actions and thoughts of 

all insightful intellectual women who are inclined to set a good example for non-intellectual women in 

terms of the good perceptive and cognitive preparation that has to be made for them to have a good access 

to the good opportunity to be taken to forge their female identity, female dignity, and, female personality 

in a brave manner and in a brilliant manner epitomized in the essential achievement of the ideological 

and epistemological liberation and salvation of the protagonist Esther Greenwood in the perceptive and 

cognitive interweavement of The Bell Jar (1962) as seen in the perceptive and cognitive development of 

the insightful and ingenuous awareness of Esther Greenwood articulated in this quote “Girls like that 

make me sick. I’m so jealous I can’t speak. Nineteen years, and I hadn’t been out of New England except 

for this trip to New York. It was my first big chance, but here I was, sitting back and letting it run through 

my fingers like so much water. (Plath, 1963, p. 4)” That is because she has seen through the intentional 

or unintentional misjudgment of the dominator or governor of American society and American culture 

when they take into account the true ideological and epistemological values of what has been insinuated 

into the perceptive and cognitive ingredients of an increasing number of intellectual women in an 



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intelligent fashion on the basis of the true aim that ought to be reached in their ideological and 

epistemological disturbance or interference of the great appropriate and adequate perceptive and 

cognitive progress those intellectual women have been trying every means to make to enable them to get 

free from the ideological and epistemological mismanagement of that dominator or governor who has 

destroyed and distorted the earlier intention that has been input into the structural and systematic 

construction and consolidation of the major ideological and epistemological frameworks of the 

architectural panopticism in a conscientious fashion rather than in a contentious fashion on the part of 

Jeremy Bentham and in the opinion of the Michel Foucault in the production of his philosophical work. 

In comparison with the crucial threads that have been running through the rather miserable lives and 

experiences of the Esther Greenwood who has been forced to commit suicide in an unstoppable fashion 

and in an uncontrollable fashion by reason of her perceptive and cognitive maladjustment to the genuine 

ideological and epistemological violence the ideological and epistemological imprisonment of that 

dominator or governor has been trying to impose upon her mind in a hegemonic fashion or in a demonic 

fashion, it has to be noticed in a clear sense that the successful and sufficient employment of the panoptic 

surveillance of disciplines into the extensive or excessive limitation of the ideological and 

epistemological liberty of those intellectual women like this protagonist has given rise to the mental crisis 

and the mental tragedy of those intellectual women in a rather lamentable manner who are unwilling to 

come to terms with the ideological and epistemological vices rooted in the experiential and experimental 

persecution of the impressive and instructive ideology and epistemology of all intellectual women 

American society and American culture that have turned out to be quite strange to her in most cases just 

as what has been struck to Esther Greenhood the unforgettable narrative events in relevance to what has 

happened to her as to be analyzed below in an impressive fashion and in an instructive fashion. 

Under the weight of the surveillance of the dominative and manipulative power of the disciplines loaned 

from the panoptic mechanism presented in the Foucauldian work in a profound fashion as has been 

explicated above in the formation, transformation, and, reformation of the componential distribution and 

operation of the power in view of what has been impressed in the production of this novel titled The Bell 

Jar (1963), it has to be known in an apparent fashion that the very flexible perceptive and cognitive 

interweavement of the critical narrative facts and narrative events of this novel is not dissociated from 

nor detached from the euphemistic equipment of the disciplinary machines and disciplinary institutions 

embedded in the American society and American culture that have been loaded with a kind of ideological 

and epistemological barbarism as has tended to throw a variety of intellectual women into the explicit or 

implicit imprisonment by having an overall control over their actions and thoughts through the remote 

observation and examination of the central subject of American society and American culture to the 

peripherical objects over there based on the panoptic distribution and operation of power potentiated in 

the traumatic and tragic lives and lots of the vast majority of intellectual women whose perceptive and 

cognitive inclinations are at odds with the mainstream ideological and epistemological repression and 

suppression that have been running through the entire American society and American culture in a 



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popular fashion and in a peculiar fashion. As a matter of fact, this social and cultural phenomenon has 

been situated in the authentic and objective characterization of this novel with respect to the trials and 

tribulations with which Esther Greenhood has to be faced in an irresistible fashion on account of the 

unavoidable distance of the distorted power of disciplines as popularized in America at that historical 

moment, this gives rise to the helpless compromise of Esther Greenhood who has to make to give up her 

individual liberty and identity in an irrational fashion due to the eventual failure to resist against the 

disciplinary requirement that has been imposed upon her to force her to be a mother in a reluctant way. 

For the sake of this failure, she cannot but choose to “cut[s] the plastic starfish off the sunglasses case 

for the baby to play with (Plath 1988:3).” In an essential sense, what she has to be aware of in a peaceful 

manner and in a rational fashion with standpoint of the great impact this failure has had on the refinement 

and reinforcement of the ideological and epistemological profundity and perspicacity of the opinions of 

Esther Greenhood in the light of the reasonable distribution and operation of the strong power of the 

disciplines enforced in American society and American culture in a popular sense in 1950s with an aim 

of seeking for the virtuous reformation of the inflexible and unfeasible power mechanism and power 

institutionalism dominated and governed by the hegemonic and ferocious dominator or governor of the 

entire society and culture in America, is, that this eventual failure in her very ambitious and ambivalent 

rebellion to the ideological and epistemological stupefaction and sterilization of the successive and 

sustainable dominance and governance of that dominator or governor who has been zooming in a lot on 

the experiential and experimental maximization of the profits to be made from the cruel exploitation of 

the ideological and epistemological liberty of those intellectual women exemplified in the miserable lives 

and lots of Esther Greenhood in an unimaginable fashion, has a great deal to do with the increasing 

popularization of the overwhelming power of the social discipline concealed in the power mechanism 

and power institutionalism popularized in American society and American culture in a malicious vein to 

force this intellectual woman to submit herself to the reluctant internalization of the disciplinary power 

of the American society where she lives in an indispensable fashion and in an irreplaceable fashion to 

make a living. To a greater extent, on the foundation of the ideological and epistemological illumination 

and inspiration carried in the experiential and experimental helplessness and hopelessness of this social 

and cultural reality mirrored in the valuable characterization of this novel, what has been impressed in 

an instructive fashion in the particularization and personalization of the strong sense of powerlessness 

for the part of Sylvia Plath in her insightful and ingenuous production of this novel is no more than the 

unbearable fact that “she has nothing to do but to produce this novel to deal with women’s mental 

breakdown (Debata, 2013, p. 4).” That is because the reliable and rich imagination she has developed in 

her composition of this novel has turned out to be quite valuable for her to make her way to the essential 

revelation of the hegemonic and despotic essence of the surveillance that dominator or governor has 

borrowed from Foucauldian panopticism to seek for his nightmarish dehumanization in a gradual fashion 

and in a graceful fashion regardless of the sound bitterness and bitter sadness American intellectual 



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women have to suffer from his destruction and distortion of the positive power of the panoptic disciplines 

all the more in 1950s. 

4.2 The Cruciality to Dismantle the Distorted Inspection of the Dominant Power in The Bell Jar 

In association with what has been dealt with in the elaboration of the conceptual denotation of the strong 

power of inspection entailed in the omnipresent implementation of the panoptic disciplines in a given 

area like America whose social atmosphere and cultural atmosphere have been made a kind of blocked 

space where the vast majority of American intellectual women and non-intellectual women have been 

watched in an unconscious fashion when they do whatever they would like to and say whatever they 

prefer to in a rational fashion or in an irrational fashion without knowing in a clear manner that they have 

been seen in a confidential fashion by the inspector who has a strong intention to have a very good 

understanding of everything that has come to their minds, and, to rack his brain to capture what they have 

been preoccupied with, what they have caught sight of, and, what they have caught hold of in an evident 

fashion even if it has been known to him in an apparent fashion that they don’t like to be watched at all 

because this will be bound to bring them a large number of the emotional and psychological problems 

that tend to give rise to the unbearable emotional and mental blow in a violent way the moment they 

know the truth in an overall fashion and in an authentic fashion that they have been watched by the 

inspector who has been acting as the dominator or governor of American society and American culture 

just as what has happened to Sylvia Plath in an intolerable fashion in the successive and sustainable 

development and improvement of her ideological and epistemological ingredients that might be made 

best use of in the characterization of her novel The Bell Jar (1963) in which whatever has occurred to 

her has been insinuated into the experiences of Esther Greenhood, it has to be acknowledged in a sincere 

way that the strong power of inspection borrowed from the inspective power dealt with in Foucauldian 

presentation to the panoptic inspection has had a great impact on the minds of American intellectual 

women who have to be faced with the strong unconscious emotional and psychological violence that has 

been engendered in the confidential observation of their behaviors and thoughts to see if whatever they 

have been doing or thinking all the time is in consistence with whatever they have been expecting of in 

accordance with the mechanical and institutional dogmatism and despotism that have been kept in the 

mind of the dominator or governor who have been disposing of their lives and lots in an invisible way in 

spite of the traumas and tragedies this inspective observation are inclined to be penetrated into the rather 

fearful minds of those intellectual women who have been forced to be responsible for the consequence 

that if their opinions are against the mechanical or institutional disciplines formulated by this dominator 

or governor, they will be doomed to take the high risks of being punished in a violent fashion in the name 

of grace that makes them feel so dishonored and disgraceful that they are inclined to be caught in suicidal 

inclination as what has happened to the conversation of Esther Greenhood like this “I thought drowning 

must be the kindest way to die, and burning the worst...That morning I had tried to hang myself...(Plath, 

1963, p. 83)” and the expectation and experimentation of her suicidal intention as shown in this 

quote“ The only thing to do was to drown myself then and there... (Plath, 1963, p. 85)”. As a matter of 



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fact, this inspection imposed upon them is supposed to be considered as the cruel ideological and 

epistemological persecution that has derived from the strong worries of this dominator or governor who 

has been caught in the continuous anxieties with which his mind has been loaded with in a repetitive 

fashion and the inadequate confidence and courage he ought to have rested a great deal on to cope with 

the essential ideological and epistemological risks of those intellectual women who have been working 

very hard to refresh, to refine, and, to reinforce the genuine ideological and epistemological profundity, 

particularity, prosperity, and, perspicacity of their valuable and veritable ideological and epistemological 

exploration and elaboration with the help of the appropriate and adequate accumulation of the versatile 

wisdom they have acquired from their immersion into the unforgettable absorption of the crucial and 

conducive knowledge from which they are able to have a good access to the genuine wisdom they are 

inclined to make use of in their lives and careers to give a strong perceptive and cognitive stimulus and 

impetus to the essential and quintessential stimulation and promotion of the quicker and safer 

development and improvement of American society and American culture in an admirable manner and 

in an amiable manner at that critical historical moment. However, what has made them despaired in a 

gloomy fashion is that the rather great efforts they have been made to reach this target have been turned 

into the severe punishments they have to undertake due to their ideological and epistemological 

inconsistence with the ideological and epistemological stupefaction and sterilization of their dominator 

or governor who aims to reduce to the least the potential ideological and epistemological risks of their 

insightful thoughts or thoughtful insights by stripping them of their ideological and epistemological 

privacy and liberty that have been doubted by their despotic or dogmatic dominator or governor who has 

failed to be aware of the objective and authentic fact in an insightful fashion that his severe inspection of 

their ideological and epistemological privacy has turned out to be an exploitation of the ideological and 

epistemological liberty of those intellectual women who are unable to come up with valuable insights or 

to bring American society and American culture insightful values indispensable and irreplaceable for the 

protection and promotion of the sustainable profits America has to make for the achievement of the 

healthy happiness and happy health of Americans in all respects rather than the harmful trials and 

tribulations brought for them just as what has been exemplified in the unintelligible traumas and tragedies 

that have been brought for the character by the name of Esther Greenhood depicted in this novel under 

the title of The Bell Jar (1963). 

In comparison with the inspection of the dominant power embedded in the disciplinary mechanism in the 

insightful and ingenuous Foucauldian presentation to panopticism and the persecutive examination of 

the dominative and manipulative power of the disciplines carried in the power mechanism and power 

institutionalism that have been running through American society and American culture in 1950s in a 

popular fashion in reference to what has been euphemized in the narrative facts and narrative events 

showing up in the systematic and structural construction of the narrative plot of this novel titled The Bell 

Jar (1963), it has occurred to the majority of the readers of this novel in an impressive fashion and in a 

depressive fashion that the hegemonic publicization of the private room as ought to be made for those 



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intellectual women living in American society and American culture in a cautious fashion and writing 

over there in a miraculous fashion and in a meticulous fashion to share with their readers whatever they 

have captured from their quite profound and perspicacious consideration about the feasible solutions to 

a variety of the social problems and cultural problems that has been having a great impact on the further 

and future development and improvement of America in more than one respect, has made them fall 

victims to the persecutive inspection and observation of the power mechanism and power institutionalism 

implemented here and there in American society and American culture as what has been epitomized in 

the despaired attitude Esther Greenhood has held to death in her description of the season that “summer 

calm laid its soothing hand over everything, like death (Plath 1963, p. 59)” on the basis of the fragmented 

and distorted imitation of the inspection of the discipline cropping up in Foucauldian presentation for the 

aim of having a panoramic control over the individual ideological and epistemological inclination of 

those intellectual women regardless of the great harm this persecutive inspection has been doing to the 

emotional and psychological growth of those intellectual women whose ideological and epistemological 

privacy and liberty has been exploited in a barbarian fashion in American society and American culture 

in 1950s. What is worse, this ideological and epistemological exploitation has deprived them of the actual 

passion they ought to have developed and improved to send their respective academic and intellectual 

contribution to the prosperous and perspicacious enrichment and improvement of American ideology and 

epistemology indebted to the appropriate and adequate development and improvement of the ideological 

virtuosity and versatility it takes them to fulfill their academic and intellectual dreams in an insightful 

fashion and in a strategic fashion. In effects, this is much the same with the miserable victimization the 

protagonist of this novel Esther Greenhood has been suffering from in her resistance against the strong 

persecutive inspection of the dominator or governor of American society and American culture at that 

time in that although she wants to “be a professor and write books of poems and be an editor of some 

sort (Plath, 1988, p. 30)” in a passionate way to provide her valuable thoughts and insights for the 

continuous prosperity of American society and American culture in her academic and intellectual 

production so as to highlight the ideological and epistemological profundity, popularity, perspicacity, and, 

particularity of American ideology and epistemology insinuated into her creative practices and creative 

processes in an impressive fashion and in an instructive fashion, she has to give up that the grand plan 

she has made to reach her academic and intellectual target and to make her ideological and 

epistemological contribution to the successive and sustainable development and improvement of 

American society and American culture, for she has to take into account the harm this ideological and 

epistemological persecution in the name of inspection will do to her and to strike a perceptive and 

cognitive balance between what she is in a position to do for America and what she is bound to suffer 

from the dominative and manipulative inspection of American ideological and epistemological 

persecution carried in a violent fashion. Based on the rational consideration about the pros and cons of 

her insistence on what she has been working for, she has to choose to get free from the disciplinary 

inspection of the hegemonic and demonic power of the distorted and fragmented disciplines that have 



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been adopted and applied into the ideological and epistemological mismanagement of American society 

and American culture in accordance with the actual power structure and power system architected in the 

power mechanism and power institutionalism in service of the ideological and epistemological 

stupefaction and sterilization the dominator or governor of American society and American culture has 

been imposing upon the minds of intellectual women and non-intellectual women who have lived in 

America. For the sake of the high risks that she might take in her academic and intellectual insistence on 

what she has been dreaming of all the time in an ambitious fashion and in an aggressive fashion, she has 

to be forced her to be willing to accept what she is expected of in a passive fashion and in a reluctant 

fashion. In an essential sense, although the similar shadow of the inspection as presented in Foucauldian 

panoptic disciplines has been retroflected in the construction and consolidation of the power mechanism 

and power institutionalism in American society and American culture in relation to what has been 

reflected or resonated in what has happed to Esther Greenhood and what has been illuminated in her 

suicidal crisis and suicidal tragedy that have too much to do with the emotional and psychological 

innuendoes with which her mind has been suffocated in a gloomy sense, it has to be realized in a clear 

fashion that this inspection has been imitated in a malicious fashion and in a treacherous fashion to 

impose upon intellectual women the ideological and epistemological repression and suppression of the 

dominator or governor of American society and American culture in a persecutive manner. 

In recognition of the ideological and epistemological violence implied in an elegant fashion and in a 

graceful fashion in the ideological and epistemological persecution that the dominator or governor of 

American society and American culture has been imposing upon the extremely anxious, ambiguous, and, 

ambivalent minds of those painful intellectual women like Esther Greenhood in the name of the glorious 

inspection in connection with the unbearable emotional and psychological pressures and desperations 

she has been suffering from the abnormalization and dehumanization of the unimaginable ideological 

and epistemological dominance or governance she has been counting a great deal on to dispose of the 

lives and lots of this protagonist depicted in the conscientious production of this novel under the title of 

The Bell Jar (1963) to reach the aim of the malicious and treacherous perceptive and cognitive essence 

of the ideological and epistemological persecution she has been suffering from the vicious ideological 

and epistemological paralyses of all intellectual women like Esther Greenhood and the architype she has 

been personified in the image of Sylvia Plath who has tried to seek for the very essential and authentic 

revelation of the ideological and epistemological hegemony of this demonic dominator or governor of 

American society and American culture, it is of great theoretical and practical for all readers of this novel 

to enable them to be aware in a sensitive fashion and in a rational fashion that the malicious imitation of 

the inspection of the panoptic disciplines Michel Foucault has presented in his philosophical work as has 

been elaborated above has been playing a malicious role in the reasonable and rational protection and 

promotion of the ideological and epistemological privacy and liberty of intellectual women like this 

protagonist who has to try her best to make a compromise for the increasing anxiety and fear of the severe 

punishment she has to be faced with when she is forced to take responsibility of what she has mistaken 



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in her academic and intellectual production in the context of the successive and sustainable inspection of 

her ideological and epistemological inclination that has turned out to be connected with the decision she 

has made to take suicide in a direct fashion. To this extent, the rigid inspection of her ideological and 

epistemological intention and motivation has proved to be the genuine cause of her suicide in that this 

has made her to get a rather dreadful access to the unbearable desperation at the absurd and abnormal 

ideological and epistemological inspection she has transformed from that of Foucauldian disciplinary 

inspection in a morbid fashion to keep good watch at whatever intellectual women have been doing due 

to his familiarity with the strong emotional discomfort and the severe psychological anxiety, fear, and, 

depression she has perceived from her having been exposed to the confidential inspective observation of 

this dominator or governor notwithstanding she has no intention of revealing the individual privacies of 

those intellectual women in a vicious fashion or robbing them of the personal liberties they are supposed 

to be entitled to be endowed with or equipped with in a honest fashion and in a respectable fashion as 

opposed to what this protagonist Esther Greenwood has been suffering from in her living experiences 

and learning experiences. As a matter of fact, this fragmented and distorted transformation of the genuine 

disciplinary inspection of Foucauldian panopticism in a malicious fashion has neither given a quite strong 

perceptive and cognitive stimulus and impetus to the effective and essential protection and promotion of 

the ideological and epistemological privacy and literacy of those intellectual women in an acceptable 

way nor given an admirable impression on the minds of them by showing his sincere respect for them in 

lieu of showing his disrespect for their ideological and epistemological exploration and expectation in an 

offensive fashion regardless of the fatal impact his vicious transformation has had on the lives and lots 

of those intellectual women who have been forced to commit suicide as what Sylvia Plath has insinuated 

in the characterization of her novel The Bell Jar (1963) and what she has suffered from in her resistance 

against the ideological and epistemological pollution and persecution with which she has to be faced with 

in an inescapable fashion and in an unforgivable fashion because she has turned out to be willing to 

devote her lives and lots to the indomitable and insightful persistence in the academic and intellectual 

dream that has been kept in her mind for a very long time for the aim of shedding light on the perceptive 

and cognitive growth of the rest of intellectual women or non-intellectual women who have been afraid 

of the demonic punishment of this dominator or governor in American society and American culture right 

at that historical moment. In this sense, what is in a position to be perceived from this ambitious and 

admirable perseverance of this intellectual woman writer as epitomized in the brave and brilliant image 

of the protagonist of this novel Esther Greenhood when she is threatened by the capital punishment she 

has to be faced with in a heroic fashion, is, that this morbid transformation has made intellectual women 

turned into women intellectual fighters who would rather to take their suicide in a graceful way and in a 

glorious way rather than make themselves submitted to the ideological and epistemological persecution 

of this malicious and treacherous dominator or governor of American society and American culture in 

1950s who has been wasting his valuable time and life to the dehumanized stupefaction and sterilization 

of the ideological and epistemological brilliance and intelligence of all intellectual women and non-



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intellectual women for the excessive maximization of the profits he has made up his mind to make from 

the extensive or even excessive victimization of those women in a shameful manner regardless of their 

intrinsic and intuitive resistance against it. 

4.3 The Cruciality to Dismantle the Distorted Supervision of the Dominant Power in The Bell Jar 

In the light of the supervision of the central power captured in the hands of the disciplinary dominator or 

governor of a given blocked area indicated in the presentation of Michel Foucault related to the power 

distribution and operation of the panoptic disciplines when there is a steady must to dispose of the lives 

and lots of the majority of those who have been forced to live and stay in the suppressive or repressive 

supervision of those who have been armed with the peripherical power of the disciplines of that closed 

area where all insiders are forced to be faced with the dreadful or even fatal threats of power as it has 

been taken from this dominator or governor in a firm fashion that the disrespect those insiders are inclined 

to show for the power of disciplines will be destined to make them show their offensive disrespect for 

the severe punishment hidden behind those punishments in an audacious fashion, in an irrational fashion, 

or at least in a careless fashion if they have been accustomed to the marginalization, segregation, and, 

isolation this disciplinary power has been imposing upon them. In this sense, quite effective and essential 

measures are supposed to be taken to help them to have a profound understanding of the power of fear 

with which the power of disciplines has to be equipped with in a panoramic manner to make sure of the 

omnipresent existence of this strong fear owing to the omnipotence and omniscience of this dominator 

or governor of that area who has developed a strong will to enable his followers to have a panoramic 

control over those insiders in a rigid fashion to prevent them from the exemption from the strong threat 

of the anxious and depressive psychological fear of the severe or even capital punishment of this panoptic 

power carried in those disciplines in an invisible fashion. In the context of the prevention of the extensive 

or excessive infection of the dreadful viruses of the plague popularized in that blocked area, it has to be 

admitted in a conscientious fashion that the rigid supervision of those insiders either in a panoramic vein 

or in a panoptic vein has done a lot of good to the successful and sufficient protection and promotion of 

their health even though they have undertaken appropriate and acceptable harm it has done to their mental 

health. In some measures, what has to be aware of in a sensible fashion and in a sufficient fashion from 

the appropriate and adequate popularization of this panoptic supervision instilled in the strong power of 

the disciplines implemented hither and thither in that blocked area in an unavoidable fashion, has turned 

out to be the most effective measures taken to make way to the entire subversion to the high risks carried 

in those infective viruses carried in this plague that has stricken that blocked area in a popular way, for 

what this panoptic supervision has brought them after this plague is the precious security of which the 

unblocked stricken areas are short of in a pitiful fashion as a consequence of the carelessness that has 

lied in the inappropriate and inadequate attitudes they have been developing and holding toward the great 

harm this infection are bound to do to the insiders of those unblocked areas and the extensive or excessive 

shortage or blockage of the responsible awareness that the dominators or governors of those unblocked 

areas are supposed to enable them and their followers to develop in their daily lives and experiences in a 



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sensitive fashion and in a sensible fashion to lay a sound perceptive and cognitive foundation for the 

overall prevention of the extensive or excessive spread of those viruses and the increasing popularization 

of the infective patients or the infected ones who are doomed to be the source of the genuine threat that 

is inclined to throw the rest of insiders into the fearful danger of being infected in an unexpected way 

and in an unpredicted way due to their partial or complete ignorance of the infective probability, infective 

speeds, inflective ways, and, infective symptoms of those viruses without the very apparent and honest 

elaboration of the harm this inflection are bound to do to them and the panic fear or fearful panic that has 

to be instilled into their careless minds in advance in an appropriate manner and in an adequate manner 

indebted to the intrinsic sympathy those dominator or governors of those unblocked areas are inclined to 

encourage their followers to show for all insiders in an impressive fashion and in an instructive fashion. 

To be brief, what has been impressed in the minds of Foucauldian readers in a clear fashion is that this 

supervision has given a strong perceptive and cognitive inspiration, instruction, and, illumination to those 

insiders in an insightful fashion and in an ingenuous fashion even when it has failed to be realized in a 

sensitive fashion and in a sensible fashion that this supervision is inclined to be imitated in the actual 

construction of the power structure and power system in the hegemonic and demonic power mechanism 

and power institutionalism in American society and American culture to maximize the ideological and 

epistemological repression and suppression of all intellectual women over there for fear of the possible 

ideological and epistemological reaction or subversion to their popular ideological and epistemological 

stupefaction and sterilization they have been imposing upon American women including intellectual 

women and non-intellectual women as what to be demonstrated in the appropriate interpretation to be 

given of the characterization of this novel The Bell Jar (1963) to reach their aim of making it a reality in 

an evident fashion that the submission and subjugation of intellectual women and non-intellectual women 

to the vicious transformation of the power of supervision of the panoptic disciplines presented in the 

works of Machel Foucault into the ideological and epistemological persecution of intellectual women in 

accordance with the disciplinary dogmatism and despotism as have drawn on the intentional distortion 

of the dominator or governor of American society and American culture in 1950s who has turned a blind 

eyes to the genuine perceptive and cognitive conscience instilled into the design of Jeremy Bentham and 

the presentation of Machel Foucault with respect to their perceptive and cognitive consistence in making 

use of the power of the supervision of the panoptic disciplines to send their perceptive and cognitive 

contribution to the effective prevention of the extensive or excessive spread of the very dreadful viruses 

concealed in a plague. 

In response to what has been misused in the introduction of the power of the disciplinary supervision 

implied in Foucauldian panopticism in the panoramic observation of the ideological and epistemological 

inclination of intellectual women who have been dreaming of realizing their academic and intellectual 

dreams in American society and American culture in their academic and intellectual production as what 

has been vivified in the depiction that is in a position to be given of the strong psychological fear, anxiety, 

depression, and, desperation of the protagonist of this novel under the title of The Bell Jar (1963) in an 



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authentic fashion and in an objective fashion as a result of the distorted and destroyed transformation of 

this supervisory power of the disciplines emphasized in the presentation Machel Foucault has given in 

the production of his philosophical work Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison in terms of the 

translation of the fearful power of supervision into that of panoptic disciplines to regulate the actions of 

the insiders of a blocked area in an expedient fashion, it has turned out to be pitiful in a gloomy fashion 

that the intentional misapplication of this supervision into the exaggerative maximization of the essential 

profits as can be made from the severe ideological and epistemological repression and suppression of 

intellectual women and non-intellectual women has been popularized in American society and American 

culture in an unbearable fashion to the effect that America has been turned into a terrible prison at that 

historical moment where numerous intellectual women are forced to accept the malicious ideological and 

epistemological pollution of this dominator or governor in reference to what has been echoed in the 

terrors Sylvia Plath has voiced in the empathetic stratification and linearization of the rather miserable 

experiences and emotions that have been implanted into the essential and quintessential revelation of the 

sound bitterness and bitter sadness she has been suffering from all the more in the euphemistic revelation 

of the cruel ideological and epistemological persecution a large number of intellectual women have been 

imposed upon in an unintelligible manner, and, the confidential confession to the vast majority of the 

readers the genuine causes of her suicidal tragedy and that of her protagonist Esther Greenwood in the 

production of this novel under the title of The Bell Jar (1963). In this case, it has to be understood in a 

definite fashion in the minds of those readers that the malicious and treacherous concentration on the 

extensive and excessive distortion of the central power derivative from the conscientious supervision of 

the disciplinary power of Foucauldian panopticism has been metamorphosized in the vicious devaluation 

and stigmatization of the female identity, female liberty, female equality, female fraternity, female dignity, 

female privacy, and, female personality of a growing number of intellectual women and non-intellectual 

women in American society and American culture in 1950s as what has been epitomized in an implicit 

fashion in the tragic and empathetic traumatization and problematization of the trials and tribulations that 

have happened to Esther Greenhood in the authentic and objective characterization of her indomitable 

and insightful female persistence in and insistence on the very evident clarification of the ideological and 

epistemological values of her academic and intellectual thoughts and insights in the aesthetic and artistic 

achievement of the ideological and epistemological transcendence of Sylvia Plath in the specific and 

special enrichment and improvement of the rather crucial and conducive ideological and epistemological 

ingredients The Bell Jar (1963) has been expected to be composed of in an admirable fashion. From the 

point of view of the very great impact the hegemonic and demonic metamorphosis of this Foucauldian 

supervision in the vicious ideological and epistemological dominance or governance of this dominator 

or governor in American society and American culture has had on the mind of Sylvia Plath as mirrored 

in this novel, it has impressed those readers a great deal in an instructive fashion that the malicious 

disciplinary observation, examination, and, supervision of the private actions those intellectual women 

like Esther Greenhood are doomed to take in their lives despite her dissociation from the experience of 



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Ethel Rosenberg as shown in her confession that “It had nothing to do with me (Plath, 1988, p. 1)”, have 

brought them a strong psychological and emotional threat that tends to force them to submit themselves 

to the reluctant externalization the personal needs they hope to meet and the mental anxieties and crises 

of their exposures to that wicked dominator or governor of American society and American culture in 

that historical context where they are bound to be thrown into the danger of their being faced with or 

being shocked at the severe punishment covered in the graceful coat of this misapplied supervision in an 

inevitable fashion. In an essential sense, this can be seen in the fearful response Esther Greenhood has 

given to the execution of Rosenberg as shown in this quote “The idea of being electrocuted makes me 

sick (Plath, 1988, p. 30)” due to the uncanny fear she has acquired from the misapplication of the distorted 

panoptic supervision of the watchtowers shown in Foucauldian dominance and governance of what has 

been done in the peripherical areas of a disciplinary society in the judgment to be made of Julius 

Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg who have been “executed at sundown in the electric chair in Sing Sing 

Prison in Ossining, New York, on June 19, 1953 (Dunkle, 2012, p. 66).” Therefore, it can be seen in an 

evident way in the inerasable pains and unbearable pathos of not only Sylvia Plath but also Esther 

Greenhood that the Foucauldian supervision as mentioned above has been transformed into a vicious and 

dangerous device to be misused for the accusative and suspicious implementation of the hegemonic and 

demonic ideological and epistemological execution of the rather valuable and veritable academic and 

intellectual insights of a great many intellectual women in a barbarian fashion and in a cruel fashion even 

though it has turned out to be true that they have been playing an indispensable role in the continuous 

stimulation and promotion of the development and improvement of American society and American 

culture. 

With consideration taken into the intrinsic, essential, and, inevitable correlation between the malicious 

and treacherous misapplication of the destructive disciplinary power of the power mechanism and power 

institutionalism of American society and American culture distorted from the rigid panoptic surveillance, 

inspection, and, supervision of the Foucauldian disciplines made best use of to prevent the very dreadful 

viruses carried in plague into the strong ideological and epistemological repression and suppression of 

the ideological and epistemological inclination of the vast majority of intellectual women to maximize 

the possibility and opportunity for the dominator or governor of American society and American culture 

to have a panoramic control over the thoughts and actions of those intellectual women in an omnipresent 

fashion, in an omnipotent fashion, and, in an omniscient fashion, and, the psychological and emotional 

devaluation and distortion of the ideological and epistemological nutrients of the abundant academic and 

intellectual thoughts and insights of an increasing number of intellectual women who have been forced 

to be faced with the dehumanized and traumatized ideological and epistemological persecution of them 

in a tortuous fashion in connection with what Sylvia Plath has insinuated into the authentic and essential 

revelation of the crucial social vices and cultural ills of America in 1950s in the characterization of the 

protagonist of this novel who has put a full stop of her life in a suicidal fashion owing to her unbeatability 

and desperation to resist against and to subvert the unbearable ideological and epistemological despotism 



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and dogmatism rooted in the hegemonic and demonic mind of the dominator or governor of American 

society and American culture at that historical moment, it has been indicated in an evident manner that 

from the point of view of causes and effects, what this protagonist Esther Greenhood has suffered from 

the intentional distortion of panoptic power existing in the panoptic surveillance, inspection, as well as, 

supervision presented in the philosophical work of Machel Foucault in a conscientious fashion for the 

sake of the prevention of the extensive or excessive spread of the infective viruses carried in a plague, 

has too much to do with of the successive and sustainable continuation of the systematic, strategic, and, 

symbolic disturbance, interference, and, violence potentiated in the uneven distribution and operation of 

the power in the implementation of the power structure and power system embedded in the power 

mechanism and power institutionalism that have been capturing the ideological and epistemological vein 

of American society and American culture at that historical moment when this novel is produced, for it 

has struck to a great many readers in an impressive fashion and in an instructive fashion in the trials and 

tribulations of Esther Greenhood that the despotic and demonic fixation of the power distributed and 

operated either in an even fashion or in an uneven fashion in the implementation of the power mechanism 

and power institutionalism in American society and American culture in accordance with the unshakable 

will of that dominator or governor has made it impossible for those intellectual women to unravel the 

violent and vicious essence and truth of either the ideological and epistemological persecution or murder 

implied the malicious distortion of the disciplinary power potentiated in the surveillance, inspection, and, 

supervision presented in the Foucauldian presentation to panopticism in an insightful fashion and in an 

ingenuous fashion. To put it in a concessional fashion, although it is feasible for them to uncover this 

essence and truth in an euphemistic fashion or in a confidential fashion, it is impossible for them to get 

over the strong psychological and emotional fear as what Sylvia Plath has done in the insinuation of the 

unforgettable and unforgivable sins of that dominator or governor into the objective, authentic, and, 

essential characterization in her literary production regardless of the threat of capital punishment to the 

effect that an admirable respect is in a position to be shown for the heroism of this writer. To be brief, 

what is supposed to be noticed in a dialectical fashion and in a diverse fashion is that in the short run, 

those intellectual women have turned out to be the victims of this shameful distortion while in the long, 

the miserable experiences of them will lay an appropriate and adequate ideological and epistemological 

foundation for an growing number of intellectual women and non-intellectual women to try every means 

to enable themselves to make their way to the particular, profound, and, perspicacious enrichment and 

improvement of the ideological and epistemological insights and ingredients instilled into their academic 

and intellectual thoughts to give them a strong perceptive and cognitive impetus to work much harder to 

accumulate, accelerate, and, acquire ideological and epistemological power to smash the distorted power 

structure and power system existing in the power mechanism and power institutionalism in the future 

when they are aware that it has turned out to be irrational for them to resist against it in the form of radical 

suicides in an innocent fashion and in an ignorant fashion, and, realize that the extensive or excessive 

fear of the capital punishment engendered by the dreadful ideological and epistemological persecution 



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or assassination in the distorted coat of the panopticized disciplinary power mechanism and power 

institutionalism is destined to serve as the psychological and emotional weakness that dominator or 

governor has made full use of to impose upon those intellectual women his quite despotic ideological 

and epistemological repressions, suppressions, persecutions in a successful manner and in a sufficient 

manner at cost of the eventual losses of even their precious lives that ought to have been devoted to the 

insightful and ingenuous stimulation and promotion of the genuine prosperity of American society and 

American culture. 

 

5. Conclusion 

In accordance with what has obtained from the overall analysis that has been made of the dominative and 

manipulative devaluation of intellectual women and non-intellectual women through the distorted 

misapplication of the power of Foucauldian panoptic disciplines into the malicious transformation of it 

into the construction and consolidation of the power structure and power system potentiated in the 

extensive or excessive implementation of the distorted power mechanism and power institutionalism to 

regulate and repress the ideological and epistemological insights of intellectual women in American 

society and American culture in 1950 in combination with what has been insinuated into the authentic, 

essential, and, objective characterization seen in the production of this novel titled The Bell Jar (1963) 

in an euphemistic fashion or in a confidential fashion in terms of the traumatic and tragic existence and 

experience of the protagonist of this novel by the name of Esther Greenhood who has been despaired at 

the rather miserable and unbearable ideological and epistemological persecution, assassination, and, even 

execution in the name of American laws that have been dominated and manipulated by the despotic 

dominator or governor of American society and American culture to toss the uncertain lives and lots of 

those intellectual women and to torture them in a mental sense for the aim of throwing them into the 

danger of suicidal tragedy or traumatic suicide right after the successful and sufficient achievement of 

the ideological and epistemological stupefaction and sterilization of those intellectual women and non-

intellectual women for the sake of the thorough dominance and governance of their true ideological and 

epistemological inclination, it can be summed in a concise fashion that at an age of the popularization of 

extensive or excessive conformism and consumerism as have been viewed as a very good way to distract 

intellectual women or non-intellectual women from the essential concretization and crystallization of 

their academic and intellectual thoughts and insights in an implicit fashion to remind most women of the 

very great perceptive and cognitive importance for them to develop and to enrich their indispensable, 

incontestable, and, irreplaceable academic and intellectual awareness apart from the development and 

improvement of their female identity, female liberty, female dignity, and, female personality when most 

women have been made or forced to adapt themselves to the transient happiness of their families and set 

themselves from the participation in their occupational lives, it takes intellectual women a lot and non-

intellectual women much more to embark on their academic and intellectual exploration in an insightful 

fashion and in an ingenuous fashion, to do well in the crucial jobs on which they have been resting a lot 



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on to make a living, to make a life, and, to make a fortune if possible in an ambitious fashion, and at the 

same time to take care of their families in a conservative fashion in reference to what Sylvia Plath has 

imprinted on the characterization of Esther Greenhood in the production of this novel The Bell Jar (1963) 

in an apparent fashion and in an evident fashion due to the extremely hegemonic and demonic distortion 

of Foucauldian panopticism in terms of the malicious transformation of the original role the surveillance, 

inspection, and, supervision of the disciplines have been playing in the prevention of the massive spread 

of infective viruses in a plague to build the power mechanism and power institutionalism of the radical 

disciplines in American society and American culture to torture intellectual women and non-intellectual 

women in an unbearable fashion, for this will make intellectual women and even non-intellectual women 

misunderstood by an increasing number of illiterate, ignorant, and, innocent women and men who have 

been apt to be instigated to misinterpret their academic and intellectual ambitions on account of the high 

perceptive and cognitive impossibility for them to strike an appropriate perceptive and cognitive balance 

between the ideological and epistemological sensitivity and sensibility of those intellectual women and 

men, and, the stupidity and sterility of those ignorant women and men in the process of the stable 

increases of the ideological and epistemological stigmatization of the former and the ideological and 

epistemological pollution of the latter by reason of the overall implementation of the power mechanism 

and power institutionalism distorted from the Foucauldian disciplinary panopticism to make sure of the 

experiential and experimental success of the dominator or governor of American society and American 

culture in disposing of the lives and lots of intellectual women and non-intellectual women and depraving 

them of the academic and intellectual versatility and virtuosity to help them to unravel the genuine 

ideological and epistemological intention and motivation he has concealed in the fixation of the profits 

he has to maximize in the popularizing and peculiarizing the extensive or excessive implementation of 

the distorted power mechanism and power institutionalism in that society regardless of the potential harm 

this is inclined to do to the physical health and mental health of those intellectual women and non-

intellectual women. In this sense, what has been implicated in this study is connected with the impressive 

and instructive enlightenment that the success of this dominator or governor does not mean that it is much 

better for intellectual women give up for good what they are supposed to do owing to the eventual failure 

seen in the persistence of Esther Greenhood who has been turned into an ideological and epistemological 

architype of the woman ideological and epistemological warrior Sylvia Plath who seems to make use of 

the traumas and tragedies of Esther Greenhood to remind all women of the genuine empirical and 

practical indispensability and inevitability for them to inspire them to expose themselves to the 

indomitable resistance against or struggle against the malicious ideological and epistemological violence 

implied in the ideological and epistemological disturbance and interference of that dominator or governor 

who has been lost in the successive and sustainable dominance and governance of the true ideological 

and epistemological exploration of intellectual women and non-intellectual women. On the contrary, 

what they have to be aware of in a sensitive fashion and in a sufficient fashion is that they are supposed 

to uncover the true ideological and epistemological vices of the dominative and manipulative thoughts 



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of this dominator or governor in a cautious fashion, in a critical fashion, and, in a confidential fashion 

while seeing through the fatal disciplinary ills existing in the vicious distortion of the disciplinary power 

of Foucauldian panopticism to shape the dehumanized and problematized power mechanism and power 

institutionalism in American society and American culture in the continuous introduction of insinuation 

in academic and intellectual exploration as exemplified and epitomized in a particular fashion in the 

production of this novel to pave way for the unravel it in the future. Of course, it has to be admitted in 

an honest fashion that due to the inadequate perceptive and cognitive sensitivity and sensibility of the 

ideological and epistemological security of intellectual women euphemized in the resistance against or 

the subversion of the popularization of this distorted power mechanism and power institutionalism as 

implemented in American society and American culture in view of what has been insinuated into the 

characterization of this novel in an unnoticeable fashion and in an untraceable fashion, generous tolerance 

will be expected of the unknown and unintentional disrespect that might be shown for previous studies 

in a purposeless way and the unintentional ignorance or innocence of this researcher in making a further 

exploration of this issue in future study in a more valuable way with the help of the great progress to be 

made in the future to provide the readers of this novel with a variety of admirable and amiable thoughts 

and insights to broaden the critical horizon related to the interpretation of the decadent disciplinary power 

misapplied in the malicious conceptualization and concretization of the power mechanism and power 

institutionalism implemented in the stupefaction and sterilization of the minds of intellectual women and 

non-intellectual women in America. 

 

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