“How are you?” A Rhetorical Question in Plath’s The Bell Jar

Abstract

Asking the question, how are you, has been the tradition enrooted in each society, but the focus on the answer has never been the priority. How are you, is a rhetorical question, where the addresser’s credibility does not let the addressee answer it correctly. Sylvia Plath in her novel, The Bell Jar not only raises such questions but also shatters the stereotypical notions of perceived mental illness, and how it should be taken seriously. The paper aims to dismantle the misunderstood notions around the novel, The Bell Jar by analyzing the binary opposition of how are you and I am fine and intends to find the undercurrent meaning shrouded in its grey areas through Plath’s character, Esther. Esther’s personality is caged between the six specific domains of self-concept, and continuously felt placed in the position of “other” by society. Sylvia Plath is a modern writer who challenged the cycle of society through her only novel, The Bell Jar. Esther, the protagonist is constantly in the fight and is torn between the desire to rebel and to belong to the community at the same time. To understand this pretentious question in the novel The Bell Jar, we need to understand the power of persuasion through its three building blocks, logos, ethos, and pathos. Hence, to analyze this rhetorical question, the paper will also evaluate Esther’s dialogic relationships through Aristotle’s rhetoric theory and Lacan’s mirror stage narrowed within six domains of self-concept.