“The Bell Jar , a haunting first-person narrative about depression and suicide, debuted in January 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas (1) . Sylvia Plath told confidants that she disguised her identity because she questioned the literary value of the novel. One month later, Plath died by suicide via carbon monoxide poisoning; she was found in a carefully sealed kitchen with her head in an oven. Plath’s suicide suggests that The Bell Jar is actually a roman à clef , or nonfiction with a veneer of fiction.”
Taylor, Joseph J., Hedy Kober, and David A. Ross. “The Electrochemical Brain: Lessons from the Bell Jar and Interventional Psychiatry.” Biological Psychiatry (1969), vol. 84, no. 3, 2018, pp. e23-e24.
