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Esther Greenwood , a college student , travels to New York to work for Jay Cee on a magazine as a guest editor . She and eleven other girls live in a womens hotel . Though Esther should be having the time of her life, she feels depressed because of the Rosenburgs execution . Esther intends to lose her virginity to a UN interpreter but he does not look interested . On her last night there, she goes on a blind date with Marco, who tries to rape her .
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Esther is confused about wether she wants to marry and have a domestic life or try to satisfy her ambition . Her college boyfriend, Buddy Willard who is recovering from tuberculosis wants to marry Esther once he is fully recovered . Though Buddy may seem like the perfect guy, he does not understand her desire to write poetry and confesses to cheating on her before . She decides she can not marry him and sets out to lose her virginity .
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When Esther returns to Boston and discovers that she did not get into a writing class she was planning on taking , she decides to spend the summer with her mother . Short time after being in Boston she finds her feelings taking over as they did in New York . She can not read, write or sleep and even stops bathing . After her terrible treatment with Dr. Gordon she tries to kill herself in many ways but fails . She then takes a large amount of sleeping pills .
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Esther wakes up in the hospital . To her suprise she has survived . Her suicide attempt has failed . She has no permanent physical injuries .
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When she is healed , she is sent to the psychological ward in the city hospital . She does not cooperate . She's paranoid and is determined to kill herself .Guinea , her sponsor pays for her to be moved to a private hospitael where she learns to trust her new psychiatrist Dr. Nolan . Slowly she starts to improve . She becomes friends with Joan, a woman from her hometown but is repulsed when she tries to make a sexual advance towards her .
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Esther is granted permission to go out from time to time because of her progress . During one of these trips she manages to lose her virginity to a math professor, Irwin . She bleeds a lot and has to go to the emergency room . Joan hangs herself one morning after seeming to have improved . Buddy visists Esther and they both decide that their relationship is done . Esther is able to leave in time to start winter semester at college being aware that the bell jar of her madness could again descend.
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