Analysis Of 'The Bell Jar In Surfacing'

It seemed that she no longer had a name of her, which is another mark of human civilization. After she had run away from her companions, they got ready to leave the island and started calling out her name. It was then that she felt that she no longer had a name that would bind her to the society. “Joe comes up to the steps, shouting; Anna shouts too, shrill, like a train whistle before departure, my name. It’s too late, I no longer have a name. I tried for all those years to be civilized but I am not and I’m through pretending.” (248) She wanted to be alone by herself. It might seem that she was running away from them, but according to her, to go with them would have been running away. For her the truth was there not in the city. From any
This is the extent to which her husband disregards her. This indifference of her husband whom she loves dearly, leads to her having physical relation with Joe.
As in the case of The Bell Jar, in Surfacing too we have many mirror scenes. The various mirror scenes in the novel portrays the narrator’s distorted sense of self. She doesn’t have a positive self-image. She was very afraid of looking into the mirror. She felt that the dead were forbidding her from brushing her hair as well as being in the mirror. She felt that the mirror trapped her image as well as herself. So as she wanted to be free from all bounds therefore she altogether refused the mirror.
But when I pick up the brush there is a surge of fear in my hand, the power is there again in a different form… I know that the brush is forbidden, I must stop being in the mirror. I look for the last time in my distorted glass face: eyes lightblue in dark red skin, hair standing tangled out from my head, reflection intruding between my eyes and vision. Not to see myself but to see. I reverse the mirror so it’s toward the wall, it no longer traps me,…