ARTICULATING WOMEN’S OPPRESSION AND LIBERATION IN THE AWAKENING AND THE BELL JAR

Abstract

This article examines how women’s oppression and their search for liberation are depicted in two influential works of American literature: Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. By comparing Edna Pontellier and Esther Greenwood, the study highlights how both authors reveal the psychological, social, and cultural constraints that shape women’s identities. Using feminist literary criticism, the paper explores the protagonists’ struggles for autonomy and the narrative strategies that express these conflicts. Despite being written over sixty years apart, both novels demonstrate the persistence of structural barriers to women’s freedom and foreshadow later feminist discourse on gender, mental health, and self-realization.