Book cover selection

 

I chose The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath to recreate the cover for because this was my favorite book from high school. The way the author takes the reader into her mind with her struggle of depression is eye opening, so I want to take you into her mind with an illustration from the book cover. 

Using this quote for inspiration:

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.  From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked.  One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.  I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose.  I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."  ~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Chapter 7

 

 The struggles Plath faced to fit into normal society is very apparent here, so I want to illustrate the fig tree with Sylvia's form being surrounded by the roots in an overbearing form. The top of the fig tree with have oddly colored figs with silhouettes of symbols of the society Plath wishes to have: a husband, writer, professor, etc.