The Bell Jar Chapter Summary & Analysis | Chapter 1

Chapter 1 Summary

It's the summer the Rosenbergs were electrocuted and the narrator of this story is in New York City. She can't get the Rosenbergs out of her mind and thinks a lot about what it must be like to be electrocuted. Worse, the narrator doesn't like New York. She is from New England and this is her first time in the big city. She and 11 other girls have won a fashion magazine contest. They wrote essays, stories, poems and fashion blurbs to compete for jobs in New York, for a month with all expenses paid and many free bonuses like hair styling at expensive salons. They are meeting successful people in their own fields.

The narrator realizes that there's something wrong with her. She can't stop thinking about the Rosenbergs even when she tries and nothing interests her: not the expensive clothes she has been able to buy with the...
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