Driven Into Depression The central problem of every story is conflict. Conflict is what makes literature interesting. There are six types of conflict in all literature. Some conflicts are external and some internal. The basis of external conflict is “Man against Man”. This type of conflict involves one character against another character and can be caused by many different reasons, including religious, moral, and social differences. Sylvia Plath uses the "Man vs. Man" conflict many times in her novel, The Bell Jar, as the main character falls into depression due to the characters around her. Esther Greenwood, from the novel The Bell Jar, becomes depressed and develops mental illness due to her mother's inability to recognize what is wrong with her daughter, her ex-boyfriend's hypocritical lifestyle, and her doctor's carelessness when it came to treatment. The mother's inability to recognize what was wrong with her daughter played a major role in Esther's development of depression. Esther had just received her first shock treatment at Dr. Gordon's private hospital. It was a terrible experience for Esther. The car was loud and there were blue flashes that made her jump. Dr. Gordon told Esther's mother that after a few more treatments Esther would get much better, but Esther would never want to undergo these treatments again. “I'm done with that Dr. Gordon,” I said after we left Dodo and his black suit. station wagon behind the pines. “You can call him and tell him I won't be coming next week.” My mother smiled. “I knew my little girl wasn't like that.” I looked at her. “Like what?” «Like those horrible people. Those horrible deaths in that hospital." he paused. “I knew you... halfway down the paper... she remembered what he did to her, and she was too scared. She didn't want to endure the pain of the shock treatments anymore and she lost respect for doctors. Instead of trusting her doctors, Esther feared them. Sylvia Plath uses the external conflict "Man vs. Man" throughout her novel to represent the events that the main character must endure as she falls into depression due to it. of the way the rest of the characters treated her. Esther fell into depression because her mother was in denial about what was happening, her ex-boyfriend was a hypocritical liar, and her doctor was not properly trained to use the medical machine. Conflict is what makes the reader engaged and engrossed in a book, and this is exactly what Sylvia Plath did. Works cited Plath, Sylvia. New York: First Harper Perennial Modern Classics.