At 14, my world blossomed when I read Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar” for the first time. Feeling incredibly validated and moved, I jumped quickly to reading her journals as well. I read fervently, with a biblical reverence. Never had I consumed literature that meant so much to me. It seemed I had crossed a significant threshold; I had found immense safety in the repertoire of her words. 

While Plath opened this door of discovery, it hardly ended there. I was swiftly propelled on a journey of reading as much feminist literature as I could get my hands on. Soon, Virginia Woolf, Maya Angelou, Joan Didion, Toni Morrison, Eve Babitz and Patti Smith also became significant safe spaces — offering me an abundance of wisdom and beauty through their stories. 

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I was reminded of the profound gift of their literature when scrolling through TikTok a few weeks ago. I was met with a familiar passage: Plath’s fig tree analogy, the same one that had struck me so many years ago in “The Bell Jar” and many times over since. 

In the passage, she explains the various life paths she wishes to pursue “branching out before [her] like the green fig tree” and laments the fact that if she chooses one, she gives up the others.

“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,” Plath wrote.

The analogy, especially in the context of “The Bell Jar,” has evident feminist implications. Plath’s stand-in protagonist, Esther, exists in an era in which domesticity is expected of women: If Esther wishes to be successful, she feels as if she must deny motherhood completely and vice versa. Beyond its social and historical relevance, the analogy has found a home in our modern zeitgeist for its universal, genderless iteration of feeling lost and unsure about the future. 

There are countless things to see, to be, to do — it often feels like one lifetime is not enough. The comments on this TikTok, and the countless ones that followed — including users sharing their own metaphorical fig trees — reminded me of how everyone could benefit from reading more Sylvia Plath, and more feminist writers in general. 

I was reminded of how much my life has been improved by putting myself in the shoes of women who came before me. Their stories are more than entertaining or lyrical, they’re a profound manifestation of empathy and often, by proxy, of self-love.

Touching on sensitive subjects like grief, insecurity and relationships in thought-provoking, unique ways, the words of women have not only given me strength — they have contextualized my feelings against a backdrop of universal womanhood. 

With the knowledge that women experienced similar feelings to me far before I was even capable of experiencing them, I am reminded that I am connected to something larger than myself. Reading has granted me awareness of such a connection. 

If the fig tree analogy speaks to you, and you haven’t yet read “The Bell Jar,” I urge you to give it a chance. After returning to it myself, I smiled upon remembering how the fig tree analogy actually ends. 

After a hungry Esther has dinner, she reflects: “I don’t know what I ate, but I felt immensely better after the first mouthful. It occurred to me that my vision of the fig tree and all the fat figs that withered and fell to the earth might well have arisen from the profound void of an empty stomach.” 

Just as it is human to be fearful, it is also human to be hungry — to have deep-rooted, insatiable dreams for the future. Reading beyond the viral blurbs on TikTok can grant you even further consolation. 

I hope whatever you choose to read, it will speak to you in the same way women like Sylvia Plath have spoken to me. There is something immeasurably profound about hearing your own feelings expressed back to you; there is something immeasurably comforting in knowing that you are not — and never were — alone in feeling them.