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@article{187664,
        author = {PRANJAL MADAAN and Dr. KAJAL CHAUDHARY},
        title = {SILENT WOUNDS: THE IMPACT OF PARENTAL EMOTIONAL UNAVAILABILITY ON INDENTITY IN SYLVIA PLATH’S ‘DADDY’ AND ‘THE BELL JAR’},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2025},
        volume = {12},
        number = {6},
        pages = {5928-5930},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=187664},
        abstract = {Emotional neglect rarely leaves visible marks, yet it seeps into the core of one’s identity, distorting how individuals perceive love, self-worth, and belonging. Sylvia Plath’s Daddy and The Bell Jar explore this unseen emotional damage through protagonists who bear the silent burden of being unmothered, unfathered, and emotionally unheard. This paper investigates how parental emotional unavailability—especially when disguised as care or lost in absence—fractures identity formation and intensifies internal conflict. Through the tormented voice in Daddy and Esther Greenwood’s suffocating disconnection in The Bell Jar, Plath portrays how emotional wounds, left unacknowledged, can turn inward, breeding shame, obsession, and despair. Drawing upon psychoanalytic frameworks and real-life contexts from Plath’s biography, the study argues that the trauma of emotional neglect is not just psychological but existential. The absence of emotional attunement—rather than overt violence—can often be more insidious, with victims struggling to validate their own pain in a world that dismisses anything invisible. Through these texts, Plath does not preach or condemn; she simply reveals—how silence can hurt, how presence can feel vacant, and how a daughter may long for a parent even in death.},
        keywords = {},
        month = {November},
        }