Slyvia Plath’s “fig tree” metaphor from “The Bell Jar” is resonating with Gen Z. Young people are grieving the passage of time and different versions of themselves that they feel they cannot live out.

“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,... See more