Thursday, June 11, 2009
Presentation
For my Final Presentation, I plan on having the class read and discuss two articles. One article is about animals taking Prozac, and the other is about the economy affecting mental health. We're going to read them out loud as a class, and then the class will make blog posts about the articles in groups; they can write their comments and opinions that they have after reading the articles. The class will then share their blog posts with everyone else.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Book 3: Quotes
For this book, I also marked quotes. Again, below are only some of them, but the full list is on my Google Docs page.
“I wasn’t a danger to society. Was I a danger to myself? The fifty aspirin- I’ve explained them. They were metaphorical. I wanted to get rid of a certain aspect of my character. I was performing a kind of self-abortion with those aspirin. It worked for a while. Then it stopped; but I had no heart to try again” (Kaysen 39).
At the beginning of the novel, Kaysen takes a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka, because she "had a headache." She explains that she wasn't trying to kill herself necessarily, but rather kill a part of herself. Afterwards, she realizes that what she did didn't really work at all; she was just trying to avoid her problems.
“Don’t ask me what life means or how we know reality or why we have to suffer so much, Don’t talk about how nothing feels real, how everything is coated with gelatin and shining like oil in the sun. I don’t want to hear about the tiger in the corner or the Angel of Death or the phone calls from John the Baptist. He might give me a call too. But I’m not going to pick up the phone” (Kaysen 125).
After her stay in the mental hospital, Kaysen seems to realize that it is all just mental; everything is uncontrollable. She knows that some things might appear to be unreal, but she is going to ignore them from now on, and focus on what is real to get her life on track.
“In a strange way we were free. We’ reached the end of the line. We had nothing more to lose. Our privacy, our liberty, our dignity: All of this was gone and we were stripped down to the bare bones of our selves” (Kaysen 94).
In the hospital, Kaysen realizes that everyone there has nothing left; though their privacy was gone and they were monitored 24/7, they were free because they could be themselves. The patients could get no lower than a mental institution, they didn't need to pretend: they were free because they were around people like themselves.
“I wasn’t a danger to society. Was I a danger to myself? The fifty aspirin- I’ve explained them. They were metaphorical. I wanted to get rid of a certain aspect of my character. I was performing a kind of self-abortion with those aspirin. It worked for a while. Then it stopped; but I had no heart to try again” (Kaysen 39).
At the beginning of the novel, Kaysen takes a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka, because she "had a headache." She explains that she wasn't trying to kill herself necessarily, but rather kill a part of herself. Afterwards, she realizes that what she did didn't really work at all; she was just trying to avoid her problems.
“Don’t ask me what life means or how we know reality or why we have to suffer so much, Don’t talk about how nothing feels real, how everything is coated with gelatin and shining like oil in the sun. I don’t want to hear about the tiger in the corner or the Angel of Death or the phone calls from John the Baptist. He might give me a call too. But I’m not going to pick up the phone” (Kaysen 125).
After her stay in the mental hospital, Kaysen seems to realize that it is all just mental; everything is uncontrollable. She knows that some things might appear to be unreal, but she is going to ignore them from now on, and focus on what is real to get her life on track.
“In a strange way we were free. We’ reached the end of the line. We had nothing more to lose. Our privacy, our liberty, our dignity: All of this was gone and we were stripped down to the bare bones of our selves” (Kaysen 94).
In the hospital, Kaysen realizes that everyone there has nothing left; though their privacy was gone and they were monitored 24/7, they were free because they could be themselves. The patients could get no lower than a mental institution, they didn't need to pretend: they were free because they were around people like themselves.
Book 3: Movie Version
All of these books were made into movies, but Girl, Interrupted won an Oscar in 2000 for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Angelina Jolie for playing Lisa Rowe). The movie is slightly different than the novel, but follows basically the same plot lines. This is the trailer for the movie.
Right now, it won't load the video. So until it works, go to youtube, search "girl interrupted trailer" and click on the second result.
Right now, it won't load the video. So until it works, go to youtube, search "girl interrupted trailer" and click on the second result.
Book 3: Girl, Interrupted
The last book that I read was Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen; it is another memoir, like Prozac Nation. The title refers to one of Vermeer's paintings, Girl Interrupted at her Music. Kaysen's memoir takes place during the 1960s, when she voluntarily signed herself into a mental hospital after attempting suicide at 18 years old. The book has pages of her actual file, with some lines blacked out, inserted into to the chapters. Readers follow Kaysen's reflection of being a patient in a psychiatric hospital during the 60s, and learning to accept her diagnosis: borderline personality disorder. She makes friends in the institution, and questions "normal." After two years, a marriage proposal sets Kaysen free from the mental hospital, but it limits her freedom.
Book 2: Quotes
While reading, I marked some quotes in the novel. The ones below are just some of them, the rest are on my Google Docs site.
“Virgin suicide/What was that she cried?/No use in stayin’/On this holocaust ride/ She gave me her cherry/She’s my virgin suicide” (Eugenides 176).
In the book, this is actually a song from a fictional band, Cruel Crux, that Lux listens to until her mom forces her to burn all her rock records. Of course, this is where Eugenides got the title for his book.
“ “What are you doing here, honey? You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets.” “Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl” (Eugenides 7).
Cecilia, after her first suicide attempt, ends up in the emergency room, with a doctor bandaging her wrists. He can't comprehend why such a young girl would do this to herself; Cecilia knows that he won't understand what it is like to be a teenage girl.
“We felt the imprisonment of being a girl, the way it made your mind active and dreamy, and how you ended up knowing which colors went together…We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them” (Eugenides 43-44).
The book is told from the point of view of the neighborhood boys, years after this all happened. At the time, they were obsessed with the Lisbon girls and years later, after growing up, they still are. By watching the girls, collecting their things, they feel their pain almost; the boy were able to understand that the girls were beyond them.
“Virgin suicide/What was that she cried?/No use in stayin’/On this holocaust ride/ She gave me her cherry/She’s my virgin suicide” (Eugenides 176).
In the book, this is actually a song from a fictional band, Cruel Crux, that Lux listens to until her mom forces her to burn all her rock records. Of course, this is where Eugenides got the title for his book.
“ “What are you doing here, honey? You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets.” “Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl” (Eugenides 7).
Cecilia, after her first suicide attempt, ends up in the emergency room, with a doctor bandaging her wrists. He can't comprehend why such a young girl would do this to herself; Cecilia knows that he won't understand what it is like to be a teenage girl.
“We felt the imprisonment of being a girl, the way it made your mind active and dreamy, and how you ended up knowing which colors went together…We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them” (Eugenides 43-44).
The book is told from the point of view of the neighborhood boys, years after this all happened. At the time, they were obsessed with the Lisbon girls and years later, after growing up, they still are. By watching the girls, collecting their things, they feel their pain almost; the boy were able to understand that the girls were beyond them.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Book 2: Suicide Pacts
The Virgin Suicides' five sisters all die eventually by suicide; this is slightly strange because only the first that died, the youngest Cecilia, actually appeared to be depressed. The other four sisters, though shut up in a house for months with no outside contact with the world, did not display many symptoms and signs of depression. Readers do not know their exact motivation for killing themselves. On the night of their suicides, the anniversary of Cecilia's first attempt to kill herself, the girls invite the neighborhood boys to come over at midnight; they communicate with flashlights. The boys arrive, Lux waits in the car for "her sisters to finish packing," and the boys wait patiently. Eventually, the boys find Bonnie hanging and leave as fast as possible. All four sisters died differently, but it was a suicide pact; neither wanted to live, probably because of the effects of Cecilia's death. Awareness is increasing of suicide pacts, among teenagers and internet suicide pacts. These pacts are previously agreed upon between two or more people who decide to kill themselves at the same time, or close to the same time. This article talks about a possible teenage suicide pact in England.
Book 2: The Virgin Suicides
While I was researching this book, I came across this blog, called Sunset Gun, that had devoted a blog post to The Virgin Suicides. It is very informative, and interesting to read; she talks about both the novel and Sophia Coppola's film version, which "doesn't tell a story; instead, it leaves a swoony, foggy impression, a darkly beautiful intangibility filled with almost torturously elusive feeling" (sunsetgun.typepad.com). She delves into the bond of the five sisters, who are portrayed as mysterious, lost characters. The pictures on the blog aren't showing up when I view the website, but still it is a very good read regardless.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Book 2: The Virgin Suicides
The second book I read was The Virgin Suicides, by Jeffrey Eugenides. This novel is about the Lisbon family, Mr. & Mrs. Lisbon and 5 daughters: Cecilia, Lux, Bonnie, Mary, and Therese (from youngest to oldest). They reside in a strict household in Michigan in the early 70s; after Cecilia's second attempt to kill her self is a success, the four remaining sisters struggle to return to normality. After failing to come home at curfew at the homecoming dance, the four sisters are placed on a strict lockdown by their overbearing mother. Disappearing from school, church, and the outside world itself, the sisters lose hope it seems. Lux is seen having sex on the roof at night, the house is falling apart, and Mr. Lisbon loses his job. One night, after contacting neighborhood boys to rescue them, all four sisters kill themselves on the anniversary of Cecilia's first attempt to kill herself.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Book 1: Prozac Nation Quotes
As I was reading all 311 pages of Prozac Nation, I marked a lot of quotes to use in my paper and this blog. The full list of the quotes is on my Google Docs, but I wanted to post some of them on my blog.
“Homesickness is just a state of mind for me. I’m always missing someone or someplace or something, I’m always trying to get back to some imaginary somewhere. My life has been one long longing” (Wurtzel 71).
Wurtzel has been depressed for so long that she doesn't know what she wants, what she's looking for, and she can't remember what "normal" is. Her "missing" everything is her trying to fill the depression void with a temporary solution instead of addressing the real problems.
“What I’m thinking is how nice it would be if my problem were drugs, if my problem weren’t my whole damn life and how little relief from it the drugs provide” (Wurtzel 106).
Instead of facing her problems, Wurtzel avoids them with drugs and alcohol; she abuses these substances, but that is just a little problem. While she is under the effect of the drugs and alcohol (she takes everything at once usually) she feels a lot better, but of course, the relief is short-lived.
“That’s the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it’s impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key” (Wurtzel 168).
Wurtzel is feeling trapped in her disease; she can't find a cure, a treatment, a pill that will make her better. There is not exact time to when her depression will be cured; she had been depressed for over 8 years. There is no cure, no guarantee to make her feel any better.
“I tried to remind myself that [he] was not the problem. The problem…was that I was fucked up. [He] was merely a makeshift solution I’d come up with, a pill I took to make the bad feelings go away…Story of my life: I am so self destructive, I turn solutions into problems. Everything I touch, I ruin” (Wurtzel 207).
Instead of providing temporary relief with drugs and alcohol, Wurtzel uses men and relationships to feel less depressed sometimes. The effect isn't permanent for any of them: she sobers up, and she breaks up. Her "solutions" are just makeshift solutions, and she avoids addressing the real problems in her life that are affecting her depression.
“Homesickness is just a state of mind for me. I’m always missing someone or someplace or something, I’m always trying to get back to some imaginary somewhere. My life has been one long longing” (Wurtzel 71).
Wurtzel has been depressed for so long that she doesn't know what she wants, what she's looking for, and she can't remember what "normal" is. Her "missing" everything is her trying to fill the depression void with a temporary solution instead of addressing the real problems.
“What I’m thinking is how nice it would be if my problem were drugs, if my problem weren’t my whole damn life and how little relief from it the drugs provide” (Wurtzel 106).
Instead of facing her problems, Wurtzel avoids them with drugs and alcohol; she abuses these substances, but that is just a little problem. While she is under the effect of the drugs and alcohol (she takes everything at once usually) she feels a lot better, but of course, the relief is short-lived.
“That’s the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it’s impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key” (Wurtzel 168).
Wurtzel is feeling trapped in her disease; she can't find a cure, a treatment, a pill that will make her better. There is not exact time to when her depression will be cured; she had been depressed for over 8 years. There is no cure, no guarantee to make her feel any better.
“I tried to remind myself that [he] was not the problem. The problem…was that I was fucked up. [He] was merely a makeshift solution I’d come up with, a pill I took to make the bad feelings go away…Story of my life: I am so self destructive, I turn solutions into problems. Everything I touch, I ruin” (Wurtzel 207).
Instead of providing temporary relief with drugs and alcohol, Wurtzel uses men and relationships to feel less depressed sometimes. The effect isn't permanent for any of them: she sobers up, and she breaks up. Her "solutions" are just makeshift solutions, and she avoids addressing the real problems in her life that are affecting her depression.
Book 1: Puppy Prozac
In Wurtzel's final part of her memoir, Epilogue: Prozac Nation, she begins to describe a situation with her friend's cat; the cat was brought to a vet because the friend had noticed some strange behavior. The cat was chewing her fur off and the vet attributed this "excessive grooming disorder" to being lonely in it's apartment. This condition is treatable in humans with Prozac, and the vet gives the cat Prozac in a "feline-size prescription" (Wurtzel 295). Not only is Prozac approved for people, it is used to treat some animal disorders. Has this gone too far, or are we helping pets by giving them antidepressants?
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Book 1: Family Problems
In her younger years, Wurtzel constantly talks about her parents, who divorced when she was a toddler and now, as a teenager, she barely sees her father. Of course, she can't blame her parents, their divorce, and her lack of a father for her depression, but it definitely contributed to it. She is being pulled between her mom and her dad; she is an only child of divorce who just needs simple love but can't find it. Her dad abandoned her family, her mom is a single mom struggling to make ends meet, and Wurtzel feels like she is causing problems for her parents, like she is a burden to them. She reflects on this, realizing that, "“I am just one of a whole generation of children of divorce whose parents didn’t handle their personal affairs very well and who grew up damaged. Could family dynamics possibly account for all this trouble?” (Wurtzel 114). Wurtzel's family issues play an important role in her memoir, they affect her greatly. This is one of the very few ways I could relate to her; my parents are also (almost) divorced, and I know exactly what it's like to live with your mom and not have a father around. Below is a graph that polled 99 college students whose parents had been divorced for at least 3 years.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Book 1: Prozac Nation
The first book that I am reading is Elizabeth Wurtzel's memoir, Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America. Wurtzel describes her journey through depression, starting from the young age of about 12, to her later college years at Harvard University. Not only does Wurtzel suffer from depression, but she has substance abuse problems, namely drugs and alcohol. Her memoir includes passages from her diary and her reflection as she writes her memoir. Clearly, she is in a bad place, as her first of many suicide attempts takes place when she is 12 years old. Wurtzel chronicles through many counselors, therapists, and hospitalizations until she encounters a helpful drug: Prozac. This brand new, recently FDA approved pill helps Wurtzel gain control over her life and find a better place. She ends her memoir with an epilogue that talks about how so many people have begun to take Prozac; pets also have been diagnosed with depression and they take Prozac. She reflects on her own situation, and relates it to society.
Monday, May 11, 2009
English Project
My new blog is dedicated to my Final English Project; I will be reading 3 books and watching the movies. The books, Prozac Nation, The Virgin Suicides, and Girl Interrupted, all portray characters suffering from depression. My final project will be this blog, almost like journal entries while reading the books. I want to analyze the books, give my opinion, and connect the situations to the outside world. Also, I plan on comparing the movies to the books to see which is better, and are the depression and the characters accurately portrayed? Why do people become depressed; what is the exact cause? Finally, my research paper will be about depression: what causes it and and what is the exact cause, if there is one? This project will be my alternative assessment for English.
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