I have recently began reading the book It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini. I find the book quite interesting. It is all about this teenager Craig and the depression he is going through. I like books like these because they make me think about what it would be like if I were in the position of a depressed teenager, not that i want to be, but it is just interesting to hear about the experience. The character I would like to analyze in this post is Craig.
Craig seems to be a nice kid, he has nice friends, he has a nice family, and he got into a nice high school, but under all that nice stuff, there is something wrong. Craig is extremely depressed. Craig, his friend Aaron's girlfriend,his doctors, and his family are the only ones that are aware of his depression. Craig seems like a person who would lead a perfectly normal social life, but he doesn't. In fact, he pretty much shuts himself off to socializing. Craig is the narrator so he doesn't just come out and say "I'm not social!", but he sure does show it. For example, his friend Aaron had a party and Craig just sat in the corner looking at records. Craig is not only shut off to socializing, but he is also shut off to other ideas than his own. For example, Nia (Aaron's girlfriend) was talking to Craig about how he should tell Aaron about his depression, but Craig was totally against the idea, and he had to come up with a million reasons why not to tell Aaron. Nia has really been the only one who has confronted him about how he puts walls up ("walls" to block off socializing and new ideas).
I believe that if Craig did not block himself off to the world then it would help out a lot with his depression. But on the other hand the depression might be what is causing him to block himself off. In my opinion, that is what is really awful about depression. It is kind of like a cycle, you want to do good things things that will help you get out of depression but depression is holding you back from doing that.
great post gerogia!
ReplyDeletei have also read this book and i completely agree with everything you are saying. Depression is a serious issue and the book is really interesting because it puts it in the mind of a ninth grader which is scary. I like how you talked about your opinion of the matter. you said "I believe that if craig did not block himself off to the world then it would help a lot with his depression" i totally understand what you mean and agree.
great job!