Blog Assignment #5 -- Responding to a Personal Memoir

The excerpt Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel begins off with the description of the girl being in bed on a Saturday night. Deeper into the excerpt there is a scene where the young girl is crying and realizes that she is crying because she sees all these people on television and how successful they are in making changes in the world. She views herself as an individual who doesn’t have a particular way to show her gifts and talents like all the people on television. There is a line on page 111 that reads “other kids with emotional troubles take time off from school, but they have families, they have some sense of a place in the world that can absorb them in all their pain” these lines struck me as having a deep meaning. With those lines I get a sense of what it is exactly this girl is going through and her perception of the situation. She feels as if there is nowhere for her to go and receive help for anxiety disorder. Another interesting line is on page 113 where she says, “my main symptoms, Dr. Sterling believes, are anxiety and agitation. In her opinion, even worse than the depression itself is the fear I seem to have about never escaping from it.” From these lines we get a better grasp of the seriousness of her condition. From reading the excerpt we can get a clear understanding that the writer uses a lot of dialogue to get points across and maintain focus on the primary topic in the excerpt. Also the writer shines light on the perception of the main character that is suffering from the illness and how they deal with anxiety. There is a third line that reads “And pretty soon the crying is about Daddy leaving, about being alone in my crib, being alone in my mother’s womb, being alone in this life, and I know that I have been hysterical many times before, but this time, I don’t think its going to stop." The writer uses the style of dialogue as a strong point of telling the story.