preview

Eat It's Kind Of A Funny Story By Vizzini

Decent Essays

I enjoyed reading this book because the insight the writer provides into the mind of a mentally ill teenager is that of no other. It’s Kind of a Funny Story provides incredible personality to the typical depressed teen and gives a particularly human characterization of Craig. Throughout the book Vizzini pays attention to every single aspect of the life and thought of one with a mental illness. For example, he writes “ It’s so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself. That’s above and beyond everything else, and it’s not a mental complaint—it’s a physical thing, like it’s physically hard to open your mouth and make the words come out.” (Vizzini 2) Vizzini writes from the perspective of Craig, a strung out high schooler who got more than …show more content…

Through this, we see the internal conflict Craig faces,specifically through two imaginary characters, the soldier and the general, who fight within Craig’s head. “Soldier, what is the problem?/I can’t eat this. I know I should be able to. /Get over it. Eat it.” (Vizzini 104) This struggle over a basic task like eating conveys to the reader that Craig’s illness is like an internal war between weakness and the world. He expresses feelings of hopelessness and fears of not surviving the “war” within these statements. Vizzini also tackles the subject of stigma against mental illness. Craig has an acute fear of people at school finding out about him being in the hospital saying, “People on the outside world don’t know what’s happened to me—I’m in a sort of stasis right now. Things are under control. But the dam will break. Even if I’m here just through Monday, the rumors will start flying, and the homework will pile up.” (Vizzini 244) Craig’s fear of being “found out” pushes him back into internal conflict,where he shames himself for an illness he cannot control. These concerns humanize him and allow the reader to understand the different struggles mentally ill people face. By the end of the book, he puts Craig on the road to recovery and creates an anchor within not people, but defining

Get Access