A Most Beautiful Deception Summary

Melissa Morelli Lacroix’s “Variations on a Theme by Clozapine” located in the anthology “A Most Beautiful Deception” is centered on a quote taken from Robert Schumann that explains the reasons for composing. Lacroix takes this quote as inspiration to write a poem that follows the format of Clara Schumann’s Op. 20 “Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann.” The author writes a variation on a Robert Schumann quote for every variation Clara wrote in her piece of music and uses a line of poetry to depict a measure within the music. Lacroix establishes a relationship of the speaker of the poetry as Robert Schumann. Lacroix in the poetry capitalizes on William S. Newman’s description of Clara’s music having a, “devotion to Robert” (134). This devotion
Another aspect is Lacroix use of Clozapine being a drug that masks the voices in mental illness, which is displaying that the voices Robert hears due to experiencing mental illness are his desire to compose. Clara’s endless love and commitment to the relationship is necessary in order to channel the voices to be a positive aspect of Robert’s life. Clara’s support, love and admiration for Robert and his music allows the voices to be used as motivation and creativity rather than as a harmful creating the harsh realities a person with mental illness can experience. A person with mental illness needs to be surrounded by a society that supports and understand the difficulties and struggles. Society needs to offer solutions for those with mental illness to learn how to control the voices rather than completely eliminating the voices, because that is only a short-term solution that spirals one even deeper into the