Preview

Mental Illness In Wintergirls

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
Wintergirls: A Journey into a Disordered Mind Laurie Halse Anderson’s Wintergirls artistically tells a story exposing the mentality of eighteen-year-old Lia struggling with the death of her bulimic friend Cassie and her own anorexia. Lia strives to learn the circumstances of Cassie’s death, only knowing that she was found dead in a motel room. Lia seems healthier yet grows worse as Cassie’s ghost frequently appears to her. Anderson’s fictional story reveals the true mindset of a disordered girl and her path to recovery. Lia works hard to reach her goals. Her extremist ways almost lead to her death; however, she realizes the importance of her life. Lia’s most apparent objective is her obsessive need to lose weight and be thin. Lia finds sneaky ways to hide the disorder from her family. She manipulates the people around her and shuts them out when they attempt to help. Lia omits …show more content…

Throughout the novel, the ghost of Cassie visits her often and worsens Lia’s eating disorder. Lia constantly reflects old memories of her friendship with Cassie. The death weighs heavily on Lia, even though she refuses to admit her grief. The ghost of Cassie tears down Lia, additionally hurting her low self-esteem. Cassie’s ghost seems pleased as Lia’s health deteriorates. Cassie mocks Lia, telling her to cut deeper and accomplish her death. Though Cassie also tells Lia how much she loves and misses her. “’You’re ugly. You’re stupid. You’re boring. The only thing you’re good at is starving, but you can’t even do that right. You’re a waste.’ She winks. ‘And that’s why I love you.’” (Anderson 244). When Lia stays in the motel where Cassie’s dead body was found, she sleeps through days and reaches her end. In her jaded daze, Cassie’s ghost tells her she will join her soon. Lia fights her own death, and finally overcomes the ghost of Cassie. This ghost symbolizes Lia’s eating disorder and it leaves when Lia realizes she wants to

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Arielle Donovan is a fifteen year old girl who has just lost something very important to her, her best friend. On a dark summer night, Jenna leaves Arielle’s home without her insisting she’ll be right back, but never returns. Arielle suffers through a summer alone, desperate to find out what happened to her friend, but lacking the energy that the experience of loss has drained from her. On the afternoon of her fifteenth birthday however, Arielle has a dream. She sights Jenna outside her kitchen window, runs outside only to bolt after her as Jenna sprints away. Losing control of her body and breath, Arielle’s world becomes hazy as she sees her friend run into the burning structure of the old Dexter orphanage, and she is powerless to do anything after being confined behind the Iron Gate that protects the place.…

    • 518 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mental illness is apparent in Hamlet and One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest. Although the main characters from each book are prisoners to different disorders, it is very clear that they are not mentally stable.…

    • 345 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    She often had thoughts of suicide and murdering her parents. Her parents did not approve of the people she was hanging around and decided to move her to a Christian school in hopes of changing her life around. When she first switched schools, she was very angry and sad. She was not excepted and ways of expressing her pain was she would cut herself till she bled. But it took her going to a weekend church camp to realize what she has done. As she started to change her life around, her parents accepted her proposal to switch into a private school. Cassie was very troubled in the early part of her teenage years but she pulled it together and got in touch with everything. I really felt for her in the beginning of the…

    • 465 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the thrilling and suspenseful novel, The Cellar by Natasha Preston, the main character Summer was followed on her way to a nightclub, when a stranger from behind abducted her, and took her to the middle of the English country side. She later was awoken by three strangers all smiling at her as she lay on the cold linoleum floor. The strangers were dressed like dolls, each matching with long sweaters and matching pants, the only difference was the delicately embroidered flowers on each of the sweaters. The three girls all looked as if they were zombies, all hypnotized by something, but showing only one emotion, fear. And that is when Summer realizes she has been kidnapped. The story shows, what it is like to feel powerless and for all freedom to be taken away from you, this challenge is faced by the main character Summer. From the beginning of the story, Summer is faced with the challenge of trying to get out of the too perfect basement.…

    • 811 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Beatrice Culleton has a liking for an eventful novel and it is definitely noticeable. In the first chapter of this book, we learn that April and her younger sister, Cheryl are taken away their parents, due to a severe alcohol problem. From here in, the negative events start to occur. After April and Cheryl are removed from their family home, they tend to grow independent and look out for each other. Along these lines, they endure many challenges and new experiences. They end up going to endless foster homes during their child hood years. The two of them travel from home to home and are involved in different situations at each. One of the worst environments from both of the girls was at the DeRosier residence.…

    • 845 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “She had her first psychotic break when she was fifteen. She had been coming home moody and tearful, then quietly beaming, then she stopped coming home.” (Page 1). In the story Silver Water, Amy Bloom’s main character Rose who is mentally ill and had her first psychotic breakdown when she was 15. Her sister Violet wants everyone to know that she was normal before the illness happened. Rose was taken to many different therapist one including Doctor Walker who talked to her in third person even when she was next to him. He treated her like she was only known from her sickness. Then, Doctor Thorne changes Rose. He helps her through her illness and allows her to have a chance to be normal. Doctor Thorne later dies and Rose starts to return to her old ways. Many people look at ill patients only as the illness. They do not give them a chance to be a normal person, while other therapists allow them to have a life outside their illness. In Silver Water, Amy Bloom uses, Doctor Thorne as a symbol of healing to Rose’s battle to be normal.…

    • 766 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    An unwieldy adversary that has hindered mankind for all time is a variation of psychological conditions and illnesses, a couple being: depression and anorexia nervosa. In fact, psychological illnesses grow quickly in numbers-- nearly appearing as a norm in today’s society. These issues and true obstacles are pertinent in two works of literature such as: William Shakespeare’s’ playwright, “Hamlet” and “Elena Vanishing: a memoir” by Elena and Clare B. Dunkle. Hamlet’s behavior and thoughts exemplified several symptoms of depression; similarly, Elena made a futile attempt to uphold her unrelenting façade while battling for dominion over her own body.…

    • 585 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The story of Chris McCandless shows a rebellious free spirit trying to live his life to the fullest. But is the story as black and white as it looks? “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer is a true story about the adventure of Chris McCandless. He travels around the country and mooches off people before he goes to Alaska and tragically dies. The early trauma to Chris caused him to be mentally unstable. Due to the similarities from Chris’ childhood and the authors I believe there has to be a romanticization of the story to better fit his ideal self. The author is manipulating the story to make the idea of living off the land and being a rebel better than it truly is. Chris could have had a possible mental illness as a result of early childhood…

    • 1245 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is characterized as people who are instable, have poor impulse control, instability in mood, interpersonal relationships and self-image. People with BPD tend to have strong emotions, intense rage and mood swings. For some of these symptoms, the character of Elsa from the famous Disney movie Frozen came to mind. The character, though understandable, shows many symptoms of BPD.…

    • 456 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Mental illness is a prominent problem in today’s troublesome world. Each day many people are diagnosed with a mental illness, most commonly depression. The human mind becomes tarnished when a person has a mental illness, and often the illness takes over a person’s life completely. Mental illness is a serious problem and often goes untreated or misdiagnosed. The darkness within a person’s mind is one of the toughest aspects of life for people to conquer and many lose themselves in the fight. To further understand mental illness, it would be easiest to peer into the life of someone with one of these illnesses. For example, taking a closer look at the lives of actor Heath Ledger, and fictional character Victor Frankenstein, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein can help humans gain insight into the mind of a troubled soul.…

    • 1450 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the nineteenth century, female madness was thought to be associated to female sexuality. Showalter illuminates surgical operations to “treat” female mental illness in the nineteenth century. A surgeon Isaac Baker Brown, for example, performed cliroridectomy on mad women in order to treat their mental illness. After the surge of the “treatment” hysterectomy began to be carried out on a number of women contracting mental illness. With the progress of science and medical science femininity and female sexuality were connected to female hysteria and…

    • 85 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The understanding of mental illness today since the early 1900s has changed significantly. In the 1900s, people still had no real understanding of what caused mental illnesses, let alone how to treat the disease. The disease was feared and was seen as incurable. Mentally ill patients would be sent to asylums, and as a form of treatment they were tortured. Until in the later 1900s, it was discovered that certain factors and drug therapy could be a treatment to cure the mentally ill. Today there are various forms of treatment and treatment settings for the different mental illnesses that help to benefit the patients’ condition.…

    • 744 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    e are defined by our past experiences, individuals are ever-changing based on our beliefs and experiences throughout our lives. William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” depicts the transformation of Emily. A young women who was originally a young and vibrant women, gradually transitions into a secluded and sympathized character. This is a symbol of her family’s history of mental illness, which she in turn inherited and ultimately affects her as her life progresses. Homer Barron’s close resemblance to Emily’s father, an unwillingness to let people go, and her isolation from the world which resulted in subsequent loneliness all point towards the argument that Emily’s mental illness is what lead to her killing Homer Barron.…

    • 1195 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Life in the Fat Lane Notes

    • 1428 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Life in the fat lane written by Cherie Bennett “offers a full measure of wisdom and hope” says Voice of Youth Advocates. It’s a wonderful story about a 16 year old girl named Lara Ardeche that has it all. Homecoming queen, great looks, an awesome boyfriend, and she’s the sweetest girl you’ll ever meet. She has an amazing life until she starts gaining weight. A lot of weight. Uncontrollably. Desperate to get her body back and find an explanation for her mysterious weight gain, Lara is diagnosed with a metabolic disorder called Axell-Crowne and it starts to take over her life. Soon, Lara Ardeche is living life in the fat lane. This awful disorder ruins her chances of becoming Miss. Tennessee. Lara is also going through a very tough time after finding out her dad is having an affair. Lara’s father decides to stop seeing this other woman and start being there for his family. To make sure he really stops seeing her, Lara’s mother moves the family to Michigan. At this point, Lara weighs 200 pounds and all she has left is her boyfriend Jett and her best friend Molly who she is forced to move away from. Lara has to relocate her life there and make new friends but the people there are not very accepting of her. Her dad still ends up seeing the other woman again and her mother finally gives him up, although, it isn’t easy. With everything going on with the family, Lara gives up on losing weight and now weighs 218 pounds. She decides to step on the scale and realizes she lost 5 pounds. Lara was hysterical and ran down the hall to her mother’s room to tell her the amazing news, when she found her lying on the floor unconscious with a spilt glass of wine and an empty pill bottle beside her. Lara’s mother had an overdose on pills to try and ease the pain of losing her husband of 25 years. Lara’s mother makes a full recovery and Lara realizes her life is not perfect, but she will be…

    • 1428 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hippocrates influence faded In the final years before Christ and the prevailing belief among cultured Romans was that depression and other forms of mental illnesses were caused by the anger of gods and demons. Cornelius Celsus for instance, believed that shackles, beating and starvation were appropriate treatments. The Persian physician Rhazes, who was the head doctor at Baghdad hospital, in contrast to the Roman view, saw the brain as the center of both mental illness and depression. His treatments involved behavior therapy, rewards for good behavior and hydrotherapy.…

    • 150 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays