Summary Of Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir By Lauren Slater

In Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir, Lauren Slater described her personal early childhood story and young adulthood experiences of being an epileptic patient. She used significant metaphors in this book which required readers to reconsider what is real and what it the exaggerated part. Slater puts the idea up that she may be making her epileptic illness up. Slater was trying to tell the readers that her abnormal behavior was attributed by her epilepsy. However, in the last chapter of the book readers realized that she may never had epilepsy at all. Throughout her memoir, Slater is using epilepsy as a metaphor to give some facts that she was not able to write exactly, but our readers can find some private truth through the metaphor.
In the beginning
of the book, Lauren Slater told us she had seizures, or some kind mental illness. She wrote “I exaggerate” on the chapter one page which indicates to us that her stories may be unreliable. The event could be her own imagination instead of a real life experience. In this circumstance, she forced readers have to identify the real experiences and memories in an uncertain condition. The readers will suspect with everything she presents. They tend to associate her as an epileptic with those symptoms and characteristics. However, in the end of the book, Slater’s conversation with Christopher that suggests she might presented to have epilepsy. “I saw my illness as more than a physical thing; it was also a metaphor, and that helped me make some sense.”(157)The epilepsy as a metaphor was extremely important in the book, because it prove to be the best way to describe her memoir.

Lauren Slater’s relationship with her mother is very complex and impressive. On the one hand, she is a mother’s girl who always obeys her mother’s commands. On the other hand, Lauren did not like how her mom educated her. Her mother wants Lauren to become an ideal model who is her perfect child. However, Lauren wants to be complete free. The epilepsy has become a strong tool to escape from her mother’s control.
The first time Lauren experienced the benefit of epilepsy was to become a Sunday’s Child who can live away from home.
In chapter two, Lauren had a small seizure in the supermarket, and the policemen misunderstood what happened to them. Therefore, her mother was accused that she abused her child. When the policemen asked her if she had epilepsy, she kept silenced. Lauren Slater described her mental activities at that moment, “And part of me wanted us to be let go, but part of me didn’t.” (43) She felt guilty and thought she betrayed her mother. However, she still made that decision. Lauren eventually got the result that she could escape her mother’s control. “That episode did change my world, and my mother’s too” (45) Laruen went to a special school and have her own personal life.
Since the supermarket event, Lauren realized that epilepsy could be a strong tool to grab people’s attention, therefore she could get what she wanted. According to Slater, “My body had become epileptic years ago, but when I turned thirteen, so did my soul” (71). It indicates Laurens’s mentally change, she found the epilepsy is the perfect excuse to do some carry things like stealing people’s staffs. Slater describes her illness by using those metaphors, it also showed Lauren wanted more attention from
people. In hospital, Lauren had crush on her new doctor Dr. Neu who is brilliant neurologist and had published many articles. Dr. Neu asked Lauren couples question in order to figure out where the epilepsy is. During the test, Lauren imagined that Dr. Neu is touching her, but Dr.Neu denied her. “I didn’t believe him. Believed he was touching me, and that he might learn to love me after a while”. (79) This scene is very important because it suggests that she might have Munchausen’s syndrome, a mental illness. It remained readers that Lauren might pretend has seizures to grab attentions from parent and doctor. “I went to the doctor’s almost every day after school, and once twice a week I slept over at the hospital” (80) Slater continuously keeps readers wonder whether she actually has epilepsy or not. After Dr. Neu told Lauren that they might be able to cure pretty soon, Lauren didn’t feel very excite about this new. However, Lauren forced herself do not cry. It is also an evidence that Lauren wanted to use epilepsy as tool to grab people’s attentions. “I gripped my hands hard. Let me have a seizure, I thought” (85). In my personal opinion, Lauren was scared to lose the perfect excuse of epilepsy. “
Slater doesn’t tell the whole truth in her memoir, however, she used epilepsy as a metaphor to discuss about some of her mental activities. “The metaphor of epilepsy, to express subtleties and horrors and gaps in my past for which I has never been able to find the words” (219).She successfully use epilepsy as metaphor which is a valid strategy for capturing truth. I truly believe that some facts of the book are exaggerated, but most stories and metaphor are the real reflection of her early life.