Mental illness in literatrure

If any form of expression has a way of presenting the raw truth about mental illness it is literature. I know we spent a good amount of time in class talking about mental illnesses from a philosophical and scientific perspective; however, as an English Major with a Literature concentration, when I have come across the discussion and representation of mental illnesses it has been through books.

Some of my favorite books have been memoirs about the writer's mental illness, their battle with it and more often their hospitalization. For example, one of the books I really enjoyed is Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel, who details her life as a manic depressive student at Harvard University. She has an interesting approach to describing her illness; she refers to it as a "black wave" that covers her. However it is all very honest and blunt truth. Another writer who talks about living with borderline personality disorder in a more abstract manner is Susanna Kaysen, the writer of Girl Interrupted. All of the methods she uses to talk about her illness are metaphors like, "swallowing a dark secret". I found her description of her illness to be rather emotional and philosophical in the sense that throughout the book she analysizes her illness and other patients in a manner that relates it to the self as a whole.

I think literature is another major source to understand mental illnesses.