When people think of depression, stress, or amnesia, do they think of a mental illness, or someone’s fake act for attention? The novel associated with the research is called “We Were Liars”, by E. Lockhart. The books main focus is about a story of riches to rags; going from king of the world to the lowly beggar. Underneath the main plot lies the book’s main themes of depression, loss of memory, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The main point of this essay is the misinterpretation, treatment, and our thoughts toward individuals suffering from amnesia, trauma, and depression.
The themes researched for the novel “We Were Liars” by E. Lockhart are depression, loss of memory, and PTSD. Information obtained after investigating these themes are, …show more content…
Well the main character Cadence Eastman gets diagnosed with PTHD or posttraumatic headache disorder after a damaging accident. From then on occurs noticeable changes in philosophy and ideology. At the beginning of the novel she may have been healthier but definitely wasn’t as appreciative or as giving. After her accident she suffers from amnesia, depression, and post-traumatic stress but when she isn’t plagued with these we see how grateful, giving, and attentive to real world issues she’s become. Although we see Amnesia and trauma on the surface of the novel underneath the whole book it’s not clear how depressive she’s become until cadence has dialogues or thoughts such as this, “Like I said, I don’t know. I remember only this: I plunged down into this ocean” (Lockhart 32). Cadence talks about an ocean at first glance this appears to be the physical ocean but, after multiple readings through it seems to have a depressive hints of the metaphysical ocean of depression and she talks about lack of memory which ties into amnesia. On the Brightside, an example of a change in Cadence’s outlook on life is, “‘Other people might use these,’ I snap, pointing at the stacks of books. ‘People who have actual needs. Don’t you think of doing good in the world” (Lockhart 75). We see cadence becoming appreciative and thinking about other people’s needs/ wants even if its somethings that doesn’t matter to her such as one book it could mean the world to someone who doesn’t have one. Cadence also suffers from trauma and stress one example of this is “My actual head is fucking broken in countless medically diagnosed ways and half of me comes from the unfaithful Eastman side of my family. I am not going to college next year; I’ve given up on all sports I used to do and clubs I used to be a part of I’m high on percocate half the time and I’m not even nice to my little cousins” (Lockhart 109) Readers see an almost panic attack likely