TOW #8

In Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel, the author employs the rhetorical strategies of allusion and metaphor to convey how sad and hopeless she felt in order to make her audience understand what it is like to have chronic depression. In this book, Wurtzel reminisced on the true story of how she came to realize that she was depressed and bipolar at a young age. She was a published author prior to the release of Prozac Nation and this book made her a national bestselling author. The rhetoric is evident when Wurtzel writes, “Just like Gregor Samsa waking up to find he’d become a six-foot-long roach, only in my case, I had invented the monster and now it was overtaking me.” (Wurtzel 46). By alluding to The Metamorphosis, a 1915 novel about a man who transforms into a giant cockroach, Elizabeth Wurtzel is able to support her metaphor that follows. She does so by relating a possibly confusing statement to something that is more commonly known and understood. Wurtzel’s mention of creating and becoming a monster is a metaphor for how she created and became a victim to her own sadness. By comparing the depression to a monster, Wurtzel is able to show her audience how terrifying and violent the illness is for most people and that it is often inescapable. She also states that she created the monster or the depression as a way of saying that she felt as though the depression was her own fault, which is a common and often misunderstood feeling for depressed people. Overall, Elizabeth Wurtzel strategically employs various rhetorical devices to further support her purpose of the book. I believe that she is very successful in doing so since I found that, as someone who has suffered from both bipolar and depression, what she said was very relatable and true. I can imagine that for people who have never experienced either disorder, reading this book would help them understand the common feelings associated with them.