Literary Essay

“It’s Kind of a Funny Story” by Ned Vizzini is about Craig Gilner, a 15-year-old boy with clinical depression.  He has a hard time sleeping, eating, doing his schoolwork, and has a lot of difficulty just doing everyday things. The high school he goes to is called Executive Pre Professional, where he is constantly around high achieving and extremely smart peers surround him. Craig was never able to focus as well as everyone else in his school, and never got grades as high as everyone else. One early Saturday morning, Craig is going to bike to the Brooklyn Bridge to commit suicide. However, before he walks out the door, he finds one of his mom’s books, which directs him to the suicide hotline. They direct him to go to the nearest hospital to get help. He goes to the hospital, and then he has to stay at an adult psychiatric ward. The cause of his depression and suicidal thoughts could possibly be from school, and the feelings and emotions that go along with this setting. Another possible cause is because of his friends, who do drugs and drink alcohol. A final reason could be that he feels lost and useless, and that he doesn’t serve much of a purpose in the world. Craig is unsure of why exactly he became depressed, but based on the feelings Craig expresses, through his thoughts and his actions, it is clear that the root of his depression is endless stress, pressure to be as good as everyone else, and anxious anticipation; the place where these feelings occur most is at school, or when he is surrounded by people from school or school work.

Early on in the book, it is apparent that Craig is unhappy. When he is with his friends, he is not as talkative or engaged in conversations as the rest of them are. His best friend, Aaron, is dating a girl that Craig likes a lot, Nia. He is envious of Aaron, as Nia is said to be very beautiful, and hold many other great qualities. His envy almost disconnects himself from Aaron and Nia; so not only does his depression force him to be more distanced from the couple, but his feelings toward them being a couple in the first place does too. When he checks into the psychiatry, he realizes new feelings toward Aaron and Nia. He starts to notice what a bad friend Aaron has been throughout this whole experience of him having depression and contemplating suicide. He isn’t as supportive as Craig would want him to be. One day, Aaron calls Craig in the hospital and Craig finally tells Aaron off. Nia visits Craig in the psychiatry to talk about depression, which Nia admitted to having the night Craig was going to kill himself. When Nia visits him one day, they start making out, to which Craig’s roommate freaks out and scares off Nia. At the time, Craig was angry about this because he was finally with Nia. But soon, he realized that this was for the best. Both of these occurrences make him miserable, but he finds out later than neither of these things was all that horrible.

 In 8^th grade, Craig did a summer program that would help him study for a test that if he passed, he could go to one of the most prestigious schools in the city, Executive Pre Professional. He puts so much of his life into studying for this test; as soon as he gets home he takes practice tests, and wont see his friends and he bought numerous test prep books. Eventually, he takes the test, and finds it very easy. He gets into the school, and that was the last happy day he can remember. Its possible that after studying so vigorously for the test, and loosing a lot of his social life, he felt worthless; as if the test was his purpose in life. After the test is over, he may feel like he has become useless, and finds it almost impossible to find another purpose.

            The main reason for Craig’s depression is school and the feelings of anxiety and stress that come along with school, his peers, and his work. He continually feels like he’s inferior to the other students who get very high grades, and are able to keep up with schoolwork, extracurricular activities, and friends and family. Craig, unlike the other students, is barely able to keep up with the schoolwork alone. However, the schoolwork is more than just homework and class work; it represents how inanimate objects such as pieces of paper can put so much pressure on one person. In school, he is made to feel like a grade is the most important thing, to the point where he thinks a 93% is a bad grade. This constant pressure on him brings up other things, such as worriedness, anxiety, inability to focus, and mainly, depression.

            Craig always feels as though he is not as good as every one else. Whether the reason is because he wasn’t able to get the girl he liked, or he didn’t get a good grade. At a certain point, the pressure became too much, where he felt like his only option was to end his life. There were many causes of those feelings and thoughts, but the one thing that caused everything else was school; but not only the building, but the people, the work, and the stress that goes along with all of that.