It's Kind Of A Funny Story Character Analysis

Internal pain, external pain, suicidal thoughts, drugs, and societal pressures, Craig Gilner experiences it all. Craig is a 15 year old boy from Brooklyn, New York, who lives with his family. One night when he plans to kill himself, he calls the suicide hotline, and they tell him to go to the nearest hospital and he does. Behind the doors, a huge world of experience and recovery awaits him. In the “short-term facility for adult psychiatric”(Vizzini 185), Craig meets new patients and works with others to heal himself. In It’s Kind of a Funny Story, the author, Ned Vizzini, illustrates Craig's journey and development as a character, as well as introduces Muqtada and Noelle, two other patients in the ward, who also develop and recover. However, it eventually gets better for everyone no matter who you are, but for some people it takes longer. Upon his arrival, Craig is told that his roommate is Muqtada, an aloof, older Egyptian man who rarely leaves the room. Muqtada’s characterization is expressed by Craig as soon as he enters the room. He is described as “big,” with a “straight gray beard; wide wrinkled, dark face; glasses with white plastic rims. He doesn’t have any clothes, apparently, because he’s in a dark blue robe, which smells intensely of body odor” (Vizzini 200). These are the basic things that Craig discovers about him in the book, until the end. He rarely talks to anyone and it is difficult for him to wake up every morning because of his depression, which can be assumed because of the way he

They all demonstrate how a person can be in a terrible point in their life, but there are resources like a short-term mental ward, and suicide hotlines, that assist them in getting better and not ending the suffering themselves. They must know that everything will play out well and happiness will be