Courting the Beast Imagine yourself in an empty, soundproof room; white padded walls, a lonely lightbulb flickering above. Depression feels very much like the aforementioned scene: desolate, monotonous, and helpless. Despite the wide variety of demographics affected by depression, our society devalues the physiological effects of depression and instead portrays it as a mood––or even worse––a phase. This notion is further amplified in our modern society through the way depression is depicted by pop culture and the mass media. For instance, a movie mocks a girl suffering from depression and instead showcases her as the anti-social geek who refuses to make friends––as if it were a conscious choice. How It Feels by Jenny Zhang breaks the common societal misconception of depression and instead explores the hard topic of depression for what it truly is––a serious mental illness. Zhang …show more content…
As an author, Zhang definitely pushes the boundary, testing the readers’ comfort zone. By starting the essay with an anecdote, the author sets the stage to present the more personal aspect of depression. A prominent example can be found in the scene in which she talks about the physical effects of depression. Zhang switches from the short, broken text from earlier in the passage to elongated lines of visual imagery, drawing out as much disgust from the situation as she can. The “little unintentional bikini wax” (6) Zhang talks about gives enough visual imagery to cause some discomfort, but not enough to quit reading. Right after, the author changes the tone of her essay, reverting back to the light-hearted tone she used at the beginning, this time talking about the typos between her and her boyfriend. The transition between hard hitting lines of text and the more light-hearted intermediaries offers the reader a glimpse past the “threshold” before pulling them back in