Tyranny, authored by Lesley Fairfield and published in 2009, is a graphic novel about anorexia, a type of eating disorder. Fairfield’s thirty-year struggle with anorexia gives credibility to her description of the disease. The story starts with Anna’s very normal life as a teenage girl, and her life is completely turned around when the symptoms of anorexia reveal themselves. Struggling through the disease, Anna faces death, but recovers and learns so much from the experience. Through the self-isolation theme, faulty comparison theme, and the personification of Tyranny, the author vividly demonstrates the elusive and dangerous symptoms of anorexia and effectively calls public attention to the disease. Self-isolation, a dangerous element of …show more content…
When Anna drops out of high school, she feels as though falling down a bottomless hole (30, 31). The hole is a simile signaling for the beginning of a period where Anna's condition only worsens. Moving out from her house to a rental apartment (32), she goes on to physically isolate herself from the rest of the world. Additionally, Tim breaks up with her (34), ultimately leaving Anna with no immediate supporter. Consequently, her eating behaviors go awry, illustrated in a weekly schedule of repetitive forced starvation, binge eating, laxatives intake, pain, and recovery (55). At the peak of anorexia, self-isolation creates a imaginative bubble surrounding a very fragile Anna (56). Everyone walking nearby seems to notice something strange with the fatigued-but-fashionable girl, but none of them bothers to ask. Her condition continues to exacerbate when she meets a group of female colleagues (69), who similarly experience some types of eating disorders. Together, the girls encourage each other to further lose weight and become deeply immersed in the illness. However, as her self-isolation ends, Anna finds a way out. One day on the way from her office, she is found laying motionlessly by an old lady, whose caring gesture deeply moves Anna