Critical Lens Essay Ned Vizzini

Franklin D. Roosevelt once said “Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.” In other words I believe this quote means that one day evil will triumph and perish all wholesome and pure. This is proven false in “Its Kind Of a Funny Story” by Ned Vizzini when a boy named Craig Gilner struggles with depression but doesn’t let it manipulate him. Another work where this quote is also proven false is “The Miracle Worker” by William Gibson because Helen Keller despite going blind and deaf at a young age learns how to read and write just as well as any normal civilian.
    In the novel “Its Kind Of a Funny Story” by Ned Vizzini, Craig Gilner is clinically depressed and ends up calling the suicide prevention hotline when he decides to kill himself one night by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge. He has a very loving and caring family and goes to one of the best schools in New York. By his peers pressuring him to do things he wouldn’t do on his own he feels that he doesn’t belong. He even believes that he must do better then his peers academically to be a better person. The stress becomes overbearing for him which causes him to cut all ties with the people that he is close to. But once he enters the Methodist Hospital in Park Slope Brooklyn his perspective on life changes and he realizes that his life is worth living. Clearly Craig is mentally imprisoned but is not victim to his circumstances.
    In the classic novel “The Miracle Worker” by William Gibson, the protagonist Helen Keller is a prisoner figuratively. She was born on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama. At the age of 19 months she comes down with an acute congestion which left her blind, deaf and mute. Not knowing how to communicate with others Helen lived in a world of darkness and isolation. She finally stepped out of the darkness and into the light when a woman named Anne Sullivan determinedly taught her how to sign and communicate with others. Although people had no hope for her and... [continues]

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