Blog Assignment #4, Prozac Nation

Shatavia Branch

Blog Assignment #4

Creative Non-Fiction Workshop

“Prozac Nation” by Elizabeth Wurtzel

The reading “Prozac Nation” by Elizabeth Wurtzel is based on a woman who is suffering with depression.  When people hear the word depression they assume it is a minor mood swing or a feeling of being under the weather.  But these assumptions aren’t completely correct.  Depression is much deeper than feeling a bit of sadness.  Depression is the feeling of severe despondency and dejection.  The protagonist is confined to being by herself.  She's always feeling constant sadness and is unsure why.

 Being confined to one location gives the protagonist a lot of spare time.  Within the timeframe of being by herself she analyzes and thinks a lot.  Wurtzel stated “hoping it will awaken my feminist consciousness”.  In order for a person to be conscious they have to be alert and  maintain a feeling.  One of the things that the protagonist does is watch television.  Everything that she watches, she compares it to her own life.  The majority of the things that are on these television shows closely deal with women.  Watching television had quickly became a hobby for her and also a way to educate and develop her thinking process.

 Viewing other women has caused the protagonist to want to be like them.  For example, one of the women in the story is an ice skater.  The different tricks and how she presents herself shows a sense of strength.  An ice skater is being viewed by thousands of people and she slways keeps a smile on her face.  The protagonist is all by herself and still finds it hard to even smirk.  She believes and starts to feel that she wants to find her sense of happiness.

 Solitude was the only thing she had known.  Every line that I read within the story forced me to create a question in my mind.  One part of the story mentioned “it’s a gift to be natural, it is such a responsibility, and it is so hard to be a natural”.  Natural means to have no add on and for one to be nothing but them.  This woman was striving to find who she really was as a person.  Her sadness and mixed feelings was a major blockage in trying to do so.

 It was a thrill for her to see other people happy.  If others were so happy, why couldn’t she be?  Observing these women in society made her feel like her happiness was impossible.  One of the things that she had noticed was that lonely existed in others besides herself.  “People magazine, that I learn that all these women suffer the loneliness of the road”.  People only reveal what they want others to see.  A person would never bluntly speak about being lonely and their problems.

 Wurtzfeld touched on so many issues that this woman was having.  Rather than just telling what was going on in the woman’s life she showed it.  From talking about the shows on the television to how bad the Xanax made her feel.  Reading this story I felt like I knew this woman.  It made me feel like I was her therapist or doctor.  I was the one in charge of figuring out a way to break her out of this stage in her life.